Tuesday, March 30, 2010

The Quad News The Looting of America: We’re Students, Not Banks

The Quad News

EDITOR SPEAKS OUT

The Looting of America: We’re Students, Not Banks

By Hillary Federico

federico.quadnews@gmail.com

Hillary Federico

Matt Andrew/The Quad News

Classroom furloughs and 30 percent tuition hikes in California. Extreme budget cuts in South Carolina, Georgia, and Illinois. Recent headlines about college cost are frightening. Years ago, many of us probably took a college degree for granted: you attended high school, got good grades, and applied to the best universities with hopes that a loan, scholarship or financial aid package would be made readily available to you. However, with the current economic crisis weighing heavily on state and government budgets across the nation, financial "reliability" could eventually force thousands of U.S. students to put off college temporarily, or actually drop out altogether.

For the past month, news of Democratic Congressional leaders