Gamache 1 Bella Gamache Professor Bolton Introduction April 4, 2014 Just how realistic is it to afford college costs?

Paying for College can be very challenging, as most people do not make enough extra money to have set aside as a college fund. Even if you work while still attending college and save most of your earnings it can still be quite hard to maintain bills and tuition money at the same time. Realistically it would be impossible for a middle or low class citizen to pay for college with no help. Now for teens and young adults who are on their own for various reasons, this is the biggest discouragement to even try to attend college. According to the government, parents are responsible for helping with tuition funds until the person has reached age twenty four. Twenty-four being the age that most should be graduating with a four-year degree if they had begun right after high school. A good majority of families do help with college tuitions, but there is still a very large and saddening amount of young adults who have the opportunity taken away just because their parents believe they will drop out or waste the money for it to be partied away. So what about the deserving teens and young adults who have no ties to family or have been on their own since 18, still connected with family, but with no financial support? For the most part they are given no proper chance. Financial aids, grants, scholarships and other types of financial help are out there and available but in limited quantities. The official Student Aid website is a credited place to turn with a lot of information found to be useful for future use.

Gamache 2 While parents should pay for most of their childs college tuition, not all are willing to help and it is nearly impossible to pay the expenses on your own. Correspondingly, since parents should help pay for their childs tuition, as mentioned before, the Student Aid site is a great resource when researching. This site will help with questions on dependency/independency and other things such as filling out fafsa. A quote from the site states: The federal student aid programs are based on the concept that it is primarily your and your familys responsibility to pay for your education. And because a dependent student is assumed to have the support of parents, the parents information has to be assessed along with the students, in order to get a full picture of the familys financial strength. If youre a dependent student, it doesnt mean your parents are required to pay anything toward your education; this is just a way of looking at everyone in a consistent manner. This website has a guide to find out whether you are considered as a Dependent or Independent student. After figuring out which type of student you are, it explains how the process works. If you are not rewarded enough money for your tuition, there are many scholarships and award programs you can apply for. These all help put money towards your expenses. Some of the programs are grants that do not have to be paid back. College costs have become to high for someone on their own and the government makes parents solely responsible for tuition until the child is 24. So, using this website can help guide you into more information and also be an eye opener for the parents. On the other hand, parents challenge the responsibility of their childrens college tuition. Some believe the child should be fully responsible for paying for their college bills if that

Gamache 3 is the path they choose. Everything Paying For College is an E-book explaining different situations and how to save properly and work out compromises. According to Nathan Brown and Sheryle Proper: These days, many parents are unwilling to risk wasting thousands of dollars in tuition when so many students are partying their way through their college years, finally getting expelled, flunking out, or just plain dropping out when they run out of functional brains cells (3). Afterwards they continue with talking about topics like how It is true, some parents who dont financially support their children for college believe it is better for them that way because they will be more focused and be paying for what they get. If they pay for their own college they will work harder. If they pay for their own college they wont party and drop out. These are two of many thoughts parents have for not paying for their childs college tuition. When the student knows they have spent their earnings they will be more likely to focus and do their best to earn excellent grades in the classes theyre paying for. But is this really better? Maybe if they worked out a deal or supported half of tuition it would be easier on their children. Being fully responsible for such large costs can be scary for someone right out of high school. They dont yet have a career so they are not capable of having such large quantities of money. Even if they worked full time while attending school to pay for the costs, outside bills would still be a factor, and up keeping grades will be almost impossible. Working too much will leave no time for school work which itself can be a full time job. So when put to scale which one is more important? Both are equally important. You cannot go to college without money, so you must work. You cannot stay enrolled in college without good grades, so you mustnt work too much. So, is refusing to help your child with their tuition really the best choice? Maybe, but probably not. Even the smallest

Gamache 4 bit of help can go a long way. Therefore, discussing college expenses with parent and child can be successful in coming up with a compromise. In the event that, parents are deemed responsible to help with their childs college tuition there can be positives to come from this. An article Money Troubles by Kim Clark found in the Academic Search Premier Database talks about how fast tuition is growing annually and offers some good advice on ways to pay for college. Clark says, Most parents haven't saved a penny for education--or for anything else--in recent years. In 2000, the average gap between a college's financial aid offer and a family's ability to pay was about $3,000. Since then, tuition at public universities, for example, has risen an average of 21 percent and shows every sign of continuing to outpace inflation (50). There is a huge problem with tuition rates increasing. If students already dont have enough money for their college expenses how is it realistic for them to have enough money after the increase? What about the students that have absolutely no money put aside for their college fund, where do they even start? Even if the student works full time in the summer and still works during the school year the average amount still needed after financial aid helps is 3,000 dollars. 3,000 dollars if a very significant amount of money to need for school while still needing to pay monthly bills like rent, electricity, car payments, groceries, etc. Then after graduating college the student must almost immediately begin paying back the student loans. Another quote from Clarks article is, Nearly 70 percent of students now borrow, up from less than half a decade ago. And the size of the loan each student gets is rising fast. In 2000, the average senior graduated with $17,800 in debt, double the amount in 1990 (50). Nearly 20,000 dollars in debt after graduating college, and that was the average in 2000, over a decade ago. She then goes on to talk

