<p>I recently wrote this for my school's newspaper but it hasn't gone to editors or print yet. Any thoughts? Agree, Disagree? I figured here would be a good focus group of people from all walks of life. </p>
<p>As the financial decisions of colleges loom over the students of Paschal, instead of choosing schools based on where they want to attend, we, the students, are being forced into the schools that offer us the most money, not necessarily the best education. While this is not a new phenomenon, my parents experienced it, as well as their parents; it has become increasingly worse during the past few years and especially now that the economy has taken a turn for the worse. In order to recover their oh-so-important endowments that were lost in the stock market, schools have yet again hiked tuition. For example the average public school now costs 7% more than it did last year at this time, making college even less affordable for the already struggling classes.</p>
<p>However, there is hope for some, but not all. Many top tier schools have begun to offer to cover 100% of an applicants demonstrated financial need. Now, for those accelerated students who were worried about paying for college, this is a viable option. But it begs the question, what is demonstrated need? According to the Collegeboard and the FAFSA, if you make below a magic number you are needy, and therefore unable to pay for college, at least most of it. However for the incredible amount of middle class families out there, who arent rich enough to afford a 45,000 dollar price tag to a school like Richmond, but are too successful to qualify for aid, we are up the proverbial creek. </p>
<p>Admissions counselors, parents, and teachers all say there are other ways to pay for college and to some extent they are correct. There are third party scholarships some may qualify for. I have spent countless hours scouring Google desperately looking for the homerun scholarship that will help me pay for what amounts to the most important four years of my life. And to be honest, there were a few that looked promising, but if you read the fine print, applicants must show demonstrated financial need. There it is again. The truly lucky students have found scholarships that are need blind but those are few and far between and often involve weeks of preparation and essay writing.
When I was growing up my parents loved me and my father did well in his job as a banker. And when I began looking at colleges they encouraged me to look for schools that interested me and I genuinely wanted to go to. I foolishly believed that the world would right itself and that some kind of financial fairy would bestow to my parents the 200,000 dollars needed for my college studies. Now, faced with the reality of a plummeting stock market, rising tuition, shrinking university funds and the relative lack of substantial 3rd party scholarships; I just want to give up and go to the school not of my dreams, like my counselors, teachers, and parents told me about, but to the one that offers the most money, probably the Crimson Tide.</p>
<p>Maybe our new President and his generous financial programs will divert some monies from some obscure fund and toss the middle class a bone, but that remains to be seen. I feel that after working hard my entire high school career, maintaining a 4.0 at one of the hardest schools in state, that I shouldnt be punished and not allowed to attend the school of my dreams because my parents have a moderate savings account and money in the stock market. The upper class can for the most part afford a college education, the lower class can usually show demonstrated need, but the middle class is supposed to liquidate their house, their stock portfolios, and sell their first born to send their kids to university.</p>