Twelve Worlds, One Book

by Buffy Hamilton

  Bernie Sanders, one of the presidential candidates, wants to make college cheap or even free in United States. He wonders, how some countries can offer cheap or even free college to their citizens, but United States can’t. Sanders writes about making college cheaper on his own webpage, “This is not a radical idea. Last year, Germany eliminated tuition because they believed that charging students $1,300 per year was discouraging Germans from going to college. Next year, Chile will do the same. Finland, Norway, Sweden and many other countries around the world also offer free college to all of their citizens. If other countries can take this action, so can the United States of America.” (On the Issues: It's Time to Make College Tuition Free and Debt Free).

  Some students are graduating from college owning over 50,000 dollars to the government. This means that they have to work many years “for free” and without any excess money after graduating from college. Some top level students cannot pay for good college and they have to go to worse school that college they have been deserved by hard working at high school. Does the United States government really want this? The country is losing good and knowledgeable workers and tax dollars by letting the college cost to increase exponentially. Many smart students from other countries are not able to study here. Not because the schools level but because they are too expensive. The cost of the college is really big problem even to the upper class. How poor people can pay for college? The answer is they can’t. This makes the society unequal and unfair. No money, no education.

  The cost of the colleges keeps raising extremely fast. Especially public schools that used to be reasonably priced are now almost as expensive as some private schools. Still the cost of those public schools keeps raising every year. More and more people are choosing to study in private schools because there is no big difference in cost. For an example, look at two top ten colleges in the country. Public school, University of California, Berkeley out of state tuition is about $60,000 in a year ("University of California, Berkeley Tuition, Costs and Financial Aid - CollegeData College Profile"). Private school, Stanford University costs about $46,000 a year for all students ("Stanford University - Stanford, California - Undergraduate Information"). Government loses money when more and more students choose to study in private schools. According to The Atlanta Journal and Constitution, the cost of the four year public universities in Georgia has increased 46% in five years ("Georgia Hits Pause in Climbing College Tuition"). Webpage Collegeboard tells that the average increase in cost of the private universities was just six percent from 2003 to 2009 ("Tuition and Fees and Room and Board over Time, 2005-06 to 2015-16"). But still, the cost of the college keeps raising every year and unfortunately the tuition increase will probably get worse before it gets better (Weston).

  But why does the cost of the college keep raising? There is not a clear answer to this question. According CNBC.com the biggest reason for the raising cost is competition between states and schools (Shoen). States are trying to increase the level of the education to get more students and families to move into the state.

  Increasing the level of education and student services makes the cost of the colleges to increase. According the New York times’ article colleges spend much money for remain competitive in national rankings (Martin). Upgrading and competing the campuses also costs money. Building a new cafeteria or department is expensive.

  Webpage CLATL tells, “One big culprit behind the rising cost of the college in Georgia is funding per student for the university system plunged in recent years” ("Why Georgia College Costs Keep Rising"). More and more students are submitting applications every year. Colleges don’t have money to fund all of them.

  Sports, clubs, and other student activities also raises the cost of college education. According to webpage Business insider it costs over thousand dollars to dress up one football player (Gaines). There is hundred and five players in the team. However, this is not the biggest expense. Coaches salaries, advertising, organizing games and events, and many other costs can cost millions of dollars. Football team is just one example. There is multiple sports and teams in each school nowadays. Sports and teams are good thing but having all the possible team and student services in every school raises the cost of the college for those who aren’t joining a team or using the services. Colleges are spending more money to “look good” and get more and better students than offering good education to students in the college.

  There isn’t a clear and easy solution to this problem. One big thing colleges and states could do is to mix many small colleges together to make one big university. This would reduce the competition and smaller campuses could specialize specific degrees and programs. The level of the education would increase and the cost would go down. For an example, one campus of an big university could specialize to math and sciences, other campus could specialize to languages and arts etc. Students and teachers interested in same subject could work together and benefit from the environment. This system would allow the schools and professors to share information too. Practically it would make the public schools cheaper and better.

  Even if colleges won’t unite, they should still do cooperation with each other. Colleges in same area could form divisions of many colleges. These “college families” could organize games, events etc. together, share information, do common projects and research, and specialize campuses. Finland has one of the best education systems in the world. High school are doing cooperation and it seems working well. For an example in Helsinki there is schools for arts, acting, music, and sciences. These schools have specific sports and clubs too. All of these schools are different schools but they all are doing cooperation with each other (Lukiot Helsingissä). This system lets the cost of the education and organizing school events to go down and reduces unnecessary competition between schools that makes the cost of the college high in United States.

  Colleges should understand that wasting money just for looking cool is not a benefit for anybody. Colleges are losing great students by this because it also raises the cost of the college.

