Several advocates I spoke with argued that the only way to get enough aid for those who need it most is federal intervention. States would need to be incentivized in some way.
We've had colleges for around 200+ years.... You'd think they'd have notes on how to make this affordable for everyone. Maybe cutting the military budget by 1% or taxing billionaires?
Some states only offer free tuition to recent high-school graduates with a certain GPA; or they may mandate a drug test.
Ew. This is totally unfair.
Trump’s victory brought with it a strategy shift for free-college advocates—as hopes for a national tuition- or debt-free college plan grew dim.
Does Trump even know what strategy is?
“last dollar in” plans often mean they have to use their grant money for tuition, and can’t count on it for other costs associated with college such as books, fees, housing, and food.
This doesn't even mention of amount of grants you'd have to apply for before getting them and hours spent filling out paperwork that won't get approved.
Later in the campaign, she changed her tune, announcing a proposal to eliminate tuition at public colleges for families making less than $125,000 annually.
That still doesn't mean fair. A family making that much in the bay area cannot even buy a condo, let alone pay tuition for college.
Americans should be able to upgrade their skills affordably, Obama argued. Forty percent of American college students attended community college, he pointed out, suggesting that that was the place to start with free tuition.
I was one of those kids. I didn't have the financial ability to go to a 4 year, so I started working instead until I knew I could afford a 2-year
Even if states couldn’t pay for four years of college for every student, just covering two years would be a significant benefit—and one report from 2014 showed that free two-year programs in all 50 states could be funded using federal financial-aid resources that were already readily available.
Another example of America not using it's budget for the good of it's inhabitants.
: Its enrollments jumped, and so too did the number of teachers in the district. The district was able to build new schools for the first time since the 1970s. The offer brought change not just to Kalamazoo schools, but to the whole city.
This is another example of the price not actually needing to be there, it's just there to uphold the gap between the poor and upper middle class.
from kindergarten to high school, in perpetuity. Starting in 2006 and continuing until this day, the students have taken part in a social experiment of sorts.
The fact that kids the age of 5 know the power of money and stresses it causes is sad.
3.3 million students who were eligible for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), less than half applied.
The paperwork is often held back or too long and confusing on purpose. Making poor people stay poor and hungry.
Before all else, colleges must meet students’ basic needs
YES! And especially American colleges! They cost so much and none if it seems to be seen by the students themselves.
Hiring more diverse staff and administrators, as well as those who are familiar with these issues, is important in this effort — but this work can’t just be consigned to the diversity dean, who is often the only person of color in the office.
You really do have to start from the top it's just hard to do that with all the bias and ten-year immunity a lot of the people in charge have.
What’s needed is a deeply human touch.
I wonder if they even look at the first few rounds of applicants at all or if it's a computer until there are a small number left?
disadvantaged students still live in poverty’s long shadow.
It's proven that stress causes irreversible health damage, which can totally effect your school work.
Life in privileged communities means that children traverse safer streets, have access to good schools and interact with neighbors who can supply more than the proverbial cup of sugar. Life in distressed communities can mean learning to distinguish between firecrackers and gunshots.
This proves how individualistic the American Dream lifestyle is. For those who have "made it" they can stop caring about their community as a whole and pick and choose who they'd like to help up and bully those those unchosen. As a community that needs assistance, neighbors that you barley even know go above and beyond to make sure that anyone but from the same silk can be just as successful as themselves.
“Make them cry,” we hear. And so we pimp out our trauma for a shot at a future we want but can’t fully imagine.
It's sad that we have to use these tactics. The more students that get into a college, especially on scholarship, the better the school looks which is why the administration doesn't always have your best intentions in mind and skip over vocational skills and point straight at "too expensive for you" colleges.
I developed my hypotheses and outlined my proposed methods without the materials and had everything ready to go when we were able to afford the supplies.
This shows what a taboo being poor is as a young man.
Just walking through the campus gates unavoidably heightens these students’ awareness and experience of the deep inequalities around them.
The first time I walked on a college campus, I felt this in not only a financial way, but an intelligence way. You find yourself feeling like an imposture because you couldn't find your classroom or don't own a laptop after seeing everyone else with one.
We like to think that landing a coveted college spot is a golden ticket for students from disadvantaged backgrounds.
This is true. I went to an underprivileged school that had many kids not test well due to the fact that English wasn't their first language or they couldn't attend everyday since they had to babysit their younger siblings constantly. Their only escape after high school was a college, far away if they could get a full-ride.
But what I noticed more was how so many of them returned rested — how different our holidays had been.
This is a really good contrast for how someone without the means to live a middle-class life has to be punished for attending school on a scholarship.
Amherst provided no meals during holidays and breaks, but not all of us could afford to leave campus.
As of 2019, Amherst tuition is just under $60K. The fact is, they could provide meals, but chose to "save money".
At that moment, however, I thought less of home and more about the gnawing feeling in the pit of my stomach
This really sets a tone for the paragraph following this. It not only refers to the stomach which is covered later by the hunger of not being supplied meals but the anxiety of knowing exactly when these dark days will happen.