Students Need Help! What Can Colleges and the Government Do?

In these times of economic hardship, it seems there isn't a single person left unaffected by these hard times. While we're all focused on paying rent or mortgages, adjusting our lifestyles to lower energy bills, and finding new means of transportation to avoid soaring gas prices; college students are seeking new ways to come up with tuition money. Not only are the necessities of living becoming too expensive to afford, so too is tuition money. To make matters worse, not only has tuition gone up, but student loans are harder than ever to obtain. Even with creditworthy co-signers, students are struggling to get the financing they need to start or finish their education.

Since a college education is so essential in today's day and age, it seems that the government and colleges should be working to make sure education remains affordable and attainable. Not only that, but colleges should be offering students incentives, benefits, aid, and specials on classes in order to both increase attendance, and make it easier for students to attend and survive in today's competitive world.

These suggestions may seem strange at first, but isn't education important enough that we should begin taking better care of our students? With rising tuition costs and the need for students to work long hours just to make bills, pretty soon only the rich and well off students will be able to obtain a college education. In today's day and age of online education, this should not be the case. Why exactly is online education the same price as an education in which one attends the physical university? One would think that an online education would be more economical as well as more flexible. Too bad this simply isn't the case. Especially since most students end up attending on online school that is out of state, and as such end up paying out of state tuition. One proposal to make online classes more accessible is to offer online classes at reduced rates, even to out-of-state students. While it is understandable that these classes do cost money, they are also taught by teachers who are at home. The classroom is not being used; energy is being saved, as are other school resources. Since this is the case, would it not be okay to reduce the price of an online class?

For students who prefer to attend, and students should be encouraged to do so, general education classes, and other required classes can also be offered at a reduced rate. If this isn't possible, perhaps classrooms can supply books for the students to use so that book costs or the term won't be so high. Following this same concept, textbooks should be made available in study halls, and for check out in school libraries. Taking it one step further, and away from the school's hands, local libraries should create a section just for college textbooks. Again, this lowers the cost of attending college and make just make the difference between attending college, and not.

Colleges can also work on their student aid and scholarship programs. A recent Jane Dow I interviewed for this article made less than 20,000 last year; however, she was only given around 5,000 dollars in student aid. 5,000 dollars is the amount of two classes and maybe some books. How is this Jane Doe supposed to finish her B.A. on a 20,000 dollar income and 5,000 dollars of aid? And this story isn't the only of its kind that I heard. Students need to be given more financial aid both from colleges and from the government. College scholarships and grants shouldn't be so hard to get, and FAFSA should be restructured to provide larger Federal loans, and larger grants to students in need. If a student cannot get a private loan, they should at least be able to turn to the government for a Federal one; otherwise, how are American children going to get the valuable education they so desperately need. Americans are already low enough on the education chain as far as the world goes. Asian countries are topping the charts in math and science, and European children are readying themselves to do business with these countries with their language programs. Why is America allowing itself to slip behind? One reason definitely is the cost of education. It simply isn't as attainable and affordable as it should be.

America's students need help from the community, the government, and their respective schools. It is time that America stepped up and fulfilled its end of the bargain. Of course the aforementioned programs would require a lot of thought, planning, and budgeting. No one thinks this sort of reform will be easy, but it is time that America does something to help it students obtain the education they are so desperately reaching for. Furthermore, this is by no means an exhaustive list of programs and ideas that can be implemented to help students. Encourage your congressman and government, local colleges and universities, and community to seek and implement change to aid America's students.