More college affordability articles

Today we have three New York Times articles, a press release from Margaret Spellings (US Secretary of Education), and an article from Alternet.

New York Times:
Colleges Struggle to Preserve Financial Aid
U.S. Buying More Loans to Students
Tough Times Strain Colleges Rich and Poor

Sectretary Spellings' press release:
U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings Takes Steps to Ensure Students Continue to Have Uninterrupted Access to Federal Student Aid

AlterNet article:
College Loan Slavery: Student Debt Is Getting Way Out of Hand
(thanks for the tip Aaron!)

Election night pics

'Got Tuition?' team member, Whitney Ripley, lobbied Congressional leaders on election night in Washington, DC. She asked House Education Committee Chairman George Miller and Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schulz, the Democratic Chief Deputy Whip, to make sure that issues of college affordability and student debt be high on the list of priorities as the 111th Congress convenes in the January 2009.

Representative George Miller, D-CA

Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-FL

Video contest winner announced

Got Tuition has announced the winner of our video contest. Congratulations Ben Redmond!



You can see our announcement page here.
Ben was also on the line for our most recent teleconference, which you can listen to here.
As part of his prize, Ben was asked to blog for the Huffington Post. You can read his entry here.

Concerned students talk to Pennsylvania government

The Council of Higher Education of the Pennsylvania State Board of Education has scheduled a series of five regional public hearings to receive input from college students, recent graduates, parents, higher education officials and others regarding the affordability of post-secondary education in Pennsylvania. With costs to attend college continuing to escalate, combined with relatively flat federal, state and institutional financial aid and increasingly restricted public and private loan markets, the Council of Higher Education seeks to understand how these factors are impacting the ability of those wishing to attend college to afford postsecondary education without taking on worrisome debt burdens that must be repaid after graduation

Below is the testimony of Ashley Lovejoy, who is scheduled to testify today, October 29 at Community College of Allegheny County. She is a student at Edinboro University.

When I decided to give this testimony here today I did not want to be the voice for just myself, but for every individual across the United States who want to continue with a higher education, but can not because the cost is simply not in their budget, or they have to alter their dreams to adjust to college tuition.

When I first decided that I was going to attend college my parents were very excited. I would be the first member from my family to attend and graduate with a degree. Up until my junior year of high school I was going to be a lawyer, I wanted to make a difference in the world. It was after I traveled to Australia as foreign exchange student that my vision for life had changed. To change the world I had to start with the youth of today, they would be tomorrow’s future. When I told my parents that I was no longer going to be attending college majoring in pre-law, instead I would be majoring in elementary/special education. The look of disappointment on my parents’ faces startled me. I was sure that they would be happy for me; I thought that they wanted all of my hopes and dreams to come true. The truth is they did and they still do. My father sat me down at the kitchen table and told me that if this is what I truly wanted in my life then they would support me. He just feared about how much debt that I would be in and the annual salary of a teacher. We would not be receiving any additional assistance for my funding for school because we fell into the middle class grey area. Even though my father was disabled from work and my mother had a full time job to try to make ends meet at home. I would be paying for my college through loans. At this point in my life I was not thinking about any of that and I thought that he was just crazy, by the time that I graduated I would be making more than $30,000.00 and it didn’t make a difference as long as I was happy with my career and changing the lives of children.

Now I sit here today $42,940.72 in debts with still another year of school until I graduate. I have had to take time off from school because I could not afford the difference that the cost of tuition to the amount I was receiving in loans. Now that I am a commuter and living off campus I am able to afford the tuition through loans. Yet, with the starting salary of a teacher averaging around $30,000.00 a year I fear of how I will be able to repay my student loans and pay for my everyday necessities to live. I see how I am struggling now to pay my bills, work a job, and maintain a 3.4 GPA full time in school. I fear that my parents were right about how much I would make as an educator and how it will affect the choices in my life. My dream was to teach in a special education classroom, preferably with autistic children or the severe emotional/behavioral disorder children. Then one day teach a third or fourth grade regular education classroom. Now I am looking at teaching in an inner city school where a district will agree to repay some or my entire student loans off for me. If I am unable to find a school in an inner city that offers this type of bonus, I have decided that I may have to set my dream aside and work in a psychiatric hospital for children. A job that would allow me to use my degree in, and pay back my loans and support myself with the cost of living in today’s economy.

