The article "Tuition going up at ACC, could go higher" posted by Ralph K.M. Haurwitz on Tuesday April 5, 2011 is about Austin Community College chairman Barbara Mink approving the raising of Austin Community College tuition. They are raising the tuition by 5 dollars a credit hour. I think this is bad because not only is Austin Community College going through hard times but us, the students are also going through the same thing. It won't hurt me much because I am only taking one class. I think that this will affect full time students a lot financially because not only will they have to pay more for school but they will also have to pay their increased living expenses such as transportation and housing. This raise in tuition might force full time students to take less courses in the following year in order to pay their other expenses. The article also said that it will also raise the tuition again in the following year. So this only means that it can only get worse for full time students.
I think that Austin Community College is trying hard not to raise the tuition by cutting back on expensive equipment and technology but they need to find a way to lower the tuition or keep it the way it is. This makes it harder for people to stay in school when they keep on raising the tuition because a lot of people don't live near the campus and have to drive a long way to get there and this might be tough to handle since the gas prices keep getting higher.
Re: Higher Tuition Blog
ReplyDeleteEverything is big in Texas, big is better, but Texas is facing a $15 billion revenue shortfall, and few corners of state government were spared in the draft proposal for the next two years. In Alfonso commentary blog, “Higher Tuition,” he talks about ACC raising the tuition by $5 a credit hour, and it will also raise the tuition again in the following year. After reading this blog, I do strongly believe what writer is trying to portray. I m a full time student in ACC and I know, if ACC raised the tuition by $5 a credit, it going to affects every students including myself. ACC is one of the affordable and reliable colleges for getting Associates degree, Continuing education and transferring to four-year Universities. The primary concern in this article is that ACC might raised their tuition in near future, that mean lots of student going to drop out, since Texas legislature already decided to cut off the federal aid by $4.7 billion. We go to community college, because the classes are lot cheaper than University.
I strongly believe cutting costs by spending less on capital equipment and technology, hiring fewer adjunct faculty members may be one way not to raise tuition. Probably ACC has to make classes larger, and some courses may not be offers as many classes during the semester. Students most likely end up paying higher tuition costs.
In this commentary, the writer has clearly stated the fact that ACC is going to raise the tuition by $5 per credit hour and would raising it again by the following year. The writer analyzed the outcomes of such decision and why such action would cause such outcomes. However it would be nice to see the writer to have some input about the reasons why ACC is going to raise the tuition.
ReplyDeleteI strongly agree with the author that the increase of tuition would bring more financial burden to the full time students, especially at current time. However, all we can blame on is the inflation.
I also agree with the writer’s opinion that just cutting back on expensive equipment and technology should not be the only choice.
My personal opinion, the amount of increased tuition would be $60-$75 each semester, that is how much a tank of gasoline would cost today. What ACC need to do is report the reasons of such increase and not to cut back on the hardware quality, this include keeping the qualified professor and hire suitable ones. In this way, people would still enroll in ACC, and more enrollment means more money coming in. After all, it is still way more affordable than 4-year colleges.
Increase of tuition would happen for many reasons. The writer had made a few very valid points of the consequences the increase would cause and I, again, agree.