By Staff Editorial
By Staff Editorial
Decreased financial support for financial aid!
How did that happen?
It must be the federal tax budget revving its way into the policies of schools everywhere.
The federal tax budget is a budget to help budget money in the U.S. for future generations.
Congress has recently cut $12.7 billion to government backed student loan programs.
This was its idea to help control the growth of federal spending over the upcoming five years.
So what does this mean to a college student who receives financial aid from our government?
Less money. Not enough support for students who depend on financial aid means that there might be a decrease in student attendance.
Especially when the student finds prices at college shooting through the roof.
Now most students have jobs to help pay for their college education. Yet most are stuck working minimum wage jobs.
“It’s too expensive for a minimum wage job,” Scarlett Wagner said.
Minimum wage jobs pay about $6.75 an hour. In order to make a decent amount of money a student would have to work at least 40 hours.
Yet, would that even be enough to make up for what the government is taking away in financial support?
“You’d end up having to work double jobs, causing you to stress out and it might get so hard that you may even think about dropping out of school,” Riverside City College student Christine Musharbash said.
That’s just paying for college yet with the decrease of aid it makes things harder for the low income family who may not be able to pay to attend.
“I think that it’s going to affect a lot of people, it may not affect me to bad but it’s going to be harder to get by,” RCC student Sarah Drobnak said.
The budget also cuts into the Pell Grant which provides students with financial support.
The Pell Grant does not have to be paid back like a loan. It is an accumulation of money awarded to students who qualify for it.
The cut takes away $1,050 per student from what was originally proposed to be given out for the Pell Grant.
Now this may not seem like a lot of money but it’s a lot to the people it could go to help pay for their education.
“If you’re a single mom trying to raise a child, financial aid helps you out a lot,” RCC student Kimberly Booker said.
So what would be the consequences when people aren’t able to pay for college? They wouldn’t be able to attend due to the high prices.
“If you take money away from the students then they can’t get an education, a lot of people depend on that money,” said RCC student Miracle Davis.
How about if the government takes money out of some other place instead of peoples financial support for their education?
“It’s kind of wrong to take money away from our education,” RCC student Amanda De Bord said.
Without education where would society be in this day and age?
No one would be able to think for themselves and soon the people would be nothing but mindless drones.
It’s just plain wrong and if President Bush is so eager to take money away from the people who need their education than what is next on his agenda? Could it be you?