The College Tuition Crisis

A little more than a year ago, I was subjected to the horror of applying to college.
At the time, I had no fear. With a 3.9 GPA, a 1360 SAT and a laundry list of extracurricular activities that would make you question the number of hours in a day, I had no reason to worry about my departure to college. I was trained for this. My high school spent hours on end detailing the processes of college applications, the tricks of the trade, all the secrets we weren’t supposed to know.
Talk about a stressful time of life! In explaining all these secrets, which I now know were total fabrications of half-truths, my counselors still never forgot to remind us all how our success in life depended purely on this and this alone!
Again, lies.
Once the decisions finally came, I was content with the results. Despite some decisions that simply must have been rather lengthy typos, I was humbled to be accepted to NYU, Carnegie Mellon, Penn State and the University of Pittsburgh.
Excited to attend a prestigious university, I bragged and began wearing college T-shirts habitually. NYU topped the list personally.
Once the financial aid packages arrived, I was horrified because I knew there was no way my family could afford either NYU or Carnegie Mellon. Even the state schools were a stretch.
Sadly, this is nothing less than commonplace for almost all families in our country.
Now as $50,000 price tags become the yearly standard on many private universities, the stress on the American family and our younger generation is impossible to handle. Countless students of my graduating high school class are knowingly attending college while developing amounts of debt most people take lifetimes to accumulate… and think nothing of it.
My generation is under the impression that the only chance of success in life is with a college degree and, to an extent, we are right. So as tuitions for colleges continue to skyrocket, and our economy continues to plummet, our government will have to save the day, right?
If you think the presidential candidates, or any of our legislators, recognize this as a sizeable issue facing our nation, you may be right. But if you think they are going to do a thing about it, you are sadly mistaken. Both Sens. Clinton and Obama offer similar proposals to solve the tuition crisis: tax credits that make the first $3,500 or $4,000, respectively, of your college tuition virtually free.
Considering a simple, four-year college education (which guarantees relatively little in the realm of high paying careers) costs anywhere between $50,000 and $200,000, I speak on behalf of my generation and the families financing their education in saying this is unacceptable. Sen. McCain and Gov. Huckabee do not have any formal stance or proposal on the tuition crisis.
It is my opinion that the purpose of politics is to preserve and better our nation’s future generations, so how about we stop legislating morals and start solving problems that face our nation?
You may be wondering where I ended up in my college debacle. I am lucky enough to have a father who works at a local community college, so I chose to go there for my first two years free of charge. Most of my peers are not nearly as lucky.
As for where I will finish my bachelor’s degree, the leading school I am looking into is in Montreal, Canada, because it is significantly cheaper than prestigious schools in this country.
America needs to act quickly on the tuition crisis, or else my generation and generations to come are going to be forced to outsource their education.