College Costs

This is my first ever blog entry. Welcome to the new millenium finally. Much like the rest of the people on this site I am here because I am looking to improve both myself and my financial future through the great institution of college. I have already recieved an associates in culinary arts from Johnson and Wales university in Providence Rhode Island and a Bachelors degree in history from the University of Southern Maine. Both of these efforts combined have allowed me to accumulate over $30,000 in student loan debt. I realize that in this day and age that is a very small sum for any amount of education let alone two seperate degrees. However I managed to offset some of the costs by joining the United States Army in the spring of 2001 so that I could afford the tuition. By joining the army I became deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom from November 2003 thru March 2005. During the entire deployment I was seperated from my family and for one year to the day I was in the middle east to include Kuwait and Iraq. I am no longer in the army that experience cured me of any desire to participate in further forgein conflicts. But now I am in debt in living in Central Maine, a state whose economy was in desperate need of a boost before the housing crash and the increased fuel costs, struggling to make ends meet. Apperently history majors are in little demand not only in this state but throughout the country. A fact that I knew but I very much love the subject and it suits me well. So now I am going for my third degree one that will pay well provide me with lots of intellectual challenges and make me the butt of many angry yet accurately depicted jokes: I am going to law school. As I search through all the options that are available to me I am shocked at the tremendously high price tags that are associated not only with the top ranked schools in the nation but the ones that noone who lives outside of the town they are situated in has ever heard of. This has lead me to search for many alternative sources of financial aid. The quest for college has now become a second part time job. It has occured to me that it shouldn't be this way. In the wealthist nation in the world it seems unreasonable to have to sell the first ten to 15 years after graduation to the university of your choice for the priveledge of attending. We can spend 280,000,000,000 at least on the war in Iraq so that the iraqis can have a better life but it is beyound the means of many Americans to send their childeren to college. No matter where you live in the world education is the greatest stepping stone to a better life. Why must it be so expensive in a country like ours that relies so heavily on a educated population? How can we expect the poverty stricken to improve their fate if they are prevented from participating in higher academics by a $40,000 to $100,000 price tag. There aren't enough scholarships to go around. Even the middle class is being driven out of the Ivy league and Junior Ivy by the soaring cost of tuition and the gap between the rich and the poor is ever expanding with the middle class starting to dissapear entirely. As a nation we need to put a stop to this injustice and create a system where higher education is available for all who desire it. It is staggering to think of all the advances in medicine, the enviroment, and the arts as well as many other advances that have been prevented because the right person wasn't born into the right family and their potential was squandered due to the outrageous cost of a college education.