FAMU physical therapy student Briana Chilton is upset about the big tuition bump approved during this year’s legislative session and is ready to voice that anger when she casts her next election vote.She won’t be alone.
A February Quinnipiac University poll reported that 78 percent of Floridians opposed the differential tuition policy pushed by the GOP. It will permit every state university to increase tuition by up to 15 percent that goes beyond the rates set in the annual appropriations bill.
“That was a horrible decision that they made, horrible decision, horrible, 'cause I don't think they were really thinking about the big picture,” Chilton told WCTV-6.
The public’s overwhelming disapproval of the differential plan is sure to become a major issue in the 2010 election. Many Democratic leaders are arguing that the proposed tuition increase is additional proof that Republicans are out-of-touch with Floridians who are suffering from the recession.
Chilton says she will have to take out a loan to pay for the differential. She will join the thousands of other FAMU students who face major debt after graduation.
FAMU students leave with almost $30,000 in debt each. That is the highest reported number in the entire State University System. It reflects the fact that most FAMU students come from households that only make about $40,000 per year.
With the new differential, FAMU is likely to stay on top of the SUS’ student debt list for years to come.
The soaring tuition burden “goes on the back of the students," Chilton said.
Students taking on more credit card debt to pay for college
FAMU students drowning in debt
Tuition price hurting FAMU students
More Floridians feeling pain from soaring tuition
Yawn!
ReplyDeleteI you think education is expensive, try ignorance!
Higher education's price tag is getting ridiculous. The poorest kids are starting to get squeezed out of universities altogether.
ReplyDeleteTuition in Florida is $3,500 a year. That's hardly ridiculous it's a bargain!!!!
ReplyDeleteAnd FAMU students are leaving with about $30,000 in debt. That's no bargain at all!
ReplyDeleteThey must be staying in school nearly 10 years, buying cars with rims and designer hand bags and clothes.
ReplyDeleteConsidering that other students leave college with $60,000 of debt, $30,000 sounds an awful lot like a bargain to me.
ReplyDeleteYou do the math, 30 v 60.
Florida's tuition is lowest in the nation.
We as African American families need to plan and make college the top priority in our lives once we have children. WE need to support FAMU on a monthly basis so that they can offer money to students to help offset the cost of attendance. WE need to be the leaders in our own communities to ensure that education is seen as important as sports and cars and clothes and Fu*%ing hoes. WE need to hold these FAKE Chruch "leaders" (Holmes)accountable and demand that they send students to college. WE need to become involved in the political process and stop being pawns in the political process. WE, WE NEED to do this and no one else!!!!!
ReplyDeleteAnd WE the STATE of FLORIDA should pay for the investment to get the return. WE have no qualms about what jail costs.
ReplyDelete5/14/2009 8:03 AM
ReplyDeleteThe average debt for the class of 2007 was $18,482 at public colleges and $23,065 at private colleges.
http://projectonstudentdebt.org/
files/pub/classof2007.pdf
BR,
ReplyDeleteIf this is so, and tuition at FAMU is only $3,500 a year. Then what is FAMU students spending zillions of extra $$$ on to accumulate $30,000 in debt?
Are they sending money home to take care of other sibblings, buying rims or what?
The issue needs more study. There are students who work and send money home. Others might incur more expenses by switching majors or taking more classes than necessary.
ReplyDeleteFAMU also has a large number of out-of-state students. They pay more than $26,000 each year. That's another factor that could be driving the overall average up.
We'll continue to research and write on this issue.
http://www.famu.edu/index.cfm?FinancialAid&CostofAttendance
FAMU in-state students are getting a heck of a great deal as cheap as tuition is. What folks aren't mentioning is the fact that Pell Grants are also increasing next year as well. So trust me the students won't feel the brunt of the hike. Also its not the students responsibility to fund family members when the money furnished by the government it should be used on their educational expenses only. For many of ya'll that wanna cry for the students trust me just take a stroll in the mall after the first disbursement and see who you find up in the malls. Not saying this is what all students do but many of ours do.
ReplyDeleteFAMU's out-of-state enrollment is only about 14%, and the differential tuition doesn't necessarily apply to them.
ReplyDeleteOut-of-state students don't have to be subject to the differential in order to feel the pain from rising tuition.
ReplyDeleteNot EVERYONE is at the Mall, or buying rims and designer clothes.
