System overload

In addition to overly expensive textbooks, lack of parking spaces on campus and budget cuts from the state, many public college campuses are facing what seems to be another major problem: lack of dorm rooms. This is due to unexpectedly large freshman classes entering every year because of the current economy, making less expensive state colleges more appealing.

The increase in students applying to public colleges and universities across the country is occurring at an extraordinarily fast pace. Since I first began going to school, I was always told going to college was an important, if not the most important, thing I should do in my life. One would think that people going to college would never be a problem, but unfortunately it may cause more problems than it solves.

On March 1, The New York Times reported that, “at Oregon State University, freshman applications are up 12 percent, and transfer applications more than 31 percent.” Patrick M. Callan, president of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education said that, “the country is in the process of reconsidering the easy accumulation of debt for consumer things, and it may well be that that will be a factor that tilts people toward public institutions because of the cheaper sticker price.”

It is quite unfortunate that the actions of our government are costing us much more than millions of jobs, homes and cars lost, but also the one thing that people thought would never be taken away from them: education. Polls taken from the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education show that people’s anxiety about paying for college is almost at an unprecedented high.

Middle class families that spent most of their lives investing money in paying for their kids’ college are now being faced with working minimum-wage jobs and telling their kids they might not be able to pay for their tuition.

And it is not just public colleges that are facing problems with over-populated classrooms, underpaid professors and lack of housing; private colleges are facing just the opposite but equally as worrisome problem: losing students and trying to find ways to increase financial aid in the current economy.

The entire education system has completely flipped upside down. Once private and prestigious universities are now struggling to keep students in, while the public universities are faced with putting students on waiting lists.

Higher education is no longer about knowledge, learning and experience but money, room and more money.

At the State University of New York, The New York Times reported that, “the college plans to send 4,500 acceptance letters this year, 1,000 fewer than usual, and keep a longer waiting list … the flood of applications—made greater by a demographic bubble as the offspring of baby boomers reach college age—comes as SUNY is facing a $210 million cut in its $1.4 billion annual state appropriation for four-year schools.”

And this is not just a problem that is occurring in New York, as many colleges around the United States are faced with similar budget cuts and increase in students.

Although extra students may give universities more tuition money, if this problem goes any further, many colleges, including Portland State, may have to be faced with increasing class sizes, crowded dining halls, services being diminished and residence halls tripling up.

Unfortunately there will be no more “fun” student experiences. The backfire diminishes college experience and the only thing we are left to do is hope it won’t become a bigger problem. I say, enjoy college as much as possible while you still can.