UT Raises Tuition

Students with the dream to go to college have to face lots of difficult challenges. Among those challenges are high tuition charges at universities such as the University of Texas at Austin. But what can these students do. They could, of course, apply for financial aid, but that does not necessarily mean that they will receive any aid. This is due to the fact that students or their families make too much money to qualify for financial aid, but just enough to pay tuition and all other school related expenses, not to mention other necessary expenses. More than half of the students at UT at Austin fall in this "too wealthy for financial aid, yet barely able to pay" category. So how is the fact that UT has proposed to raise tuition by more than 15% in two years explainable??? This proposal would raise tuition from about $3,700 to $4,500. This is a huge increase! Not only will this be a problem for current students, but also for the university. Maybe they have not thought of the possibility that with this increase in effect, their enrollment rate will decrease because students just will not be able to pay. And yet Texas has the goal to increase higher education enrollment substantially throughout the years. With this tuition increase, who knows if Texas will actually reach its goal. After watching UT at Austin increase tuition, many more universities will probably do the same and the tuition increase will not only become an Austin issue, but a Texas issue. Anyways, the point here is not whether Texas will be able to increase tuition. The concern is how students will manage to pay almost $2,000 extra per year. It is difficult enough for students and their families as it is. Why does UT need more money anyway? They have around 50,000 students already paying them what they want. Even if UT really needs the money, there are other ways to get it other than raising tuition. To me, this tuition increase is just a scheme and should not take place.

Comment on "To the Younger Demographic"

Luciana, I totally agree with you. I also believe that teens should be informed of our world and our government, especially since they are a part of it. Knowing about the government and how it works is very important because it is what informs all citizens/residents of their rights. A person who knows nothing about government could be in a difficult situation if ever faced with a problem of law and order. This is true especially for teenagers because since we are considered less knowledgeable, anyone could find it simple to do something to us and get away with it. This is NOT how it should be! Therefore it is very important for teenagers to be informed. Knowing about government does make anyone a geek or nerd, on the contrary, it makes people knowledgeable and informed citizens.

Reliable Judges?

When we Americans have conflicts with other people or someone breaks the law, who do we turn to??? To the courts, of course. That means that we trust the courts to handle our problems because they are supposed to be "perfect." The truth is that they are NOT! They are not even always reliable. But we cannot blame the court, the ones incharge and responsible are the Judges. A corrupt case in the hand is the recent overturn of an appeal by a death row inmate. On September 25, 2007 Justice Sharon Keller decided to overturn an appeal by a Texas' death row inmate. Days later, two other executions were put on hold because of an appeal similar to the one Keller overturned. Why did she do this? She says that she did not know about any technical difficulties that the inmate's lawyers were having and that she did not think it was anything serious. It turns out to be that Keller was informed of the technical problems and that she made the decision without commenting any of the other justices on the case. We Americans rely on Judges to serve justice for us all day, every day, not only from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. like Keller decided to on September 25. The worst part of all this is that WE the people choose who the judges will be. What we need to do in order to prevent incidences and people like Keller is to actually go out there and vote for those who we think will righteously serve us and make the right choices.