Oklahoma Students Get Break

Many Oklahoma college students will get a break on tuition this coming school year, but student loan debt continues to be a problem.

Those colleges, which have announced they are freezing tuition for this coming school year, include the University of Oklahoma, Oklahoma State University, the University of Central Oklahoma, Southwestern State University, Northwestern State University, Oklahoma City Community College and Langston University.

The freeze comes after consistent tuition hikes over the last few years. Those students who have been in college the last four or five years have been hit especially hard. Higher education administrators recognized the problem and gave students a break. The recession had to be a contributing factor as well. Higher education was given a slight increase in funding this coming fiscal year because of federal stimulus money.

But Oklahoma colleges will probably need to raise tuition the following year unless the state appropriates more money for higher education. This seems unlikely given declining state revenues in recent months.

Another issue facing a new generation of students is student loan debt. Neal P. McClusky, who works for the Cato Institute, writes in The York Times:

According to inflation-adjusted College Board data, in the 1990-91 school year the average, full-time-equivalent undergraduate received $2,640 in grant aid and $1,548 in inexpensive federal loans. By 2007-08, the former had risen to $4,656 and the latter to $3,650.

As the cost of college goes up, so do the loan amounts. It’s not uncommon for students to graduate with $30,000 or more of loan debt. These former students then face financial security issues unless they go into a high-paying profession.

There has to be a solution to this problem. How can the culture make college affordable for everyone, not just the rich, and prevent students from assuming staggering debt?

Amy Benfer, writing in Salon.com, frames the issue this way:

…Everyone benefits when the population of a university, especially the best ones in the nation, are made up of the kids who are there because they earned their place based on their own work, not the education or income of their parents. This is democracy 101, folks. You'd think that the pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps conservatives would be the first ones to concede that giving smart kids the means to join the educated class is the swiftest route out of poverty. What's more, universities are the place where, hopefully, future politicians, lawyers, writers, activists, judges, journalists, social workers and everyone else who will grow up to be in a position to make policy and interpret culture for everyone else learn the way the world works. And it sure as hell helps the discussion in any poly-sci or literature or American studies class if you have members of the group in question right there next to you, debating as your equal.