Last week, many Texas Tech students received a letter that could seriously impact their future academic funding. The Tech Federal Credit Union announced it would no longer be participating in the Federal Family Education Loan Program, which issues out almost $60 billion in student loans each year.
The move is part of a bigger program President Barack Obama helped push into law earlier this year redirecting funding from FFELP to the Federal Direct Student Loan Program. In short, the act is designed to give federal student aid directly to students instead of through banks and credit unions, saving Americans almost $6 billion in premiums each year.
However, these shifting loan structures only highlight a bigger issue involving the impact of changing costs on students’ abilities to get loans and financial aid.
Tech experiences a 5 percent to 7 percent tuition and fee increase each year. As students, these increases are entirely necessary. Increasing professor’s salaries, building recruiting and outreach programs, maintaining facilities and embarking on new infrastructure projects throughout the campus are a vital step in ensuring Tech maintains itself on a national level while enhancing the value of our degrees.
Unfortunately though, it becomes difficult for students to maintain their loans and financial aid from year to year with these changing costs. This past year, students were hit harder than ever, with a full 10 percent tuition increase, costing students an additional $700 this year.
It doesn’t have to be this difficult, though. Instead of constantly having to deal with an all new tuition and fee structure each year, I propose a fixed, unchangeable structure that is locked in from the minute a student steps on campus. Although school administrators have little likelihood of ever enacting such a proposal, changing the current process that potentially drops a student from his or her classes simply because of the failure to recognize a simple $20 fee increase would be wise.
In 2004, George Washington University announced a fixed price tuition structure, locking in a flat rate for a students’ entire tenure on campus. Since then, more than 30 universities nationwide have adopted such structures. Fellow Big 12 School University of Kansas introduced such a plan this year.
Even though George Washington University has the highest tuition rate in the country, bordering about $50,000 each year according to www.collegedata.com, the adjusted rate accounts for inflation, which GWU claims is guaranteed to be more than the average four-year increase.
For Tech though, the plan doesn’t need to be about helping college be more affordable.
Rather, there needs to be an easier way for students to receive the appropriate amount of loan and aid money. Its ludicrous to think that students don’t even know how much money to allocate toward college until months before school starts.
However, Tech could certainly incorporate the necessary hikes into a four or five year plan to be signed by students when they enter campus. Not only would this make budget planning much easier for families struggling to find ways to afford the high cost of college, but would provide incentive for students to graduate within the four or five year period when the plan expires.
Under the newly expanded Federal Direct Program, the university would be able to allocate the exact amount of federal loans and aid students qualify for within each individual plan.
This would certainly be a step above the current plan, which requires students to seek out independent loans that issue federal student loans, saving students ease and money.
There certainly doesn’t seem to be any obvious drawbacks to such a plan, though convincing school officials to market an artificially inflated tuition rate is no easy task. But speaking from experience, I think Tech students deserve a break from the current plan.
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