By: Anna Shamory Summarization
The deliberation, College Tuition: Can You Pay for a Brighter Future? focused on three different approaches to the issue. The event started off when those who attended were asked to stand up if they wanted to buy a car, house, have their own credit card, and more after they got out of college. Most, if not all, stood up. Then reality was brought up, that included talk about high rates of student debt and that, of course, in a perfect world college would be not cost. After more introduction and personal stake discussion, we transferred into approach one, still in a large group. First of all, approach one centered on how the government could help with college tuition, through ideas such as greater use of taxation, economic price ceilings, and change towards a more universal system for public college tuition. The idea of the government regulating more tax dollars towards education (and therefore tuition prices), instead of spending almost half their budget on military costs was discussed. We also touched on how FAFSA unequally awards money to students, underestimating how much they/their parents can afford to pay. Our last major point we weighed was how our American attitude against socialistic approaches to government hinders our ability to provide free community college or price ceilings for student college materials. Next, we broke up into three smaller groups for approach two, students and family. We conversed about our different experiences with scholarships, and in the end how it is often difficult to find or win enough to cover college expenses. A solution we came up with is for high schools to have a class on scholarships and help students to learn about resources earlier. Also, we agreed that AP and dual-enrollment courses are a great way to earn credits and save money. But low income students may have trouble paying the money for the exams/other expenses, so there should be reduced prices. For the third approach, university, we debated reducing gen. ed. requirements, have more accelerated degree programs, and prioritize where tuition money goes towards. Specifically, about Penn State, we discussed various Integrated Undergraduate/Graduate (IUG) programs that allow students to get advanced degrees quicker and cheaper. We agreed that more students should take advantage of said programs. We also thought the 2+2 Penn State programs would allow students to save money at a more community college level before going to University Park. The issue was that there is a stigma of going to a branch campus first, but in the end fear of debt should take precedence over pride. Analysis/Reflection In regards to how the event itself was run, I learned valuable insight for future moderating. Structure-wise, they started their first approach as one large group, and the conversation was more stop and go than a flow of conversation. We then broke into smaller groups for the last two approaches, which stimulated much better conversation. I definitely learned that more intimate groups make people feel more comfortable in discussing sensitive/controversial issues. Also, the format of two moderators per group allowed them to bounce ideas off each other, and think of effective questions. If I were to moderate again I believe having a co-moderator is helpful. Lastly, their mix of more open-ended questions and specific questions impacted the conversation well in that we could bring in new ideas, as well as those outlined in the issue map. The key issues discussed I believe were easier to talk about since college tuition is a topic directly relevant to my life as a paying college student. The approaches stimulated good conversation, but as a busy college student, in reality, the approach of students and family is the one I could make a change for. I can put it on myself and my family to search more diligently for scholarships or other ways to raise money. Structural changes of the government or university are more complex to discuss as the economic implications go beyond typical knowledge.
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