Monday, March 28, 2011

Featured Post of the Week (3/28)

Rising Costs of Tuition for Higher Ed
by Bri S.

Legislators have come up with ideas to cover for cuts in state funding by raising the tuition of colleges. Their ideas are coming up with money from the private sector, ending tax exemptions, and protecting higher education in the state constitution. Since it's in a dangerous position ideas have been proposed. Increasing tuition and having more a more flexible tuition is an idea. Even though this is making many students pay more, it is helping the state cuts. This has an affect on who will be attending these colleges though. Students start raising money at a young age to make sure they are able to go to college but with this drastic increase in tuition, it is stopping them from getting to where they want. If the price goes up, then the quantity of people attending these colleges will go down. Having such a high tuition for these schools will probably create a more competitive scholarship program and even student loans. These student loans can lead to debt with such a high cost of schooling.  Another idea is offering tax incentives to businesses that contribute to scholarships endowments, which would raise $1 billion over 10 years. Students are unaware of these cuts in higher education so it is making students drop out of school due to them going into debt. Another idea is that colleges and students can get money from the state business and occupation tax if they are required to give it to the public university system, which is also a cause of debt. It is a necessity to cover all the cuts and this could come from the increase of college tuition. However, raising money and taxes to cover for college education has the ability to make our economy come to a crash.