Justine Fernandez

October 5, 2014

Professor Young

Eng 1100

Community as issue Final draft

                                                An Arm and A leg For An Education

            Would you want to define your education based on the amount of money that you make? Do you think its fair that students struggle to get an education because the price of college is unbearable? The problem that many students struggle with in today’s society is money, and more importantly money for school. The price of tuition for colleges and universities across the state is too expensive to afford; therefore the price of an education shouldn’t be as high as it is, furthermore the government should put an end to education being so expensive.

             To start off with, the price of an education is a problem worldwide. With the price of education through the roof, it puts students in a choice less choice, the choice of going to college but finding a college that meets their needs in everyway. The government puts you in a situation where they basically chose the school you attend solely on what you’re willing to pay and what you can afford. The cost of tuition rate has been rising six percent every year for the past ten years. This goes to show that tuition has only gone up and it is only going to continue to rise. It has come to the point where finding an affordable college is like finding a needle in a haystack. This ultimately affects student to not attend their dream college based on tuition. To help solve this universal problem of rising tuition, the government should make a college education free so that everyone has an equal opportunity to an education based on their grades rather than the amount of money they can put out for college.

            In addition, with tuition being so pricy it places young adults in a predicament where they have to choose between an education or to start working in the work field immediately after high school. An argument that one may make to decide weather or not to go to college would be that they are currently making a good amount of money and if they leave not only will they not be able to afford to go to college but they will be left with other expenses, without a job. About sixty six percent of students enrolled in college receive help from the government to help pay for their education, looking at this statistic it speaks for itself that more than fifty percent of students cannot afford to pay for college on their own. In the text “Harlem Is Art” by Valerie Kinloch she talks about the every day living in Harlem and how the art of Harlem is taken for granted, in relation it goes for education we take education for granted sometimes, and then we realize everything else that comes into play. That it is more complicated than just a simple number or a painting on a wall but a lifetime of debt or stories to tell. A simple solution to young adults that are choosing between college and work would be that the government bases your tuition off how much you make annually, so that you wont be way in and over your head, and so that you can further your education without worrying about the money.

My last and final reason why tuition should be lowered focuses on what happens after you get out of college. Most graduates look forward to getting a job in the field that they studied but instead graduates are focused on the amount of debt they have. Debt that just never goes away and no to mention it forces graduates to revolve their future plans around the debt that they owe. Not to mention the unemployment rate that affects many graduates looking for a job. Not only do graduates have endless amount of debt but it now difficult to find a job to help pay off the student loans that come monthly. On average a college senior has about twenty nine thousand four hundred dollars in debt. This is also another concern freshmen have when thinking about college. As a result a great solution to this problem would be to offer payment plans after the graduates gets a steady job, or to reduce or eliminate the amount of interest the loans have.

In conclusion, the price of tuition is too expensive. With the price of education being so high it forces students to chose a college based on what they can afford. Going along with choosing a college come the thought that many students have which would be the debt after they graduate. Not to mention it doesn’t give everyone an equal opportunity to further his or her education. If the cost of tuition would to be lowered it would be beneficial for both the new generation and the older generation, if the price of tuition stays the same or rises the future of America would be problematic because of the fact that education will be a second choice for Americans rather than a first choice. For the sake of everyone, the government should lower the cost of tuition.