ReplyDeleteApparently a lot of you fail to factor in local housing costs with that Tuition ... as well as a number of students also incur debt just to maintain their ordinary living expenses - let alone possibly caring for kids &/or relatives - while trying to attend college ... whether full or part time.
Some of y'all can be so silly. Most of these students are hard-working individuals. They aren't at the mall spending a bunch of money. From my experience as a long-time faculty member, I know that there are a great number of students who are in serious financial straits and are barely hanging on. Some students barely have enough money on their Rattler card to print assignments and submit papers that are cartridge-challenged. A number of students must await financial aid to purchase a book. Like Dr. Ammons said not too long ago, the great majority of our students cannot simply pick up the phone and call home and request money. Quite a number of students work two jobs just to make ends meet. (And these are jobs at fast-food establishments and jobs as cashiers, which pay minimum wages.) Of course there are going to be exceptions to the rule, and I know that there are students who spend money unwisely and have a ball at the mall, but this is not what the majority of what the students are doing. These days students are a lot more frugal with their dollars than you might believe. Old-school myths still prevail, however, and those of you who wish to believe that students are steady buying fancy car gear and fashionable clothing, well, nothing will probably cause you to think differently. And certainly not this post.
ReplyDelete12:58pm
ReplyDeleteYour post is very good, if you will, yet as a student, I have to say it is hogwash as a whole. Parents of these students should have been saving and planning. Having 8 children and no college education and working at wal-mart makes no sense. Having 8 children and six baby fathers makes no sense. Not teaching your children by setting an example of how to save for the most important things in life,for example an education, makes no sense. Being on welfare and not working and sitting at home all day and your kids can not spell or write their own name when they begin school, makes no sense. Getting your hair done every week and going to the club and bringing different men around your children every week, makes no sense. And being a shiftless father and having 8 kids from six different women, makes no sense. Dressing like you are 19 and always talking about how many B's you sleep with, makes no sense. Buying Nike and rims with all of your money, makes no sense.
So it would ONLY make sense that if one of those 8 children did make it to college that they would have to work two jobs and would not be able to pick up the phone and call home. So, I thank Dr. Ammons for pointing out the obvious, now the question to the both of you is, what is the answer?
10:52, you appear to blame the students and holding them at fault for something their parents did. A child has no have no control of the irresponsibility of their parents or how their parents have behaved. You have a 'blame-the-victim' attitude. When students come to college, obviously they want to better themselves for the future. They SEE and CLEARLY know from where they come and from whom. It is clearly NOT THEIR FAULT that they have multiple half sisters and brothers and their mother and fathers might have conducted themselves with little regard to the consequences. Just like Bill Cosby, with his holier-than-thou attitude, you do not take into account that just because real adults can be exceedingly poor role models, it doesn't mean that the children of those who have engaged in reckless behavior must suffer because of the behavior of those models. Lucky you, that you are financially able to "call home," I imagine, for additional funds to continue on your academic path. My, my! How fortunate and lucky you are! Lucky you, that you come from a stable home and have, I suppose, parents who are in a financial position to offer you the "best" of everything. Many students, as you very well know, are not that lucky or blessed to come from the upper echelon of "society," a society which, obviously, you greatly detest. You sound very angry and quite bitter, and I suspect that you are. My questions to you are: why are you so bitterly angry, and to whom is this anger and bitterness directed? If you are a student, I suspect that you have inherited this very toxic attitude from your parents. Parents who, obviously, disdain folks who are not perhaps as "fortunate" as you to have been able to plan so expertly over the years and to have "life matters" run so smoothly. Bitter? Yes. Angry? Very much so. Apples do not fall fall from the tree. (This, BTW, is 12:58 PM.)
ReplyDeleteCorrection on my ^^ post: "... a society that you greatly identify with and obviously adore."
ReplyDelete3:33am WOW!
ReplyDeleteI see that you are up late or early however one wishes to look at it.
