Blog Post 2

Blog Post #2: Preparing for P2

In the EHE, the articles I read were “Higher Education: Not What It Used to Be” and “UC Student Investment Proposal” which talked about tuition costs. For P2, the issue I am most interested in is to come up with a solution with the rising costs of tuition for Colleges across the country. Making a comprehensible solution for those who have a hard time paying for College during and after enrollment could really make an impact. Lowering the costs for receiving higher education would help out thousands if not millions of people who are thinking of attending college and those who already are, including myself.

A solution I thought about that can help fix this problem is to relocate a small percentage of funds that go directly to military services. In 2015, US Government spent $598.5 billion dollars just in the military. This is an incredible amount of money but at the same many would consider it somewhat ridiculous. Relocating some of this money to the education system would lower the costs of attendance for all students. Since Colleges would be receiving more funding from the Government, they won’t be obligated to keep rising the cost of tuition every single year to keep up with the maintenance and spending of such school, thus making students to not take out as many loans throughout the course of their studies.

There are two main stakeholders that I would target with such a proposal. Congress politicians and students themselves. When it comes to students, all university costs directly affect them. They are who have to somehow manage their spending in order to pay for tuition or loans after they graduate. Having students give such a solution a “voice” could help in being one step closer in to making a change for tuition costs across the country. Even though students are the main audience this is directed to, this is more of a trickling down effect. With students making a movement towards this topic, it would affect the schools directly. Universities are nothing without the students, and if they keep rising tuition, enrollment could decrease each year. This topic will just be getting bigger and bigger until eventually students will start to defy their own schools. A few examples have already happened, such as the incident in UC Davis in 2011 which led a faculty member of such school, to write a letter directly to the chancellor.

The other stakeholder would be Congress politicians. All the government funds received every year, Congress is who decides what percentage of these funds go respectively to each area. Having a reasonable proposal that may be considered by such entity could bring many benefits. With universities receiving more funding from the government, they won’t need to charge students such high tuition fees. Making a higher education more affordable for the average American, more people receiving such education means that the literacy of the country would go up, thus having more opportunities to improve the economy itself. This would not only benefit students, but in a medium-long term, would also benefit the country itself.