  There is plenty of other ways the government could make the college cheaper or even free. One way to do this is to simply increase taxes. According to the webpage The Atlantic, people in United States don’t understand that taxes they pay are used to provide and build services for THEM (Partanen). Paying taxes is not money “flying away”. It’s money to make the country or state better place to live. According to the webpage Bernie Sanders.com making college free for everyone would cost 75 billion dollars each year (On the Issues: It's Time to Make College Tuition Free and Debt Free). According to the webpage Taxfoundation there is about 243 million taxpayers in United States. Seventy five billion dollars may sound really big amount of money but when divided to all to the 243 million taxpayers the increase to the taxes would be just about three hundred dollars a year that is about twenty five dollars a month. Is twenty five dollars a month too much for providing free college education for you, your children, and your grandchildren?

  Other way the government could make college cheaper is to cut from other useless expenses. According to the webpage Mr Conservative the government uses billions of dollars to really stupid things each year (30 Stupid Things The Government Is Spending Money On). There is couple of these things.

  •Determining if cocaine makes Japanese quail engage in sexually risky behavior.

  •Tattoo removal program

  •30 million dollars to program that was designed to help Pakistani farmers produce more mangos.

  •2.6 million dollars to train Chinese prostitutes to drink responsibly.

  •25 billion dollars a year maintaining federal buildings that are either unused or totally vacant.

  •Keeping up two or more presidential agencies that do not share information with each other costs billions of dollars each year.

  This list includes just a fractional part of all the things where government is wasting money. If all of this
money were used to college education, people would get paid for going to college.

  Bernie sanders tells on his webpage, “Over the next decade, it has been estimated that the federal government will make a profit of over $110 billion on student loan programs. This is morally wrong and it is bad economics” (On the Issues: It's Time to Make College Tuition Free and Debt Free). How is it possible that at the same time when students are paying incredible high tuitions and borrowing money, the government is making profit? This is wrong, stupid, unfair, and should be the first thing to be changed.

  The government could make new education programs to reduce the cost of the college education and ensure that the best students can pay for the best colleges. For an example students could earn scholarships early, even in middle schools or elementary schools. This would encourage students to study for good grades and reduce “getting in good college stress”.

  Free college would make college to be a possible option to more students. More students going to college would get our economy to raise by making more knowledgeable workers, businessman, scientist etc. More people working and paying taxes would also help to reduce the cost of the college in the long run.

  Why would these ideas work? I’m not the only person supporting these ideas and trying to find a solution. There is thousands of other people doing research to get the cost of the college education down. Barack Obama, the president of the United States, is trying to make the college cheaper or even free. He has many similar ideas I wrote above. For an example, according to the PBS newshour’s article, Obama would make new programs, increase taxes and funding per student, and support public schools much more to reduce the cost of the college (Mason). According to the webpage Berniesanders.com, presidential candidate Bernie Sanders also supports all these ideas ("On the Issues: It's Time to Make College Tuition Free and Debt Free"). Unfortunately, the president of the United States doesn’t have enough power to implement this all.

  According to the webpage Deseret news many wealthiest countries in the world can offer free college education.

  With rising tuition costs, some states such as Oregon, Washington and California have begun experimenting with how they fund public universities. Oregon in particular has recently made headlines for a new proposal to waive tuition fees in favor of a 20 year post-graduation payment plan. They aren't the first to experiment tuition free education, however. Many countries, particularly in Europe, subsidize higher education, allowing them to waive tuition fees (Feinauer).

  These countries include many Northern European countries but also some Mediterranean countries. Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, France, Scotland, Turkey, Malta, and Greece. Some people would say that these are all small countries and free college wouldn't work in bigger economies. However, Germany, France, Mexico, Argentina, and Brazil have also free college education (Jackson). Australia and New Zealand provide different programs for students that makes college to be not a big problem (Staff). Germany changed the college tuitions to be free on 2014. This didn’t really affect normal people lives but made made a big benefit to high school and college students. Basically Germany increased taxes little bit and cut from useless expenses and programs (Schuman). It’s ridiculous that USA is the richest country in the world but can’t afford free college education ("Richest Countries in the World"). Why doesn't United States do the same thing than Germany did?

  The other side might say that students going to college should pay their own education, not older people who are not competent. As I said earlier free and good college education will create more workers, bring students to United States from other countries, and little by little raise the economy up. This would made everybody’s life easier and cheaper. Also people saying that they don't want to pay for others education should think about their own child, grandchild, relatives, and the common wealth and happiness that free college education would create. We could make everyone’s life better just for a really long time just for paying twenty five dollars a month more taxes. It’s not too much asked!

  I don’t suggest the college in United States to become completely free soon, but it could be reasonably-priced in ten years. Everyone could pay for it and become educated easily without taking big loans. This could happen soon but it would need actions from the citizens of USA. It would need people who supports the idea of cheaper college and are ready to fight for it. Everybody can change this little by little just by doing couple of simple things. For an example, voting for people who want college to be cheaper, supporting public schools, and sharing the dream of free education can solve the big problem that right now looks insurmountable. Soon, much more students from other countries could exploit good schools in United States and students people already here wouldn't have to stress and pay too much for college. College is just four years but it can build an important base for everyone’s life. Something needs to get done!

