Rising Tuition Costs!

By: William Hodges

Many questions are getting asked right now as high school seniors begin their search for a college. One I find to be particularly interesting is how people are going to pay for school. It is getting harder and harder for people to pay for college as the tuition costs skyrocket and the economy continues to decline. As a new out of state freshman at Georgia Tech I am currently paying the large sum of about thirty-three thousand dollars a year for tuition and room and board. How are we supposed to manage cost like this? The most common way for people to afford these high costs are through the use of student loans, but all this does is leave the student in debt when they come out of college. With the average four year private college costing about twenty-five thousand dollars a year, a typical student graduates with about twenty-three thousand dollars of debt. There is however a good side to this. Despite the insanely high prices for college, there is over one hundred and forty-three billion dollars available in financial aid waiting to be tapped into. Also some schools have implemented programs where the tuition prices are fixed every year the student attends that school. This is a great program with the rapidly rising tuition prices. According to the College Board, between the 2008 and 2009 school year tuition prices have risen 5.9%, and with the fixed tuition system you no longer have to worry about that. Many schools though, (Georgia Tech included) have recently gotten rid of this system because of the recently declining economy causing a difficulty in financing the institution. Even though higher education is an expensive proposition, there are many organizations that are out there to help make it more affordable so that everyone is able to get a college degree.