Just to make a buck

At the beginning of the year, the Oregon government began an ad campaign letting students know that they would be giving out twice as much money this year as they gave out last year. “Hooray!” I thought for a moment as I read the news, “Maybe next year, I won’t have to take out as many student loans.”

Then my excitement was quickly destroyed as the reality of it all set in. According to the College Board, tuition costs for four-year universities, both public and private, went up 6 percent this year. Perhaps this is expected or unsurprising, but it seems a little different when, according to the Financial Trend Forecaster, inflation in the United States only went up 2.85 percent in 2007. This means that tuition increases outpace inflation by more than 50 percent.

I don’t get it. Why is the tuition of public universities, such as Portland State, going up higher than inflation, but then supposedly compensated for it by increased scholarship money? Wouldn’t it be simpler to just not increase tuition by such a huge amount?

The joke is that the Oregon Opportunity Grants thinks that the increase of money will reduce college student debt from an average of $19,000 to $12,000 over four years. But exactly how do they expect that to work if all the universities are increasing tuition higher than inflation, higher than wage increases and the fact that these grants aren’t even accessible to all students?

Just to see, I went to the Oregon Student Assistance Commission Web site and took the quiz to see if I qualify for money. Not terribly surprised, I discovered I’m not among the lucky few. It’s only accessible to undergraduates, which means graduate students, who pay more in tuition anyway, are not included in this great financial opportunity.

I understand that increases in university tuition are necessary for the maintenance of the facilities and keeping around valuable faculty, especially as the government slashes money that goes to public universities themselves. Tuition keeps the buildings intact and the school running, but it really does make me re-evaluate our government’s abilities and their real concern for students and universities. If the Oregon government is so concerned about people going to college and providing grant and scholarship money to certain students, wouldn’t it make more sense to give money to the universities directly and help keep tuition costs down? Would that even work? Or would universities just take the money and use it for other things that may not help student debt?

According to the College Board, 40 percent of student educational aid comes from federal student loans alone. So, the higher the government lets tuition get, the more students are in debt to the government. As time goes on, more interest is accrued, and therefore more money goes to the government. Especially since, as of last July, the feds increased the student loan interest rate to 6.6 percent. If you think about it this way, the government makes a profit off of students being in debt to them and by continually increasing the interest rates. They are certainly not helping.

How messed up is it that the government would allow its next generation of educated working adults to begin their careers in debt and struggling so the government could make a few extra dollars? To claim they want to help students by providing more aid, then hike up tuition prices and limit those who are even qualified to receive aid, is very deceitful and underhanded.

All of this underhanded negotiation makes me wonder if the government really cares about the nation’s education at all, or if they see it as another way to make a profit. With all of the lack of funding that goes to K-12 schools, it’s no real surprise that the government would care even less about universities. Just because we expect to get the shaft, it certainly doesn’t make it any easier to accept.