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By Jessica Cheung
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Mar. 23, 2009 |
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Most students who have received their college acceptance letters are thrilled. All those SAT prep books, nights of cramming, and flashcards must have paid off. The thrill, however, is tampered economic reality; these students are going to be paying off debts and college loans for years to come.
To increase the number of applicants, the University of California admissions should compete with private colleges’ financial aid packages. UC Admissions are potentially losing students to private colleges, due to the perks financial aid packages that those offer.Due to private schools’ increasingly intensive financial aid programs and despite the economy, UC-Santa Barbara has recently made its own attempt to compete with private colleges’ financial aid packages by initiating Yudof’s Blue and Gold Opportunity Plan – which offers financial assistance for all system-wide fees to California students of household incomes of under $60,000, paid for by the increases of new financial revenue that UC sets aside for financial aid from 33 to 36 percent. Other UC’s need to follow this initiative by easing down the costs for a wide swath of students.UC admissions should not stop to wonder w hy the financial aid packages at the private schools are such a draw to students. In addition to testing and application fees and living expenses, admittance to a private four-year college entails an average cost of $25,143 per year. Excluding room and board, according to The New York Times, a high cost when families are struggling in the current economic downturn. The rising costs of college put higher education out of reach for many Americans. College tuition increases eight percent every year, resulting in a doubling of the cost every nine years, according to FinAid(finaid.org). With the cost of college increasing even more in this financial crisis, students will be more and more likely to be partial towards banks for loans, with interest rates that are yet another drain on students’ funds. While a few may turn to their Hilton fathers for college tuition, most are forced to resort to financial aid.Reducing college costs is not only logical, but appropriate. UC admissions need to be aware that he price tag is a potential scare-away and can lead to fewer applicants, especially of lower income and first generation college students. Students need higher education; colleges need diversity, regardless of the financial recession. Qualified students who need economic help still need to be eligible to go to college as they contribute to the richness of viewpoints at college. “It was pretty clear that we were missing out on some exciting students,” dean of admissions at Harvard University William R. Fitzsimmons said. All other UC colleges should follow UC-Santa Barbara’s attempts to make a public school education more affordable and, thus, more attractive to students.Since financial aid is such a crucial component of students’ education choices, private colleges across America have turned their attention towards making college affordable; while public colleges’ are pressured by recent budget cuts. Last spring, after the University of North Carolina announced a new financial aid program to cover almost all the costs of any student with family income below 150 percent of the poverty line, Harvard University responded with a similar financial aid plan to assist all students whose families make less than $40,000 annually with nearly the full college cost. In addition, Yale University has reduced charges by nearly half of initial costs, as a result from Congress’ pressure to spend more on financial aid.All those study sessions, caffeine refills and last-minute note-taking have benefited students. Now their wallets should benefit as well.
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