Last week LA Times writer Catherine Ho wrote an article titled “Paying off college tuition has a higher degree of difficulty now.” Great…because it didn’t quite seem hard enough already.
The article begins by saying that, “Higher college costs and steep losses in college savings plans are forcing students and their parents to borrow more to earn bachelor’s degrees.”
It continues on to say that, “Last year’s seniors, facing increasing costs through their college years, graduated with an average debt load that was 6 percent higher than the previous year’s grads accumulated.”
It’s not really new news to current students that tuition is on the rise, but the article continues to explain how our current state of economic turbulence is affecting the ease with which students can borrow money and availablity of loans. In turn, it seems, it’s getting harder and harder to pay for college.
“The nonprofit College Board, which operates assessment tests, said tuition and fees rose 6.4 percent at public universities in 2007-08, compared with the previous school year,” states the article. ”Room and board were up 5.2 percent.”
The article concludes by saying that the government reassures us that federal student loans are still available to eligible students, even in times of credit crisis.
But still some, like myself, can’t help but feel that proverbial squeeze on the wallet as tuition bills climb and financial/economic confidence dwindles. The loans may still be there, but will the jobs that are going to provide the money to pay off the loans?
