(THE PICKET)—Fretting about tuition and the cost of higher education is so widespread on college campuses that it could be called the college student’s official pastime.
But, according to a new report from the Washington Post, there could be light at the end of the tunnel.
The amount American students and their families borrowed to pay for higher education dropped 6 percent over the 2014-2015 academic year, with the total of $106 billion falling 14 percent from its 2010-2011 peak of $124 million.
Undergraduates have seen their borrowing drop 20 percent in those four years, but graduate students have not been so fortunate, seeing their borrowing increase by 2 percent.
Despite the recent assurance that there is no imminent tuition hike coming next spring, Shepherd University has seen increases in the recent past.
The school authorized a spring 2013 increase costing in-state students an extra $211 per semester and out-of-state students an extra $352 per semester, bringing the semester totals for only tuition to $3,128 and $7,920 respectively.
Spring 2014 saw a 4.96 percent increase for students both in-state and out-of-state. Following these increases, out-of-state students paid $25,981 in all while in-state students paid a total of $16,875 in all for the 2014-15 academic year.
Most recently, in-state students, courtesy of a fall 2014 decision by the Board of Governors, faced a 3.96 percent tuition increase for the 2015-16 academic year. Out-of-state students, while not affected by the tuition hike, were affected along with West Virginia residents by a 2.19 percent average increase in room expense and a 1.97 percent average increase in the price of meal plans.
Bryant Currence, a 21-year-old senior majoring in political science, said the drop in education expenses could definitely be “an incentive for more people to go to school.” Currence said the drop in expense makes higher education “more affordable for people that might not have thought of college as an option before, [people who were] maybe going into the military [or] straight into the job field before, now have a better opportunity to go to college right off the bat.”
Tyler Giles, a 21-year-old senior majoring in business, took a more practical approach, worrying that a drop in expenses, while good for students, may further an “everybody goes to college” mentality that he believes could devalue a college degree. “If they lower tuition, [everyone will be] able to go to college, and everyone’s not meant to go to college,” Giles said.
Andy Dobrzanski, an 18-year-old senior majoring in computer science, looks at the issue through a business lens. “If you can’t afford [school], the government will pay for it or give you whatever you can’t afford most of the time,” Dobrzanski said. He looked at the school as, although a public institution, a moneymaking enterprise at its core. “If they’re running a business and they’re making a lot of money off of selling a service and they hike up the price… I think that’s smart,” he said.
Graham Scott, a 21-year-old senior majoring in political science, remains skeptical of the whole thing. “Well I’ll believe [lowered fees] when I see [them], but if it were to happen I would obviously be happy,” Scott said.