As education costs rise nationally, OU is one university of many to up the price.
The cost of higher education is increasing nationwide, and Ohio University students have not been spared the burden of balancing their budgets to attend college.
Student loan debt increased about 6 percent per year from 2008 to 2012, according to the Institute for College Access and Success' Project on Student Debt. The total amount of student debt has reached around $1.2 trillion nationally.
“I will be 62 before my student loan debt is paid off,” said Deborah Thorne, an associate professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology. “I’ll be 62 and three years later I get to retire, and that’s how long I’ll be paying on my student loans.”
During the past 10 years, tuition and fees for public, four-year universities in Ohio has increased an average of about 23 percent, according to the College Board.
Just this year, tuition increased about 3 percent, on average, for public, four-year universities throughout the country.
“I’ve already had two students come in today who are planning to leave OU because they can’t afford to go to school here anymore,” Thorne, who’s also a student adviser, said. “And I can’t in good conscience say ‘well take out more loans and stay.’ ”
With continuously rising prices, students are more frequently taking out loans and in turn are spending less after graduation.
“I don’t like having that money I know I have to pay back,” said Emma Kessler, a sophomore studying biochemistry. “I wish I could just pay it myself now. I don’t want to worry about interest or defaulting on loans.”
Oftentimes, Thorne said, graduates become parents when they are still paying off their own student loans, making it impossible to set money aside for their own children’s educations.
“Now you see this cycle of debt that we’re transferring to our children,” Thorne said. “When you compare and contrast students with and without student loan debt, you see an incredibly disparate life course for each group of students.”
Thorne said increasing tuition costs are at the core of the problem.
OU’s in-state tuition costs are more than a thousand dollars higher than the national average of $9,139 for public, four-year universities, according to national data from the College Board. Ohio’s state average is about $10,100 for public, four-year universities.
In addition, costs for out-of-state students throughout the United States are on average about 2.5 times higher than those for in-state students, according to the College Board.
“You cannot discharge your student loans in bankruptcy,” Thorne said. “Your lender is guaranteed to get your money, and you cannot get out from underneath it.”
Thorne said because of that, the student loan bubble is unable to burst unless something changes.
“It can only burst if people can get rid of those debts,” she said.
The cost of tuition and fees for continuing students at OU will increase by 2 percent for the 2015-16 academic year, which is $211 more than the current price, according to a previous Post report.
Tuition has increased every year since the 2009-10 academic year, but has been limited to a 2 percent or $188 cap by the state, depending on which figure is higher.
“We feel there is a conversation to be had about sticker price and actual price after financial aid is applied,” said Craig Cornell, vice provost for Enrollment Management, in an email. “In fact, we have worked hard through the OHIO Signature Awards Program to increase institutional financial aid awards, which has resulted in an increased tuition discount rate and therefore an increased average financial aid award amount per student, which has led to many significant record enrollments.”
However, with the approval of OU’s guaranteed tuition model, dubbed the “OHIO Guarantee,” which provides a flat tuition rate for four, consecutive years, incoming freshman will see a 5.1 percent increase from the current figure. That is about 1 percent less than the state limit of 6 percent for guaranteed tuition models, according to a previous Post report.
“The OHIO Guarantee was established, in part, to make the entire cost of education at Ohio University be as open and transparent as we could possibly make it,” Cornell said. “We feel this approach will significantly assist our students with being able to effectively budget and prepare for the costs of higher education.”
In an effort to combat rising tuition and student loan debt, U.S. President Barack Obama has proposed two national goals — for community colleges to graduate 5 million more students by 2020 and to have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world.
To achieve that, Obama has suggested making two years of community college free for students who attend school at least half time, maintain a 2.5 GPA and are progressing toward a degree, as presented at his State of the Union address January 20th.
“Keep in mind, 40 percent of our college students choose community college,” Obama said in the address. “Whoever you are, this plan is your chance to graduate ready for the new economy without a load of debt.”
Though costs of the program or how it would be funded have not fully been worked out, the proposal is structured so the federal government would cover three-quarters of the cost, with the rest being doled out to states to pay.
Obama also outlined what he’s calling a “Student Aid Bill of Rights” in order to help protect student loan borrowers for all colleges by including better access to affordable education, resources to pay for school, affordable repayment plans and fair customer service.
Obama, who signed the memorandum in March, will direct government agencies to assist loan borrowers in those processes.
Some said these measures are only the beginning of action needed to prevent student debt from continuing to rise.
“It’s just so unwise and so shortsighted to burden our young people with that much debt,” Thorne said.
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