My family helps out when they can. I've been employed a few times since coming to school, but it's not the easiest finding a job in a college town, especially since I don't have a car and take quite a few classes (making an unnecessary long commute not worth it). While not the main reason for doing so, I ran in school elections twice (and lost twice), and if I had been elected to those positions, would have had a nice salary. Campaigning hard really took a toll on my mental state and schoolwork, but I guess the life experience was worth it. To make ends meet in the mean time, I work as a freelance writer.
The reason I am telling you all of this, dear reader, is to make sure it comes across that I am no freeloader...or that I try not to be. Point is, I rely heavily on financial aid. The problem is, since I am an out-of-state student, I blow through it very quickly. I cannot remember the last time I was able to register for classes on time because I've been so behind on paying tuition. This time around, something different happened. Something way different. And by "different," I don't mean better.
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| How much my total financial aid seems to add up to |
During this past fall quarter, it was taking the financial aid center very long to process my forms. Not only that, it wasn't nearly enough to cover my fall quarter tuition, leaving me $4,000+ left to pay.
Yes, $4,000+. Have I been able to pay it off? No. Not at all. But doesn't that mean I am not attending school winter quarter (right now)? Yes, yes it does. All I am doing is making up a class I registered for last spring quarter. What I tried doing is seeing if I could transfer some of my allotted aid from winter and spring quarters to pay off the rest (or even some) of my fall quarter bill. Unfortunately, the financial aid office told me that the federal government doesn't allow for that unless the student is enrolled during winter quarter.
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So, I can't get the financial aid center to redistribute any of my loan or grants from winter and spring quarters to pay off my fall tuition because I am not enrolled during winter quarter...because I haven't been able to pay off that $4,000+ from fall quarter. Oh, the irony. And of course the federal government would do that. Not only that, but I had to pay $50 for a reapplication fee to get into spring quarter.
I am not the kind of person to argue that the government needs to pay for schooling. I have many reasons for why the the federal government shouldn't get involved with higher education, which I will address on this blog some time later (which, if you pay attention to which topics I promise to write on, may mean "never"), but you can look at one aspect through this Learn Liberty video.
However, having these technicalities present is a burden on the students the government claims to be helping. This is not the only problem I have had with financial aid - I am pretty slow with math. You may be thinking, "What does that even have to do with financial aid...?" and I wouldn't blame you at all for asking that, since at first glance, they really don't have anything to do with each other. I will explain better in the next paragraph.
In the last paragraph, I told you I would "explain better" on what I meant pertaining to how I am "pretty slow with math" and whatever that has to do with financial aid. Now that this is the next paragraph, let me explain. During spring quarter of my freshman year, I took a required math class. Despite doing all of my homework, coming to class everyday, and meeting with tutors, I managed to fail it. I had quite the identity crisis, for I have never failed a class before. (At least I haven't failed another class since.) What I wanted to do was go through this program through my school where a student can take fall, winter, and spring quarters to finish up certain courses. That way, I could take my time with it. Why can't I do that? Because of financial f***in' aid. Because I receive financial aid, that option is not available for me. I have yet to talk with anyone from the school about this (to see if there are any exceptions) because I am always too damn busy having trouble with financial aid (and just being busy with classes in general). To be clear, not that this really pertains to anything, but I do like math. I'm just really slow with grasping certain concepts.
I'm not sure what you were expecting from reading this post, but I hope you sympathize with my situation. Everyone needs a good rant now and then.
If you ever want to help me out with my terrible financial situation, you have my blessing.
Yeah, I did community college and got my BA from a local university specifically because of both community college savings, as well as savings from going local instead of going out-of-state. I'd have loved to go to Hawaii, Washington, California, or Oregon, but the OOS tuition would wreck me harder than I'd like.
ReplyDeleteIt is a shame that it's 2015 and education isn't regarded as a social right. Or, rather, only elementary, middle, and high are, which is funny since high school didn't used to be a social right, and was, indeed, treated just as college is today.
America's moving at a snail's pace, but I'm sure, soon enough, we'll have college wind up in the same bracket as the rest of education.
I actually think that by making college more accessible, it will become as defunct as getting a high school education has become for real life functionality. Pretty soon, going to graduate school will be the kind of education society *needs* to keep up, which will leave those who haven't been able to complete high school and college even further behind.
ReplyDeleteI believe college is important for an "educated" society, but we need to stop idolizing it as a necessary function every individual needs to "succeed in life."
I have looked into WA residency, and unfortunately, it would require me to take a year off of school, which I have already done and it is too late in the game for me to do so again (seeing as how one of my studies requires constant work).
ReplyDeleteMost of what you say would be ameliorated if college were paid for the same way we currently pay for elementary, middle, and high. As I said earlier, high school used to be the same way college is now; we take for granted that fact every day.
ReplyDeleteThere are pretty good reasons, though, why a plumber just needs to go to a plumbing trade school, but an engineer is more than likely going to need a master's before they go off and build nuclear power plants and what have you.
I'm glad not everything requires a degree, but I'd much rather have somebody with a PhD giving me open heart surgery than a guy who learned it from his dad and has been performing backalley ad hoc surgery as a hobby.
I'll be writing entire posts dedicated to what I think about higher education (and government-funded education). Why I say high school education is "defunct" is because we, as a society, have to rely on it to get better pay, as you mentioned. However, how does higher education actually make you better in mundane jobs, such as working in the mail room sorting mail? I hear people talking about how in order to apply to some of these jobs, you need college degrees. I think that's insulting to those who have to work for years to complete a good education. My argument is that *because* we are placing more importance on this kind of education, it's what is saying high school graduates, college graduates, etc. need to be paid for. It's a social construct. The jobs are not necessarily being designed for the well educated, but are requiring the same qualifications, whether it's related to the work or not.
ReplyDeleteI definitely think education on all levels has its purpose, but I also think that we're driving too many people to be educated to the point that most people are starting to forget why it's important to be so.he importance of being educated.
Not sure I'm seeing your point in this post. I'm not sure sorting mail requires a degree, but if it does I'll definitely agree that's pretty silly.
ReplyDeleteAs mentioned earlier, there are jobs that don't require a formal education. In other countries, people of high school age can choose to abandon your typical high school setting for a trade school, which I think is handy because while it's my belief that general high school should be mandatory anyway, some people 'just know' they want to do something like becoming an electrician and have no interest in pursuing academics further, and really, it's not like you can't go back and get a GED should you decide your trade isn't what all you want to do in life, or whatever.
So while I don't know about mail-sorting, I do know that a good lot of jobs that require a degree to even apply are probably doing so for good reason, such as doctors, teachers, economists, journalists, etc. Anybody can learn things in their spare time, even from accredited sources, but college tends to help give a sort of structure and consistency that might not be there otherwise.
As for your last point, I couldn't agree more. I'd mentioned earlier the overwhelming amount of college students who just go to college to get their degree, much in the same way high school students didn't drop out just to get their diploma. Both groups probably hated school all throughout, likely got piss grades, and probably didn't really learn. The way to fix that isn't to make school harder to get into, though; it would just have to be a compound of a shift in education, as well as a shift in our culture. American culture is one of the few where being smart is still considered a bad or 'nerdy' thing to do, and it's even worse for females who want to be smart; there's been such a huge push to get women into math, science, and technology, yet those fields (namely technology) tend to have hostile work environments.
Blah.