I am just one person sharing my story with you, but there are thousands of students out there in the United States that share this same story. All we want to do is receive an affordable education to make a difference not only in our lives, but for the world, is that too much to ask?

Some more articles

GoDanRiver, the news source for Danville, VA has a great opinion piece written by a student who is struggling to pay for college. Read it here.

The Witchita Eagle (Kansas) has an article about recent grads trying to get by. You can check it out here.

The Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority (MOHELA) is having trouble keeping up with credit crunch. Read about it here.

James Askea, MN

Got tuition recently had the chance to attend the United States Student Association conference and many of the attendees took the time to talk about their debt. This video is from James Askea of Minnesota.



Want to share your story with got tuition? Please e-mail your stories, pictures, and videos to gottuition08@gmail.com.

Gregory Cendana, CA

Got tuition recently had the chance to attend the United States Student Association conference and many of the attendees took the time to talk about their debt. This video is from Gregory Cedana, a recent graduate of UCLA.



Want to share your story with got tuition? Please e-mail your stories, pictures, and videos to gottuition08@gmail.com.

Loan cost increases pinch students

According to the Detroit News, students in Michigan have been hit especially hard by the student lending crisis. At Michigan State University, 98% of federal student loan borrowers participated in a program called Michigan Students First. This state run program refunded all fees when students applied for loans and offered a zero percent interest rate after graduates made three years of on-time loan payments. Unfortunately, with the recent student loan meltdown, this program has been suspended, and thousands of students have been left to try and make ends meet. You can read the complete article here.

Mandy Plucker, NC

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Nicole Hodges-Abbasi, VA

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Daily Kos collects college affordability horror stories

Last week we featured a blog entry from Daily Kos (you can read that entry here) that collected some college debt horror stories. That article was one part of a 14 part series that is now complete. There are some great stories in there detailing the, sometimes extreme, lengths that college students will go to in order to stay afloat. The entire series of articles has now been collected and you can read them all here.

Ryan Westart, IL

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Robbie Morgan, ND

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Students turn to food pantry, welfare, selling blood

Daily Kos has a really great article called "Slow death by strangulation, part 13" that is chronicling some of the college affordability horror stories that are floating around the internet and in local news sources. At the end of the article, you can find links to the rest of this series on college affordability. Take a minute to check out the comments after you're done reading the article, lots of people are posting their own stories there. You can read the complete article here.

Jasmine Williams, TN

Jasmine Williams of Tennessee takes a minute to talk to 'got tuition?'.

Teneile's story

Teneile recently wrote to 'got tuition?' to share her story with us.

My name is Teneile. I recently graduated from college. During my last two years of school, I had to use other means to pay for college other than federal grants and loans. ( private student loans). I thought it was a blessing since I didn't know how I was going to complete my education. Well fast forward to present day( 7 months after graduating). I was contacted by my private loan lender 3 month after graduation and was told my payments would be $600.27 a month. I contacted them and was told that since my loans were not yet in repayment status that I would have to wait till they( loans) were. I waited and on June 1 contacted them (Sallie Mae). I explain to the nice lady that I could not afford to make 600.00 payments each month. She told me to wait till the day after my payment was due and call back and we could look at other options. I called back.... Someone answered the phone and told me there was nothing they could do for me. Once I told him I could not make the high payments, he informed me my only choice was to get a deferment ( which would cost an additional $150.00 every 6 months to delay repaying. I informed them I wanted to start paying it back now but can we reduce it. Long story short. Since that conversation I have attempted to consolidate my private loans ( all from Sallie Mae but the interest rates vary and so do the repayment. I can't consolidate because I now have a delinquent loan from them and don't know what to do. I think that Sallie Mae is being unreasonable in the amount and will not give me a chance.

Want to share your story with got tuition? Please e-mail your stories, pictures, and videos to gottuition08@gmail.com.