Yes, this is most certainly an issue that has been beaten to death, but now its my turn to punch the dead horse a few times! Basically, UNIVERSITY IS TOO GODDAMN EXPENSIVE!!
This particular bout of anger at my fine scholarly institution (University of Guelph for those that don't know and car) comes from trying to purchase my textbooks this semester. Thus far i have already dropped 275 dollars of books, i am less than half-way to buying all the required books for my classes, seriously i calculated how much it would be in total and its going to be between 550 and 600 dollars. 600 dollars just for textbooks, granted I am taking a 6th course with would add more money, BUT one of my courses is online, with NO textbooks. My problem is when a prof just kind of arbitrarily assigns multiple textbooks for us to purchase, it makes sense that they need to do this if the appropriate info is in multiple texts, than multiple texts are necessary, i get it, that doesn't mean it sucks any less!
In my situation, as a person who is pretty much putting himself through college, multiple textbooks is the BANE of the beginning of the semester. I have one prof who it putting his texts on course reserve, he assigned two but told us in class that it is a very expensive set to purchase for those who are monetarily challenged (myself included) so he would make it available to us through the library, which is free thankfully. He is a nice guy, assigning a 160$ book set but making it available free, awesome, i appreciate that. Another prof assigned two books, one of them is used for 1 out of the 12 weeks of class, seriously, i am spending an extra 50 bux on a book for one fucking week, this is annoying because the regular text is 140$ ALONE!!! That is a ridiculously expensive book and its like 300 pages only, its a rip-off.
Even though I am basically putting myself through school, should i need to (and i most definitely will) i can call my parents and ask for help, which i have done so I am okay, but in a time when most people consider a University degree basically a necessity for a good career aren't some people just getting screwed left right an center? When University is this expensive for books alone what about tuition, well let's see, i am in a regular Bachelor of Arts program, majoring in History, so i have a fairly cheap tuition basically only paying for my classes, i don't have any lab fee's or fun costs like that. My tuition all said and done is $3 100, that's expensive, but it could be worse. My tuition 2 years ago in my first year of Uni was 2900, that is a 200 dollar raise in two years at this rate its going to be ridiculous....fast.
OH WAIT, it already is ridiculous. A good friend of mine is an Engineer at the University of Guelph, they pay just over 4000 dollars or so (not sure exact amount but between 4000 and 4500), that is more than a grand more than my tuition, that's expensive but makes sense because they pay for the use of labs and some pretty fun high-tech equipment. My same friends brother who is an Engineer in his first year THIS YEAR, so same damn program as my first friend but this year, is paying over 5000 dollars, he is paying over a grand more than my first friend (over 2000 more than me) yet he is doing EXACTLY the same thing as friend 1. He is getting FUCKED, wanna know whats worse? Right now at UofG they are renovating a bunch of Engineering buildings, this means that friend 1's brother is paying way more than friend 1 and not getting all the access to the fun toys that Friend 1 had in their first year.
Look, my point is that Post-Secondary school has become ridiculous, and this is Canada, lets not even get into how bad the United States is. As it stands right now, after completing 2.5 years of school (starting my other .5 to bring it to an even 3) i am 11 000 dollars in debt, but everything is pretty much paid off right now, in my opinion I am in a pretty good position for finishing up school with debt, but not a ridiculous amount of debt! That being said i will not be able to pay for next year with my saved money as it currently stands, i WILL need another line of credit from the bank, hopefully just a 7000 dollar line of credit but that still brings my debt up to almost 20 000 dollars. (I'm guessing it will be 20 000 after books and shit).
I feel like once University is finished for me i will be in pretty good standing, i will have finished 4 years of school and made off with only 20 000 dollars in debt to the bank, could be SO much worse!!!!!! If you look at the flip-side one last time, I have been VERY lucky, with my parents, my jobs, my saving (and i am a terrible saver, i like spending money on shit lol) i have been able to make it through 3 years with only 11 000 in debt to the bank, I guarantee within 10 minutes of canvassing the school you will find someone who is much worse off than I am. With my degree too (i consider it a trivia degree) i truly feel like i am spending all of this money just to essentially pay for a degree from the school. Its a bit depressing to think of it like that but its true, and it truly fucking sucks!
Basically, rising University costs suck ass, but there is not much we can do about it, if you want to be considered "a step above" because you have a University degree go right ahead, sadly however you will find yourself waist-deep in debt and with a degree that SO many people also have. University is fun, but damned expensive and unless you have an elderly benefactor to bankroll your education or decide to turn tricks in order to pay your way through schooling, i truly wish you Good Luck. If you can come out of your schooling without debt i highly commend you, it is difficult but it definitely can be done!!!
Anyways, i have rambled on enough! Have a good week peoples and don't let the big bearded dude in the sky get you down!!!
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