PA Proposed Budget to Cut 50% of Funding to State Universities

[PhilsFan]

Well, Pennsylvania's new budget is in, and they've gone ahead and cut 50% of the funding to Penn State, Pittsburgh, Temple, and Lincoln.

Pennsylvania budget calls for deep spending cuts - Mar. 8, 2011

Education Slammed In Pa. Budget Cuts

Penn State Live - Devastating appropriation cut advanced for Penn State

Penn State has called the cuts devastating. In his own budget announcement, Governor Corbett said that "The people have no more to give," before subsequently putting $250 million on students at state universities.

No word yet on how much my tuition will go up, but before this, they were saying 15%. After this, probably twice that much. And I already go to the most expensive public university in the country.

 

[Vincent Vega]

Penn State is a partner university of mine. I wonder if it will still work. If I were to study a semester at your university, my tuition fees* would be about $250 to $300, as I just have to pay my home university. I just would have to add accommodation fees. In exchange, students from Penn State would come to my school but pay tuition at their home university.

*Technically, it's not even tuition fees. In the bill included is the semester ticket for public transport, which makes about 65% of the entire sum, and the rest is fees for over services. Berlin doesn't have tuition fees.

 

[PhilsFan]

In purely tuition (without room and board), I pay a shade under $8000 a semester. The tuition increase last year, when we maintained our already meager funding, was 6%. They're going to tell us about the increase in the coming weeks. Conservative estimates before this announcement were 15 to 20 percent. Now it could be way more.

 

[BVS]

You will reap what you sow when you don't value higher education... but a part of me thinks that's what they want.

 

[PhilsFan]

It's actually really simple: students don't contribute to campaigns because they don't have money and students tend not to vote. It's cutting the budget with no political consequences. Sure, you may ruin the finances of some, and force others to not get a degree and ruin their chances at their desired career, but you're not losing nearly as many votes as you would by cutting other things.

Tom Corbett and the GOP would prefer I drop out of school and drive trucks for Marcellus Shale for the next 45 years and then die right at the age of 65.

 

[BVS]

Ah, but their parents do...

No, I think it's more of this new wave of conservatives not only don't value higher education but actually view it as an evil.

 

[PhilsFan]

I pay my own way, which looks increasingly impossible purely because the Republican Party and everyone who votes for it are complete shitheads.

 

[Vincent Vega]

It's not just a US phenomenon, though. Just look at England a few weeks ago. Here in Germany funding has also decreased. Now that public debt is an evil again and Moody's is defining a country's fate, public expenditure is to be driven down.
A mindless consumer does not need higher education. He needs a credit card!

 

[PhilsFan]

He refuses to tax Marcellus Shale, though. He wants us to become the "Texas of natural gas."

Question: where else would they go to dig for natural gas? We have a shit ton of it and most states don't. They have to dig here. Why give it away for free?

 

[kramwest1]

A mindless consumer does not need higher education. He needs a credit card!

It isn't just that college students aren't as politically active as they should be, banks love high tuition rates. Expensive education costs equals more consumer education loans.

This is just pure bullshit when it comes to a public education. Private schools...fine, charge as much as you can, but as I have said before, if public education tuition isn't locked to the inflation rate, public education becomes exclusionary.

I am so sick of this bowing down to banks and corporations in this country.
Go into debt to get ahead. Great.
This type of consumer slavery used to be obvious in company/factory towns where you were paid in company dollars that you then spent in the company store.
Now, it's just called the U.S.A.

 

[Moonlit_Angel]

It isn't just that college students aren't as politically active as they should be, banks love high tuition rates. Expensive education costs equals more consumer education loans.

This is just pure bullshit when it comes to a public education. Private schools...fine, charge as much as you can, but as I have said before, if public education tuition isn't locked to the inflation rate, public education becomes exclusionary.

I am so sick of this bowing down to banks and corporations in this country.
Go into debt to get ahead. Great.
This type of consumer slavery used to be obvious in company/factory towns where you were paid in company dollars that you then spent in the company store.
Now, it's just called the U.S.A.

Fully agreed.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: if you genuinely think the current Republican Party actually gives any sort of a damn about you as a person, you are dreaming.

Angela

 

[Vincent Vega]

It isn't just that college students aren't as politically active as they should be, banks love high tuition rates. Expensive education costs equals more consumer education loans.

This is just pure bullshit when it comes to a public education. Private schools...fine, charge as much as you can, but as I have said before, if public education tuition isn't locked to the inflation rate, public education becomes exclusionary.

I am so sick of this bowing down to banks and corporations in this country.
Go into debt to get ahead. Great.
This type of consumer slavery used to be obvious in company/factory towns where you were paid in company dollars that you then spent in the company store.
Now, it's just called the U.S.A.

That's certainly another factor. Credit creates money. You can't start early enough to go into debts you will take years to recover from.

 

[kramwest1]

That's certainly another factor. Credit creates money. You can't start early enough to go into debts you will take years to recover from.

Exactly.

To the extreme end: How hard is it to envision a country where there is no contraception/abortion and no affordable health care coverage, so at birth you are saddled with the debt of your hospital bill, and it only gets worse from there?

Already, we are seeing college graduates living with their parents even though they have a job in their field, but it doesn't pay enough to cover their tuition debt. Yes, a bad choice to pay too much for a degree in a low paying field, but seriously, this will get worse.

 

[Liesje]

It's interesting (in a sad way) living in an area with 15% unemployment and working for a college that charges over $25,000 a year.

What really bothers me is that it seems every group of people in this country have received bailouts or aid or handouts of some sort except for the hard working middle class with student debt (because even the public universities are costing nearly $10K/yr). Bazillionaire bank CEOs get bailed out, people who have purchased homes way above what they can afford get bailed out, people who value hard work and good education but don't have mommy and daddy's pocket book to foot their tuition bill get ignored.

 

[Moonlit_Angel]

What really bothers me is that it seems every group of people in this country have received bailouts or aid or handouts of some sort except for the hard working middle class with student debt (because even the public universities are costing nearly $10K/yr). Bazillionaire bank CEOs get bailed out, people who have purchased homes way above what they can afford get bailed out, people who value hard work and good education but don't have mommy and daddy's pocket book to foot their tuition bill get ignored.

Yes. My mom's been saying that exact thing for some time now: "Where's our bailout? Why, when we fall on hard times, do people say, 'Well, tough shit, deal with it'?"

Angela

 

[kramwest1]

Yes. My mom's been saying that exact thing for some time now: "Where's our bailout? Why, when we fall on hard times, do people say, 'Well, tough shit, deal with it'?"

Angela

Yup. The right and access to an affordable public education used to be an equalizer for the middle/lower class. It seems to be going away.

 

[PhilsFan]

(because even the public universities are costing nearly $10K/yr).

I would LOVE to go to a public university that charged less than $10,000 a year.

 

[LuckyNumber7]

Yay Public Education reform!!

ouch, public schools costing 10K a year? Come to Florida, it's about $4,000 a year and then after bright futures (assuming you get it, everyone is eligible if you went to HS here) it's around $600.

 

[Liesje]

I would LOVE to go to a public university that charged less than $10,000 a year.

I just kinda threw that out there but I'm glad (well, not really...) to know that I wasn't overestimating the cost. I think my sister pays about $5000 per semester but I know her school is cheap compared to MSU and UofM.

 

[PhilsFan]

I pay in total $24,000 per year, before this budget cut.