Saving is the only secret to successfully
surviving tuition increases

Students from across the state of Minnesota gathered at the Capitol to show their support for a bill that would place a freeze on tuition increases. As NCC students, not one of us should argue against such a bill. At the same time, some of the signage and messages being sent by the student rally-goers seemed to misrepresent the real matter.
Several students carried a mock ball and chain with them, to express the burden they are buckled to. One student even referred to the issue as one of “injustice.”
Maybe it is because I am one of those people who so many students have a predisposed hatred of because my parents are helping me pay for college (they also bought me a $150 car, I’m so spoiled, believe me), but I hardly think this issue equates to an injustice. My perspective may also be skewed by attending a two-year school with one of the lowest tuition rates in the Metro.
There is no law that requires anyone to go to college, and there are no laws about how to finance doing so. Certainly student loans are an unfavorable option and unfortunately some students’ economic reality dictates their choice.
The soaring cost of tuition is by no means a good thing, but the price of fuel at the pump, property taxes and even produce, continue to steadily rise as well. The rate at which tuition is increasing is certainly alarming but the value of having a degree is also climbing alongside it. Regardless of the disgusting expense involved, attending an institution of higher learning is a privilege.
While some students are saddled with stratospheric debt at the end of their education, there are also people who never even had the chance to get that debt.
The 35 year old man flipping my arguably all-beef-patty at the fast food joint on the corner doesn’t have a student loan to pay off, yet I can’t help but feel like very few students anywhere would jump at the chance to trade places with him.
The great, if a little academic and dry, perspective of John Stuart Mill holds that we not only are aware of the suffering being bestowed upon us, but we willingly walked into it, knowing that the payoff at the end will be, hopefully, well worth the effort.
If the tuition is not to the liking of a student, they can walk away at any point they so choose. Attending a prestigious university is also a choice students make, and in doing so should understand that it will be more costly. That may have something to do with why myself, and so many others, opt to begin their college education at a school like NCC.
The tuition here is relatively reasonable at the least, and the quality of instruction is up to par. Despite the sometimes downtrodden reputation of NCC, there is no arguing the value offered here. Those who would rather pay too much money and gripe about it can transfer somewhere else.
In the United States in particular, we seem to forget what we really have in the way of rights. There are probably countries that have fewer universities than the state of Minnesota alone.
Maybe I am getting conservative as I get older, but I find it quite distasteful to call tuition increases an injustice.
Slavery is injustice. War is injustice. The opportunity to go to college is not an injustice, regardless of the costs. We have to remember that education is another freedom in this country. And, like all of the freedoms protected in the Constitution, it is still conditional.
It is almost laughable to listen to students gripe about their tuition costs as they walk towards a brand new car sitting in the parking lot. Allocate your funds where you will, but don’t cry injustice when the payment on that Audi puts the bank account in the red.
Then again, just as many students live as thriftily as possible and still struggle to cover the many expenses facing college students. Even so, too many students create more expenses in their lives and would rather whine about the ones that will be most beneficial in the long term. I know plenty of people who choose to pay rent or drive a premier automobile, but those things are rarely if ever the subject of their complaints.
The real lesson to be learned is the value of saving and foresight, even if it is a little late to use that knowledge in funding one’s education. Start pilfering away money now because loan payments or not, there are plenty more expenses ahead.

Editor-in-Chief
Richard Johnson