Gamache 5 about how students must work during the summer and school year to help contribute to the college fund. With this being the case, continuously working hard in the summer earning money then working hard during the school year for good grades seems the best route to go. As a result of the large quantity of loans and grants available, this makes it less of a burden for parents to help put forth money towards their childrens education expenses. Also for students who dont have the support of their parents loans and grants will allow for them to pay minimal out of pocket to attend school. Of course, loans must be paid back after graduating but for the four years of being registered in school the students will not have to worry about paying the loan. The Tuition Dilemma by Arthur Hauptman is a short book on assessing new ways to pay for college. Hauptman states that: Rather than consistently increase the Stafford loan limits or provide larger appropriations for Perkins loans, Congress has authorized two alternative loan programs that offer a federal guarantee against default but carry little or none of the federal interest subsidies provided through Stafford (43). This provides an even greater variety of loans to be qualified for. Also having a lower interest rate is extremely helpful as interest can sky rocket and sometimes make payments unaffordable. So for students that do not have the money needed for their tuition these are just some of the great helpers available out there. Hauptman also writes about how the requirements of these programs will make it harder for people to abuse the system. When there are wealthy people applying for grants and loans to get free it prevents the students who are actually needy from potentially getting accepted. In The Tuition Dilemma it is also mentions that, about $500 million is given away in loans annually. That is an exceptional amount of money to help those who could

Gamache 6 not afford higher education without. With loans like the exampled ones and many others out there leaves hope for ones higher education future and paying for college on your own a little more realistic. Consequently, with tuition rates rising and loans not being large enough, these factors are discouraging. This also plays part into the amount of parental help and lessening percentage of children even applying for college anymore. With the job market down and college being so costly sometimes parents and future students figure they might as well not attend college at all. Kim Clark talks about this in another article she has written about college costs. The name of her article is Stop the Tuition Madness. She is right. Tuition costs are rising and becoming so unrealistic for middle or low class citizens it is impossible to foresee past the high unaffordable numbers. Clark states: By 2020 you're looking at a four-year bill that's likely to top $240,000 for private schools and $155,000 at public universities. Sure there's financial aid, but scholarships aren't keeping up with tuition inflation. So long, retirement hopes; hello again, boss (114). With rates that high why would one even go to college for a better paying job when all theyll be doing with that extra money is be paying back their debt for the rest of their life. Later in her article she goes on to talk about an idea that should be more widely discussed. She titled the paragraph Work First, Pay Later. This is a great idea that since college is unaffordable to many students and parents that the student should first attend college for their degree and higher paying job. Then when they are graduated pay off their education with the money they earned from the higher paying job. If even one school allowed a trial of this I believe there could be great results.

Gamache 7 More students would go to college and get the education they desire. The country itself could even become more successful with more educated citizens and less people struggling. All things considered, I do believe college tuition rates are unrealistically priced. I do not think anyone can start at the bottom on their own and afford the education they must have in order to be qualified for jobs paying the price of loans and debt the students will have. Loans and grants do a very significant amount of help but also do not completely cover the costs, so those who do not get enough and do not have the money aside of those struggle and go through harsh conditions coming up with the money for college expenses. With ideas like Work First, Pay Later it leaves hope and open minded ideas and opportunity. Parents being deemed responsible is not always the best way to see it. Though the government believes this is how it should be until the child is twenty-four, not every parent out there believes in college, can afford college, or among other reasons will not help their child

Gamache 8 Works Cited "For Purposes of Applying for Federal Student Aid, What's the Difference between a Dependent Student and an Independent Student?" Dependency Status. Federal Student Aid, n.d. Web. 09 Apr. 2014. Brown, Nathan; Proper, Sheryle A. Everything Paying For College Book: Grants, Loans, Scholarships, And Financial Aid All You Need To Fund Higher Education. Avon, Ma: F+W Media, 2005. ebrary. Web. 6 April 2014. Clark, Kim. "Money Troubles." U.S News & World Report 05 May 2003: n. pag. Academic Search Premier. Web. 20 Mar. 2014. Hauptman, Arthur M. The Tuition Dilemma: Assessing New Ways to Pay for College. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1990. Print. Clark, Kim. "Stop the Tuition Madness." Money Sept. 2011: 114-22. Academic Search Premier. Web. 30 Mar. 2014.