Posted on 04/06/2005 12:53:57 PM PDT by Willie Green
For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.
There was a time when attending college was a full-time job. Now getting through college requires a student to hold multiple jobs. Otherwise, graduates receive a diploma in one hand and a bill for $20,000 in the other.
As tuition increases, even at public universities, undergraduate students are being forced to work their way through college -- and then work off the rest after they leave.
Debt is slowly bypassing class, social life and alcohol on the priority lists of most undergraduate students.
Suspicions of an increasingly difficult financial burden on college students has been backed up by a U.S. Department of Education study that says the average debt burden for undergraduate students has skyrocketed in the last decade.
The study found that the average amount of money undergraduate students borrow to pay for college has increased by $7,200 in the last 10 years.
Not only is the average amount increasing, but the number of students resorting to student loans has also gone up significantly.
This "immediate and dramatic" rise in the number of students borrowing money began in the 1990s, the study showed.
And it's only getting worse.
Summer employment is inadequate. Even part-time jobs barely cover the expenses of food, books, and gas.
The problem is even more severe at a university like Penn State, where in-state students pay more to get a higher education than at any other institution in the country. Higher education was institutionalized to give the average person a chance to get a job and live comfortably.
With the way things are, living comfortably is a joke for most recent graduates, who are living more and more to pay off their debt incurred at "Dear Old State."
The Department of Education's study also found that students from lower-income families are taking on a greater loan burden than those from a privileged socioeconomic status. These are also known as the very students who deserve and have fought for economic parity the most. This is completely counterproductive to the goals of public education. Even scarier is the rise in loans for students from high-income families.
If students from privileged backgrounds must take out a loan to pay for college, it is ridiculous to believe that underprivileged students have a chance.
Meanwhile, American employers are increasingly requiring their workers to hold college degrees, even for minimal-paying jobs.
The American Dream has become the American Debt. Someone needs to stop the diploma from being a one-way ticket to the poor house.
College-level grammar lost on college students
College often not worth time, money
The Great American College Tuition Rip-Off (Funding the New Professoriate Elites)
Whiners.
Somebody has to pay for the education, either the student or the taxpayer. I don't see anything inherently unfair about making the student pay a larger share, though it would probably be unfair if you increased their taxes later on in life to cut the costs for future students.
Of course there's always the option of not going to college.
I went to school full time while working full time and still managed to be drunk almost every waking hour.
I had stamina back then.
Somebody get me a violin.
Naturally, there are extenuating circumstances for a few that makes this unacceptable.
A college education would not be so high if......
1) Public schools would teach the children everything they need to go to college. Today, the first year and a half in college are dedicated to remedial education that should have been covered in public school.
2) Tenure for professors would end so new blood can be infused into the pool.
3) Colleges would stop building huge stadiums, gymnasiums, natatoriums, etc which have little to do with education, but everything to do with recreation - the true lure of today's colleges.
Twenty grand is a pittance.
College age population is declining, alot of these leftist professors may have to get a real job soon. Or just keep billing us at ever rising rates.
$20,000? I WISH!
I'm 49 and returned to school because I want to become an interior designer. Unfortunately, tuition is so high, I'd be unable to pay back the loan and also consider retiring if I went for the bachelor's, which is what I want to do, so I'm settling for the 1.5 year decorator's diploma. Whine, whine, whine, whine, whine...!!! I know, but it felt good there for the moment!
:-D Tuitions really are WAY out of line. I have a Sallie Mae student loan and even the year and a half education I'm getting is very high.
Meanwhile, American employers are increasingly requiring their workers to hold college degrees, even for minimal-paying jobs.
Well, here's a huge part of the problem. It's a racket between employers and colleges. I went to a private academy for high school, learned more than most college graduates do, and I can't get a good job because of a lousy piece of paper that somehow proves I know how to do something.
So, I put myself through night school and incurred $15,000 worth of debt just to get that piece of paper. I know this is the story of a lot of people today. I bet if the employers didn't place an artificial requirement, many students would not bother with college and just join the workforce as productive members of society.
I'll have close to $20,000 and i'm just at a 2 yr school.
I don't remember which book it was- "Up From Slavery", perhaps- where the author put himself through college by means of several part-time jobs.
But this, of course, was in the days before government made education affordable for all.
You also had a less vivid imagination.
FR rightly hammers the sorry state of today's educational system in our nation. But why,when an article smacks you solid in the face with one of the major problems of today's colleges you leap to slam the students?
One major reason for the skyrocketing tuitions is simply that the school administrations are padding their pockets with the blessing of the boards of regents while doing the same for the teachers.
University and college administrators have a never ending desire to build a monument to themselves. More and more buildings aren't ever enough. Heap costs for more building, programs and pointless course studies upon the students. They have very limited choices when it comes to tuition shopping even in the state schools.
Whiner? I don't think so.
When I was in school I had to walk barefoot 10 miles in the snow all year round, up hill both ways to attend classes. Would anyone loan us $20,000? Hell no! They loaned us a swift kick in the groan if we so much asked to borrow a stub of pencil.
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