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 tuition being so expensive is fair to students, in result 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, some tuition being as high as sixty four thousand a year. 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 situation where they don’t have many options, the choice of going to college but finding a college that meets their needs in everyway both financially and a college that meets their needs and wants. The government puts  young adults trying to get an education in a situation where they basically pick the school you attend solely on what you’re willing to pay and what you can afford. The cost of tuition 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. Even if the students have good SAT scores some schools that are competitive  like Ivy Leagues and big name schools they might get regularly good SAT scores from students applying in result they might not give as many scholarships due to how competitive it is.

            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 whether 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.  Most of the students that attend college cannot afford to pay the full amount, therefore they find that working is more important than pursuing an education. Not only can they not afford an education but most do not want to deal with the burden of loans afterwards.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..

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 not 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. By the end of the four years graduates have endless amount of debt and not to forget it is 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 they have to think about their finances in four years rather than focusing on the right decisions.

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. Realizing how many problems there are to the tuition being so high there are many solutions that can come into play. 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. Young adults that are choosing between college and work would should have the government base 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. The government should offer payment plans after the graduates gets a steady job, or reduce and eliminate the amount of interest the loans have. They can lower the interest on loans by making little monthly payments while students are in college or just eliminate interest rates all together. For the sake of everyone, the government should lower the cost of tuition.

 Realizing how many problems there are to the tuition being so high there are many solutions that can come into play. 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. Young adults that are choosing between college and work would should have the government base 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. The government should offer payment plans after the graduates gets a steady job, or reduce and eliminate the amount of interest the loans have. They can lower the interest on loans by making little monthly payments while students are in college or just eliminate interest rates all together.