I HATE money and if I never had to think about it again, I'd be perfectly happy. Unfortunately last week's announcement that state funding to Virginia's public universities will be cut by 7.5 percent brought my blissful ignorance to a halt. The impending doom of tuition hikes, budget cuts and financial rearrangements got me thinking about the rising cost of college and student debt.
There is no question that college has become more expensive, with tuition fees rising by percentages in the double digits nearly every year, according to Richard Vedder of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity. These rates outpace both the rate of inflation and the rate at which the median wage rises. For the average, middle class family, college is increasingly inaccessible. Most parents and students have no idea how to sort through the numbers on tuition bills or where exactly their activities fees are going. And the bottom line remains: If you don't pay your bills, you don't go to school.
Many pundits and professionals are wont to blame soaring college debt on the capitalist loan sharks and dubious credit card companies. And to an extent they are right. But in this equation there are more factors than that simple analysis accounts for. The perception that college is a right, not a privilege, has fueled fiscal carelessness. Although financial aid makes college accessible to the average student, it too has its problems. As is the case with many large bureaucratic establishments that provide money, financial aid handouts have the potential to erode fiscal responsibility among recipients.
For college students the only solution is also the oldest one -- live within your means. But when financial aid, scholarships, credit cards and loan options are thrown at students whose fiscal maturity may not be fully developed, living within your means falls on deaf ears. This is a hard lesson to learn in an age that entitles young students to their whims and desires..
In the first place, most bright college students believe they are entitled to a four-year residential college experience. Second, most students at four-year colleges believe they have a right to study abroad programs, new clothes, expensive electronics, dinner, drinks and a myriad of other overpriced, expensive goods.
The basic problem remains that when vast amounts of money are granted -- over 134 billion financial aid dollars, according to Collegeboard.com -- and when students borrow large sums of money to be paid off at a later date, people will take the money for granted. Although only a small fraction of University students receive AccessUVa grants, many more students receive other forms of aid. According to Collegeboard.com, an estimated 65 percent of all students receive some form of financial aid. .
Simultaneously, credit cards, which make a piece of plastic equal to money, have diminished fiscal accountability with the convenient principle, "out of sight, out of mind." Consumer debt continues to plague this country, as 20 percent of Americans carry more than $2,000 in credit card debt, according to MSN Money columnist Liz Weston. One must wonder why consumer debt among college students wasn't addressed sooner.
Since the University tends be relatively affordable, especially for in-state students, compared to peer institutions, we tend not to ask why tuition hikes have outpaced the rate of inflation or why it costs more money to live on grounds this year as opposed to last.
Perhaps we should start by asking, for example, why the expensive South Lawn project has gotten underway amidst tuition increases and budget cuts. Or, why the University's vast endowment is not used more effectively to defray tuition costs.
And finally, we might ask ourselves a few questions too. As college students protest and lament out of control spending and fiscal hypocrisy on the national level, we might take note of our own habits and vices and absorb the old, but important lessons of fiscal discipline. And yes, as I soak in this advice myself, that might mean breaking my Caribbean spring break plans.
Christa Byker is a Cavalier Daily Associate Editor. She can be reached at cbyker@cavalierdaily.com.
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