A recent blog entry on this site really hit home for me. As an out-of-state sophomore in college, I'm already well into debt with student loans and still have two more years to complete, not even including grad school. I save as much money as I can spare, just so I have backup money for unexpected expenses.
Though I've never really thought about it before now, I realize that I'm not the only one.
I'm only one of thousands who have to live with the Oxymoron of being Too Rich and yet Too Poor.
Too rich to qualify for grants. Too poor to pay tuition every year.
What angers me the most is that my school's state provides several scholarships to students with a certain GPA, which I am more than qualified for--if not for the fact that I'm not an in-state student. Yet nothing is provided for out-of-state students unless they are exceptionally ranked in GPA and SAT scores, which I am sadly not. Yet they charge more than twice the tuition for out-of-state students.
Usually I can go about not thinking about it, reminding myself that everything will turn out all right. But there are some instances when I just get so angry at the injustice of the entire system! How do colleges have the right to expect so much from students, especially those who can barely provide it?
It reminds me of the beginning of this school year, after learning that my tuition costs had increased. Luckily, my student loans covered the cost but I was still smarting about it. When I got back to campus, I saw that the historical buildings on campus were being redone, the new science center was under way, and construction on another recent building was still continuing. My jaw internally dropped when I realized, "This is what I'm paying for? To make your campus look pretty so you can lure more students and suck the money from them, too? To build facilities that, honestly, probably aren't even needed and that I will never even utilize?"
In short, nothing useful for me whatsoever. (I might also add that the in-state tuition was also increased, but significantly less than the out-of-state tuition.)
It angers me that colleges do this. It angers me that more money isn't provided to help students. It angers me that education comes with such a high price tag that unfairly doesn't make it available to everyone.
I should probably wrap this up, before I start going into a rant on how our society needs to adapt more ideals of socialism.
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That's how I feel, but about scholarships. I'm just a high school junior, but when I apply for scholarship after scholarship, i get so disheartened because I'm "average" and it's not likely that I'll end up receiving one. I'll probably end up having to stay in-state at a school I don't like as much simply because I won't have enough money to go out-of-state.
A lot of private schools offer fantastic financial aid. Some, like Stanford and many others, offer a program where families making less than $60,000, pay nothing, those making less than $100,000 pay no tuition, and those above $100,000 pay a reasonable amount based on their income.
I actually have an Asian friend who was saying that just because she is Asian its harder for here to apply for a scholarship and get it since she is not minority. I'm a minority and I need all the scholarships I can possibly get, every dollar counts toward something because I know how expensive the tuition alone can be, not including room and board, books and those other things. I even read somewhere that there are other payments that pop up during enrollment to the college.
I understand the feeling. I walk around campus and see all the reconstruction and remodeling that they do and they post how much it would cost to remodel. I think the same thing! Why are we paying so much to remodel building that I think are perfectly fine! I would understand if they were fixing things that were broken, but to build more buildings and remodel ones that look fine tends to be a waste of college students' money.
Within the past two years, they build more dorm areas than before! The funny thing is that they didn't accept any extra students. From what I heard, not all the buildings were full. I am thinking, what the heck?! And they redid two of the dining commons to be this amazing thing. Yes, it is pretty cool and it is a bigger dining common than before, but I did not see anything wrong with the last ones that we had when I was a freshmen.
I think they should concentrate less on remodeling buildings and more on spending the money towards offering more high-demand classes.