College has become the way to make in today’s world due to the high demand of requirements and qualifications needed to choose a career of your liking. Yet the drastic rise in tuition rates has become a struggling factor today for most students.
Most Mercy College students work at least one job, and some work two jobs (as do some their parents.) How students cope with the rising costs has garnered much attention lately.
“Coming to college having financial aid, I thought everything was paid for. Now I realize have to pay it all back,” said Katherine White, a nursing major at Mercy College said. “I started to think so what if I graduate, and I don’t find a job, and all the expenses I have from the government are never paid? It’s frightening.”
She is not alone with those fears.
“I work two jobs and am a mother of a two-year old daughter,” said Nichole Davis, a psychology major. “I have no financial aid whatsoever. I pay my own tuition. I get a little help from my parents and husband. I feel that the way prices are changing, every semester is really a problem for me and for most students who pay tuition out of pocket. I really don’t know what I will do if my family and husband should stop with the little help they offer me. It would really hinder all my future goals and dreams.”
The bad news for Mercy students is that tuition will be rising next semester, but the good news is that it will rise only one percent, which is far below the state and national average. Estimated undergraduate education will cost between $16,000 and $17,000, said a Mercy official.
Parents who have been laid off or are facing foreclosures have had a particularly tough time helping their children get through college when costs go up. Yet statistics show that when the economy is suffering a down turn, enrollment in college rises.
President Barack Obama stated at his State of the Union Address that if colleges cannot keep their costs down, then federal support will begin to decline.
“Every semester I tend to pay more than what I did pay in the previous semester. Something needs to be done about the tuition crisis. In my opinion, college should be free,” said David Walker, an education major at Mercy College.
Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum attacked Obama’s promotion that college should be available to everyone and seeks to make the enrollment process more selective.
The latest Census states that 30 percent of adults have a four-year degree, an all-time high nationally. A 2009 Pew Research poll stated that Americans over 25 years old with a bachelor’s degree average $56,000 a year, which was 70 percent higher than those with just a high school diploma.
