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Victoria Wang
Professor Ellen Pratt
English 3103 036H
18 September 2014
A Subjective Truth on College Tuition
The topic of going to college has forever aroused a variety of controversies. In fact,
many families have narrowed down the factors for choosing the right institution to the
investment alone. For this reason, particularly middle class and lower class students, mistakenly
assume they can rely on financial aid alone to cover most of their tuition. However, little do
these future students know, that receiving these rewards is a very uphill process. In some cases,
students who fail to obtain the necessary aids are unable to attend the college of their choice.
Inconsistent results such as these feed the idea that the available assistances, although efficient
for some families, are ineffective for many others.
A recent event that portrays these difficulties was illustrated in Claudia's experience
during her search for an affordable out-of-state education. As a highly motivated student and
graduating senior, Claudia took up the challenge of going through the tedious process of finding
a university that best fit her interests. Extremely focused, she began doing her college research
since the beginning of senior year. Claudia understood she would be dealing with a huge
workload and that this decision would lead to many sacrifices in her personal life; nonetheless,
her priorities were well organized and she believed her purpose was worthy. Claudia applied to
various institutions dedicating hours to writing and editing essays and spending all of her savings
on the pricey college applications. When the decision dates came up, her choices narrowed down
to the universities that had admitted her for the Fall Semester of 2014. Understanding her

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familys economic misgivings, she spoke with her parents and was given an ultimatum: the only
way she would be able to obtain an out-of-state education was if she found a way to cover all
costs solely with grants and scholarships. The news did not hinder Claudias hope. She once
again began a new search, this time for financial aids that did not require repayment. Upon
applying for various scholarships, her odds remained the same. Things did not seem to appear in
her favor and, at the end of the day, there was not enough money available for her to attend an
out-of-state university. The costs simply exceeded what her family could afford, and the aids
available were not of any help to her quest of attending the institution of her choice. The rapid
increase in tuition along the years has not made these problems any easier, [] tuition and fees
have skyrocketed in the last five years. In Arizona, for example, parents have seen a 77 percent
increase in costs. In Georgia, it's 75 percent, and in Washington State, 70 percent. (1) As
Claudio Sanchez stresses in his article, How The Cost of College Went From Affordable to
Sky-High, the pursuit for a higher education is becoming something close to a luxury; for many,
it has even become unreachable. Due to this emergent crisis, many options have been proposed
with the intention of lessening the economic burden and making it possible for everyone to
obtain a college-level education. Need-based financial aid, scholarships and loans are all
different methods offered by pricey institutions in order to finance the heavy tuition costs they
stipulate. Federal loans have also taken part in lessening the total prices, in addition to other
federal grants. Presently, there is an enormous amount of external aid that is meant to make
college affordable and give everyone an opportunity to earn a degree. Why then is the argument
of college affordability still in debate? As facts, surveys and studies reveal, the effectiveness of
these assistances has been put to the test and results have been eye opening.

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Because college tuition mostly concerns parents, the most favorable option is usually the
attainment of a number of scholarships. These have been made available for students with any
type of talent conceivable as well as any type of nationality and/or ethnic background. Although
a wide variety of scholarships exist, the amount of students who apply for these is superfluous,
thus making the chances of a single person winning extremely slim. In fact, the chances of
winning a scholarship may be compared to those of winning the lottery. Revealed in her article
Get Real On Scholarships by Michelle Singletary only about one in 10 undergraduate
students in bachelors degree programs wins a private scholarship, on average about $2,800 a
year. (7) The fact that the number of people receiving these grants is so low, and that the
amount of money is, on average, less than approximately 5.1% of one-year's tuition, leads one to
believe that scholarships are not the most effective source of external financial aid. At most, they
serve as complementary help.
In addition to these miniscule assistances, colleges usually offer students need-based
financial aid better known as the FAFSA. The idea behind this second alternative is that students
are rewarded a loan that will help parents pay for annual tuition based on the family income. The
catch in this case is that even though the system is income-based, it usually disregards
additional expenses; not to mention the system used to calculate what one is eligible for is
extremely tedious and confusing to fill out. Because of its complexity, it administers a wider
margin of error for whoever is filling it out and consequentially, this may lead the person to have
a disadvantage in his or her reward. In fact, the system as a whole is not very user-friendly.
Authors Mary Feeney and John Heroff dedicated an entire paper to expose some of the FAFSAs
drawbacks. In their work Barriers to Need-Based Financial Aid: Predictors of Timely FAFSA
Completion Among Low-Income Students they affirm, the FAFSA assumes that parents can

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and will support their college-bound student and that the parents financial status is stable. (4;
par. 5) In other words, the FAFSA also fails as a dependable aid because of the fact that a
specific economic stance is assumed regardless of the reality of someones financial status. For
families with supplementary expenses, this alone is enough to condemn this need-based
financial aid as an unreliable source for economic assistance.
An additional third option for financing ones education is acquiring a private or student
loan. These, especially those with very low-income rates, have been known to relieve parents
and students from large economic burdens. However, by using loans, one might as well be
putting off having to pay an enormous amount of money that will inevitably accumulate and
increase. In other words, borrowers might end up having to pay for more than the original
amount. Loans are only given out to people who have some credit score history, and because
first-year students usually do not fill out this criterion, they require the intervention of a cosigner. When agreeing to take out a specific amount of money, one does it with the condition of
eventually paying off the debt. In the case where a co-signer is involved, if a student fails to
repay the amount taken out, the responsibility falls upon whoever co-signed thus placing this
person, as well as his or her credit, on the line.
As discussed, there is an enormous amount of external aid meant to facilitate paying for
an education, therefore it is pertinent to say that institutions, as well as the federal government
and other associations, have contributed significantly to mitigating many of these economic
burdens. However, the fact that these are readily available does not mean they are easily
attainable, or that they supply a student with the amount of money they specifically need.
Overall, the drawbacks and conditions to these assistances surpass the actual help they offer;
both in amount of money they give out, as well as in how securable it is to actually obtain the

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reward. Consequentially, it is permissible to maintain that these established options are
unreliable and, for some, clearly ineffective.

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Works Cited
Feeney, Mary and Heroff, John (2013) "Barriers to Need-Based Financial Aid: Predictors of
Timely FAFSA Completion Among Low-Income Students," Journal of Student
Financial Aid: Vol. 43: Iss. 2, Article 2.
Sanchez, Claudio. "How The Cost Of College Went From Affordable To Sky-High."NPR. N.p.,
18 Mar. 2014. Web. 17 Sept. 2014.
Singletarry, Michelle. "Get Real on Scholarships." Washington Post. The Washington Post, 12
Mar. 2011. Web. 17 Sept. 2014.