News story, final draft
Molly O’Neill
September 22, 2015
College Tuition on the Rise
According to The New York Times, the cost of college tuition is almost three times more expensive than it is now.
In 1974, the price for a private college was roughly $2,000, and $510 for a public college. Today, a private college cost around $31,000, and $9,000 for a public college. For most Americans these prices are not in their budget.
Today, the great national crisis states the fact that too many young adults are not going to college, or they do not graduate is mainly because they cannot afford it.
President Obama would like to make changes so that people do not have to worry about the expenses of a college. He states in the U.S. News, “We also have to make sure that everybody has the opportunity to constantly train themselves for better jobs, better wages, and better benefits. Put simply, I’d like to do is see the first two years of community college free for everybody who is working for it.”
If this were to happen, students would have to at least go to community college half time and maintain a GPA of 2.5 to receive their first two years free.
This is not the first time that free community college has been proposed. The first time was in 1947 by president Harry Truman’s commission on higher education. The commission’s report stated, “The time has come to make education through the fourteenth grade available in the same way that high school education is now available.”
By following through with President Obama’s plan, it would benefit nine million students nationwide to save an average of $3,800 per year, according to the White House.
There are some people that do not agree with or have criticized President Obama’s plan. They feel only students who do not receive enough finical aid would benefit. According to Debbie Cochrane, research director of The Institute for College Access, and Success states that the White House’s proposal differs from existing programs. Cochrane says, “It is aimed squarely at stopping state disinvestment in public colleges, which is crucial to making college affordable.” This plan also contains federal funding.
According to The Washington Post, higher education leaders loath when the media and public focus on the sticker price of the college. A lot of students do not end up paying the full price, but there is a little amount of students that do have to pay that full price.
The sticker prices of colleges scare off other students and their families. They feel like it is out of their price range. The Washington Post states that students that do get scared from the sticker prices end up choosing or looking for a different school before they know what they will be actually paying.
Even though the price of college tuitions has continued to grow over the years there are people out there that are trying to change that. Not only is President Obama, but Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Mally all have announced that they have plans to increase federal funding for college if they are elected. People would like to see prices of colleges go down so students do not have to be afraid anymore of not being able to afford their college tuition.
Links
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/13/magazine/is-college-tuition-too-high.html?_r=0
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2015/03/02/just-how-high-can-college-tuition-go/