I would love to address your post, as I find this both entertaining and saddening. First, I am angry and I am pissed off, not bitter. With whom you ask? I stated with whom in my previous post, but I will reiterate with whom and elaborate. I am angry with parents, who set their children up for failure on a daily basis. I am angry with boys who call themselves men because they have 10 kids from 8 different girls and are not Fathers! I am angry with girls who call themselves women because they have 10 kids from 8 different boys and are not Mothers! I am angry because when I work with these children they cry and they too are angry and they are hurt and defeated before they ever get a chance. I am angry when I think about how my great grandfather was beaten for taking a group of Black share croppers to vote. He was left for dead but made it back to our family home. He said, “They didn’t do this because I am Black alone, they did it because of the fear of a Black man who has no fear.” I am angry because these children are broken and ashamed and afraid. I am angry because so many of us have an excuse and none have a plan. I am angry because at FAMU those who make it leave and do not look back. I am angry because if those in positions of power at FAMU cared more about these children, rather than who is Greek then we could change the world as we know it. I am angry sir/madam, because I had to explain why I am angry to someone who should be equally enraged!
Parents and the poor choices they make directly affect their children, this is a fact, but in the Bible it says, as a Child I spoke as a child, but when I became a Man I put away childish things. I do not blame the victim until they are no longer innocent bystanders and become willing participants in the ignorance that is tearing our community apart. At 18 in these United States, you can vote for the President, you can sign legally binding contracts, you can get married, and you can go off to war. Therefore, at 18 when you enter into college you have made a choice and hopefully that is to better yourself. This, my friend, is not obvious as you state. I have sat in classes where 80% of the students have i-pods in their ears, come in late, leave early, talk endlessly (on cell phones and to fellow classmates), disrespecting the professor, classmates and themselves. These are not victims, these are extensions of the home from which they come and choose to continue emulating.
Now, while I made no personal attacks you did. Personal attacks have no place in a civil discourse of important issues such as this. Those attacks only served to highlight the fact that I asked you a direct question. What was/is your plan to address your concerns, and your position on this issue? What was your response? It was to attack and attempt to discredit and dismiss my position based on personal assumptions surmised from a post on a blog?
I would counter that this contributes more to the problem in our community more so than Bill Cosby, who has donated over 50 million dollars to African American higher education; one facet of the problem is African Americans who wish to play the continued role of victim. These African Americans outnumber Bill Cosby a million to one, those who refuse to step up to the role of Leader in the community, Father in the home, Mother in the home, responsible adult in the community. Let me be clear, leadership starts at home and home is not simply a place where one resides it is and should be a community. It takes a village to raise accomplished, successful villagers. So, no I am not an elitist, I am a realist and while I represent/work with the children from these “broken” homes and villages I very rarely see any other African Americans who are doing the same. Yet, when it comes to grandstanding no one does it better than phony, self-serving, hypocrites of which, my good sir/madam, I am not one.
TO 10:28, 5:16 pm i believe that you are "one," indeed. as poster 3:33 AM says, you are blaming students for how their moms and pops have behaved. the students might be an extension of their families, but they are not the fault of their parents. you are a very bitter person and have a stink 'tude.
ReplyDeleteI am a high school teacher at a Florida school where the dominant racial makeup is African American. I teach, counsel, praise, cajole, admonish, plead with, and do an assortment of things to reach my students on a daily basis. What are you doing 5/16/2009 to help remedy all the woes that you list? Probably not a thing, except berating and hating and, obviously, typing. I guess that's "helping."
ReplyDeleteCLARIFICATION ON MY ABOVE POST: it is meant for the 5/16/09 10:28 poster.
ReplyDelete10:58- You are a victim of opression and so are they. Think about it. So back to making sure that we support education affordability for our students.., it's worth the investment.
ReplyDeleteNews flash: Some people make an honest living at what amounts to less than the cost of tuition in a year.
ReplyDeleteApparently people seem to be doing much better than they'd like others to know. Just as you do. lol
ReplyDeleteHere's my two cents:
ReplyDeleteI was an out-of-state student with financial aid, and scholarships- and I worked to support myself. I have 32-thousand dollars worth of student loans. I get really pissed off when I hear someone who pays 25-2700 per semester complaining about tuition, when I paid more like 11-thousand. Now as a working professional in Florida, I understand that the state subsidizes tuition at its public universities for in-state students. Most states do. Personally, I would rather pay my 11-thousand a year to keep the excellent professors and programs that I was able to take advantage of.
And guess what? Tuition goes up, just as everything else does. Deal with it. Florida ranks dead last in the nation when it comes to the cost of tuition-and that is directly tied into the quality of the education system as a whole. So get over it.