While inflation continues to exist, rising tuition costs for college students shouldn’t have to be part of the age-old economic trend.
A New York Times story discovered that the rate of college tuition grew more rapidly than the annual rate of inflation this year. While studies show the increase slowing down, it still isn’t good enough.
The 3,000 universities that took part in this study found that employee health benefits, salaries and utility costs have been the main causes for increased prices.
Legislators are partly to blame for this trend, as around the country they keep cutting funding for higher education.
This seems contradictory to the nature of involvement in state and national representative governments.
How are we to be knowledgeable about what’s going on in our communities if we don’t have the education to process the information?
The universities are partly to blame, too. Here at West Virginia University, President David C. Hardesty gets a new wing on his house and an unneeded pay raise while students work full-time jobs and carry 18 credit hours.
It’s obvious this tuition serpent has more than one head, so how do we cut it off?
We must raise our voices.
Students, parents and those who value the overwhelming importance of education must elect legislators at the state and national levels who will start putting funding back into the hands of educators who make the future of our country a promising one.
We must also raise our voices around campuses across America, showing the university bureaucracy and greedy presidents that the students come first, and they wouldn’t be enjoying the lifestyle they have now without us.
Either way, you’ll have to pay for your education, but if you let them know how you feel, the bill won’t keep getting bigger.
Leave a Reply