With college tuition is continuing to go up, President Obama is feeling the pressure of the topic as he makes his way through several campuses across the nation for his college tour.
According to an article in last week’s Chicago Tribune, more than 7 million students who need to take out new loans to pay for tuition this upcoming school year will face a doubling in student loan interest rates under the Stafford loan program.
Unless Congress votes to keep the current rates of 3.4 percent in place.
Previously, students paid 6.8 percent interest rates on subsidized loans, but in 2007 the White House lowered the rate to 3.4 percent. That rate is set to expire July 1, and Obama is asking for Congress to extend that provision.
According to the White House, if interest rates are doubled, the average college student would end up with an additional $1,000 in debt per year.
Finaid.org, a financial aid information website, reported the average college tuition is rising at nearly three times the rate of inflation. Although college campuses across the nation are also suffering with the current economic crisis, students should not have to suffer with debt before they even enter the workforce.
At the community college level, many students juggle part-time jobs with maintaining a full-time status as a student. How students do that whilst keeping their grades in good standing shows their dedication to succeed.
Obama said in last week’s weekly address that the average American has more student loan debt than credit card debt, which has resulted in some low-income families to not consider higher education at all.
“(Higher education) is an economic imperative that every family must be able to afford,” Obama said.
Obama will be campaigning this for a few weeks to pressure the White House into extending the provision, which included a visit to NBC’s “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon” Tuesday, April 24.
He told the late-night talk show host it took him and his wife Michelle a decade to pay off his student loans.
“For the first 10 years of our marriage, we were still paying stuff off,” he said, “even when we were supposed to be saving for (daughters) Malia and Sasha.”
On a local scale, tuition across all of the 10 UH campuses is expected to increase within the span of five years beginning this fall.
Community colleges will encounter $60 increases, while Mānoa students will see their tuition raise as much as $132 by the end of the tuition schedule, which will end in 2017.
And as a result of an $86 million budget cut, Linda Johnsrud, executive vice president for academic affairs and provost for the UH system, said in a hearing in October that conserving dollars is a priority for the school.
Johnsrud, who led the hearing at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa Campus Center ballroom, said that the proposed tuition would still be below the national average for most schools.
“The proposed tuition increases are very modest compared to our peer institutions nationwide,” she said. “That said, we realize any increase presents a challenge. We plan to clearly show every student a pathway to graduation in four years, or even less if they want to take summer classes and work hard in the short term for the long-term gain, and we urge students to consider doing this.”
Obama said in his 2012 State of the Union address states need to make higher education a priority.
“States also need to do their part, by making higher education a higher priority in their budgets,” he said. “And colleges and universities have to do their part by working to keep costs down.”
With tuition continuing to rise, there is an added pressure for students to graduate within four years.
Although Kapi‘olani Community College is a commuter campus with people coming and going and balancing schoolwork with part-time work, students should begin to think about using their time in school effectively. The longer students take to get their degree, the more money they will be investing to pay tuition.
Obama warned higher education institutions in his State of the Union address that they have to do their part to keep tuition affordable.
“The point is, it’s possible,” Obama said. “So let me put colleges and universities on notice: If you can’t stop tuition from going up, the funding you get from taxpayers will go down.”
The UH system has helped to alleviate the daunting thought of paying a lot of money for summer sessions by reducing the tuition for summer courses at the community colleges to $248.
As Obama said, pursing higher education should not be a luxury. Attending a college should be a privilege that every American has. In this slumping economy, college graduates have the power to drive the country out of this crisis. In addition, a study by Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce found the average worker with a bachelor’s degree earned 84 percent more than someone with a high school diploma in his or her lifetime.
Pursuing a degree is a smart investment, but to dig out of debt is a challenge. And at the very least, we have a president who is listening to our concerns and has already implemented some measures to help us, including the American Opportunity Tax Credit.
Changing the interest rates of subsidized federal loans back to nearly 7 percent is not.
To change the interest rate of subsidized federal loans back to nearly 7 percent is exactly the opposite of what Obama has strived during this campaign.
Unemployment for Americans with a college degree, he said, is about half the national average.
The view we take is written by the editors of the Kapi‘o. We welcome all responses to this subject.
Email “Letter to the Editor” at Kapio@hawaii.edu