  Works Cited

  "30 Stupid Things The Government Is Spending Money On." MrConservativecom 30 Stupid Things The Government Is Spending Money On Comments. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Apr. 2016.

  Feinauer, J. J. "Countries That Offer Free Higher Education | Deseret News." DeseretNews.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Apr. 2016.

  Gaines, Cork. "It Costs Six Figures To Dress A College Football Team." Business Insider. Business Insider, Inc, 02 July 2012. Web. 31 Mar. 2016.

  "Georgia Hits Pause in Climbing College Tuition." Ajc. N.p., 17 Feb. 2016. Web. 30 Mar. 2016.

  "How Many Taxpayers Fall Into Each Income Tax Bracket?" Tax Foundation. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Apr. 2016.

  Jackson, Abby. "'Free' College in Europe Isn't Really Free." Business Insider. Business Insider, Inc, 06 Mar. 2016. Web. 12 Apr. 2016.

  "Lukiot Helsingissä." Helsingin Kaupunki. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Apr. 2016.

  Martin, Andrew. "Building a Showcase Campus, Using an I.O.U." The New York Times. The New York Times, 13 Dec. 2012. Web. 15 Apr. 2016.

  Mason, Kyla Calvert. "Obama: Community College Should Be ‘as Free and Universal in America as High School’." PBS. PBS, 20 Jan. 2016. Web. 11 Apr. 2016.

  "On the Issues: It's Time to Make College Tuition Free and Debt Free." Bernie Sanders RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Apr. 2016.

  "On the Issues: It's Time to Make College Tuition Free and Debt Free." Bernie Sanders RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Apr. 2016.

  Partanen, Anu. "What Americans Don’t Get About Nordic Countries." The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, 16 Mar. 2016. Web. 04 Apr. 2016.

  "Richest Countries in the World." Aneki.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Apr. 2016.

  Schuman, Rebecca. "You Can Now Go to College in Germany for Free, No Matter Where You’re From. Should You?" Browbeat. N.p., 10 Oct. 2014. Web. 12 Apr. 2016.

  Shoen, John W. "The Real Reasons a College Degree Costs so Much." CNBC. N.p., 16 June 2015. Web. 15 Apr. 2016.

  Staff, Attn. "How Does Germany Afford Free Tuition For All Of Its Citizens?" Attn:. N.p., 12 Feb. 2015. Web. 12 Apr. 2016.

  "Stanford University - Stanford, California - Undergraduate Information." CollegeView. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Mar. 2016.

  Thelin, John R. "Cengage Learning." The Rising Costs of Higher Education: A Reference Handbook, 1st Edition. ABC-CLIO, n.d. Web. 13 Apr. 2016.

  "Tuition and Fees and Room and Board over Time, 2005-06 to 2015-16." - Trends in Higher Education. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Apr. 2016.

  "University of California, Berkeley Tuition, Costs and Financial Aid - CollegeData College Profile." COLLEGEdata. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Mar. 2016.

  "Why Georgia College Costs Keep Rising." Creative Loafing Atlanta. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Mar. 2016.

  *****

  Suicide

  Sohel Ali

  It was during the summer vacation I called my friend back home and i came to know that one of our neighbour committed suicide and is taken to hospital in emergency vault. Her name was Dipa and she was one of the brightest student in her college, we never saw her depressed in any reason or in occasion, always cheerful and pos
itive even when her grandparent died she didn't cried a drop, instead she was happy that her grandparents are now in peace.

  Hour after the call I was informed that she didn’t even make it to the hospital, she died in the ambulance. I was more in surprise than in shock, thinking of her committing suicide was more than anyone could have imagined. The reason was unknown until they found a note on her bed, it told the story of her suffering and slowly dying from inside. She was in a relation which was abused horrifyingly by her so called lover and his friends, she never talked with her parents or friends about her suffering even her best friend didn’t knew about it. So gradually no one saw that coming.

  Approximately 41,149 people died in US during 2013, nearly 113 each day or you can say 1 person per 13 min ("Suicide: Facts at a Glance"). Future prediction of “Dr. Catherine Le Gales of WHO (World Health Organisation) says, ‘Suicide is a tragic global public health problem. Worldwide, more people die from suicide than from all homicides and wars combined.’ WHO estimates that suicidal cases will increase to 75% in 2020.” ("Suicide: Facts at a Glance")

  The main problem behind suicide is that people's mind is not transparent. We think people who commit suicide want to die, but research shows “most people who seriously consider suicide do not want to die. Rather, they see suicide as a solution to a problem and a way to end their pain.” (“Suicidal Thoughts or Threats-Topic Overview”). Since we don’t see what’s going on in their mind it becomes very hard to predict suicidal incidents, hence voluntary involvement is required to know the problems behind victim’s mind, problems can only be solved when it’s known.