Balancing the burden: students feel pressure by tuition increases
Students talking and studying at Bovee University Center on Sept. 10.
When Central Michigan Life asked students if they knew why tuition increases, most were unaware of what affects the cost.
“I don’t think it’s fair, because it’s hard to get a job if you don’t have a college education,” said Big Rapids sophomore Molly Schofield. “Since it’s expected for you to get a college education, it’s not fair that they make you spend your whole life paying off something that’s expected of you.”
More than half of CMU’s expenses come from students’ pockets. This is a stark contrast to when tuition only made up 36 percent of the budget in the 2001-02 academic year.
Farrell senior Jenna Hamming said she also struggles with the high cost of textbooks.
“They make some books that you can only buy here for $200 or $300,” Hamming said.
Saginaw junior Allie Faulknor commutes to campus from Saginaw, because the apartments in Mount Pleasant are too expensive, she said. She traded in her car to get one with better gas mileage to make the 40-minute drive.
She said even with the extra money she has to spent on gas and the increase in parking passes, it is still a little cheaper for her to drive to class form Saginaw.
“I didn’t buy a few textbooks this year because I couldn’t afford them,” Faulknor said.
She works full time in Saginaw while taking 15 credit hours.
“I get a little bit of financial aid, not much, because I claimed myself as independent,” she said. “I had to take out about $17,000 in private loans.”
Faulknor said she signed up for classes at CMU in the summer and had to switch over to a community college because she couldn’t afford it.
“They’re even raising tuition of graduate school here, so that’s hard to even think about as an option,” she said.
New Era junior Maddy Brozek said her parents are helping her out with college, and is on a parent plus loan with them. She will have to start paying for loans after she is out of school, but already struggles with covering other costs even though she works in the summer and the school year.
“It’s awful. My roommate and I were just talking about what our energy bill was going to be, and it’s going to end up being my whole paycheck. On top of that, I have to worry about groceries and gas,” Brozek said. “It never ends. When you’re out of school you still have to worry about (debt) in adult life.”
She said sometimes she thinks about how she is going to pay for her own children’s college someday.
“I’m not really informed how my parents are doing it for me right now, so it makes me wonder how I’m going to do it for them,” Brozek said.
Boyne City freshman Marley Denise said the high tuition pricers were uncalled for, especially with the $350,000 base salary and $125,000 media bonus the CMU head football coach makes every year.
“I think that it’s way overpriced. It’s taking advantage (of students),” Denise said. “Students need an education. There are all of the other countries in the world with free college, and then America, and so many students are in debt.
Students also replied to Central Michigan Life on Twitter and shared how the increasing cost of tuition is impacting them:
