More should be done to finance higher education in U.S.

This is my final article for The Rocket and there is one issue that I absolutely feel the need to address before I bow out.  College has become unreasonably expensive and something absolutely has to change.

I cannot speak for the rest of the students at SRU, but I know that on a personal level, I received virtually no financial aid to come to school.  My parents were just wealthy enough that their estimated family contribution was all of my tuition besides Stafford loans.  However, in reality, my parents are what is known as "house poor" and live paycheck to paycheck. So I had to make up the difference with loans.

Being here completely on loans, which I, alone, will be expected to pay back, has made me rather bitter.  I have plenty of friends whose parents pay for half or all of school and plenty of friends who come to SRU basically free on grant money and scholarships.

Was there more I could have done?  Could I have secured more financial aid?  Possibly, but as it stands, I graduate in one week and it is too late for "what ifs." Six months from next Saturday, I will owe $650 per month for the next ten years of my life.

I think it is also important to note that I have only been at SRU for two and half years, and nearly all of that debt was accrued in that short amount of time.  

That is an absolute travesty. As college graduates, we are expected to be the next wave of young professionals, yet we are saddled with the equivalent of a mortgage payment when we graduate. Goodbye house, wife, car or, God forbid, kids.  Instead, I will be paying for my undergrad degree.  

This is the type of money I would have expected to pay at a major university, not at a small state school.  I know plenty of students who are echoing this exact same idea.  A fair number of those recent grads are still Occupying various public places across the country and suffering attacks from mustachioed police officers with self esteem issues.

Do I blame Slippery Rock for my debt?  Short answer: no.  SRU has been abundantly helpful in every way possible.  The financial aid officers are fantastic, and my professors have been exceedingly helpful.  There are some things I disagreed with about SRU, but not the cost.  I cannot blame this university for my $650 debt.

I blame the priorities of the U.S. government.  I blame Congress and ultimately, I blame myself.  Considering that if I was to enroll in graduate school at the University of Munich, in Germany, tuition is a total of $700 a year and all of the classes are taught in English.  In fact, the absolute most expensive schools in all of Europe still are only about as much as SRU's in-state tuition.

So why is it that if I take an eight hour plane ride to school I can save myself thousands of dollars?  I think it's a matter of priorities.  

In the United States, we apparently could care less about education.  No Child Left Behind may be the biggest joke ever to befall the American education system. Its motto: "Here are a bunch of standards you have to meet, but we're not going to tell you how to implement them, if they are effective or fund them," has become a punch line.

The higher up you go, the worse the whole issue of funding gets. Remember earlier in the semester when our lovely governor proposed a 54 percent cut to state university funding?  Education is one of the first things to get cut in this country, and it makes absolutely no sense any way you look at it.  By cutting funding for education, you accomplish two things.  

First, you directly limit who can attend the university.  Second, you saddle students with outrageous debt which makes the supposed "class of young professionals" practically bankrupt from the get-go.  

When our politicians cut education, they are proving just how out of touch they are with the American people.   Forget the fact that a large portion of politicians are millionaires (nearly 50 percent are in that 1 percent), politicians grew up in a completely different system.

The average age for a person in either house of Congress is around 57, so these people attended college roughly 35-40 years ago.  Well it's funny to consider that the average cost for college has increased literally tenfold since 1975, and it can be easy to forget how much college is really costing us nowadays.

In 1975, it was actually possible to work full time over the summer and pay your tuition in full for the year.  Honestly, that thought is laughable even at somewhere as relatively cheap as SRU.  

Yet, the United States government continues to fund unpopular wars, drones, and hefty security measures all in the name of fighting terrorism.  So I suppose the idea is that we are forgoing education for the much more popular police state idea.   

Just as a quick aside, they are also considering passing laws like the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which everyone should look up and protest immediately.

Feel free to dismiss this entire article as the typical rant of a college socialist.   If you do choose to dismiss me, know that this is not just the rant of a college socialist, but the rant of everyone who puts value on an education.