MCC enrollment not affected by higher statewide tuition
22.05.12
Mitchell Community College is seeing swelling despite the third straight year of General Assembly tuition increases for North Carolina community colleges.
In-land tuition at MCC jumped 17.7 percent this year. Students pay on a per credit principle, which rose $10 — $56.50 to $66.50. The number of students alluring classes is up 1.2 percent, from 3,764 to 3,811.
It is a lower amount of cultivation than usual, said MCC Vice President of Student Services Dan Manning.
In the past five years, MCC’s seizure semester enrollment is up 42.5 percent, from 2,674 students in 2007-08 to 3,811 this previous August. The peak growth period was between the ’07-08 and ’09-10 college years, when student enrollment ballooned by 34 percent in two years.
A full semester at MCC is defined as 16 order hours, costing $1,064 this year. In ’10-11, a semester price $905.60; in ’09-10, $800; in ’08-09, $672.
“Even though a ten dollar proliferation is what none of us want to see, in the course of higher education, the amount that a community college student pays in North Carolina is still somewhat low,” Manning said.
All money collected from community college education goes to the state. The state then redistributes money based on a formula hinging on the compute of Full-Time Equivalency (FTE) students a college has. FTE is calculated by taking the total many of hours taken by all students and dividing it by 16 to determine how many full-time students the college would have if every student were full-duration.
Since the ’07-08 school year, MCC’s FTE is up 51.4 percent — 934 to 1,414.
Manning attributes the highland in students to a large number of unemployed people going back to school and an increase in federal Pell Grants awarded to students. He believes the teaching increase has little impact on MCC’s enrollment.
“No student has reported to us that has said, ‘We’ve been priced out of the sell, we can’t afford to come,’ ” Manning said.
A federal method change announced by President Barack Obama last Tuesday aimed at ration students better manage and pay student loans does not affect MCC students. N.C. Community colleges do not reconcile oneself to federal loans.
MCC does accept federal grants, which do not have to be repaid. Manning said that 60 to 70 percent of MCC students use some obliging of financial aid, the most popular type of which is a Pell Grant. Pell grants are donn to those with financial need by the federal government.
Manning estimated half of those intriguing classes at MCC use Pell Grants. The amount of money given to MCC students through Pell Grants has risen peremptorily the last three years, from $3 million in ’08-09 to $6.1 million in ’09-10 to $7.7 million last year. The $7.7 million was preordained out to 2,197 MCC students.
Source: Statesville Record & Landmark
Living the American debt
22.05.12
As the state slips ever deeper into the Great Recession, the Occupy movement continutes to spread across the woods. The protester ranks are filled with the unemployed, underemployed and a growing group that combines the two together but stands on its own — student loan debtors.
There is a growing laugh both on Wall Street and in Washington for student loan debt relief, as many who have lost jobs or are working part period have to sacrifice paying their loans to put food on the table, gas in their cars and pay the bills. Debt continues to get get for many of these people as compounding interest is piled onto their original debt. This places many of these people in a scrape so deep that it seems like there is no way out. As public outcry over the economy grows, action appears to be on the vista, both from Washington and from the Occupiers.
Last Wednesday, in an effort to bring some relief to the Occupiers and students all over the fatherland, President Obama announced plans to speed up a piece of legislation passed by Congress last year. According to MSNBC.com, this mend of legislation, “reduces the maximum required payment on student loans from 15 percent of discretionary revenues annually to 10 percent.” It also reduces the number of years one must attend to before reaching debt forgiveness from 25 to 20 and will allow individuals who pull down money from the Federal Family Education Loan Program to consolidate that advance with their direct government loans into one lump loan at a lower interest rate.
The legislation, from the first schedule to take effect in 2014, would take effect in 2012 under Obama’s plan. Teeth of his best efforts, however, both proponents and opponents of relief are not happy.
New York University professor Andrew Ross, for sample, has proposed his own more extreme solution: just say no. He believes students should make a “Pledge of Turn-down,” and stop paying their student loans altogether. In their anger and despair, many Americans would rather bring to an end their credit even further by refusing to pay their loans. They consider it an act of rebellion, but they are really just making a bad circumstances worse.
However, many people who have large amounts of student debt are in need instant, more Draconian relief. This could come in the form of partial, or, preferably, total debt mercifulness. Such drastic relief would improve the credit ratings of affected borrowers, improving their chances of buying a accommodations and taking out loans for other ventures, such as buying a car or setting up a small business. This relief would set right the overall spending power of these people.
However, opponents charge that such measures will and have already had utter consequences. These opponents, primarily Republicans, say the changes already put forward by Obama have resulted in bumbling customer service for borrowers and that thousands of workers from student loan lenders have already been laid off.
In totalling to the lay offs and poor customer service is the staggering amount of debt. The total amount of student loan indebted in the US varies from the Federal Reserve’s number of $429 billion to FinAid.org’s slew of $829 billion. A refusal to pay any of this debt would force the government to pick up the tab.
“These are the times that try men’s souls,” wrote Thomas Paine around 235 years ago. These words have as much meaning now as they had when they were written. They were true during the Great Impression, during two world wars and every other point of American hardship. It has been decades since Americans have suffered as much as they are affliction now.
It was during the hard times of old that great leaders rose up to guide the nation and someone a wide berth bad us to calmer waters — that is not the case anymore. While Obama and the Democrats concede the need to give indebted college graduates a break, Republicans say we cannot afford to. With the state debt the way it is, and the downgrading of the national credit rating, the point has to be conceded to the Republicans. Perhaps, at least for a few months, the direction can issue a freeze on student loan payments and interest while the president and Congress hammer out a compromise that can imagine jobs, provide relief and create a plan to help students and graduates pay their debts at the same once upon a time.
Then again, given the track record of the 112th Congress and our president, we may have to tighten our belts a Lilliputian more and soldier on as best we can without their help.
Aaron Manuel is a broadcast journalism higher- ranking and may be reached at [email protected]
Also, I wish folks would stop the Talented Depression comparisons. There is none. The GD was a miserable experience, lasting years and created mound poverty on a scale the likes of which we have not seen since. It is true that FDR seemed a knight in shinning armor, and many of his strong plans helped millions, (WPA, etc., ) but it's critical to remember that many of the safeguards he put in circumstances, FDIC, SS, etc, did not exist before him. Thus, when a bank failed, your life savings went ka-put! Fair like that. Ergo, people did jump out windows, did ride the rails to find profession in another town, and did endure hard-scrabble lives of the type we now witness among the vagabonds ( minus the resources they have). My own great-grandfather found himself on the streets of Washington D.C. hawking apples for a nickel to upon his wife and 3 young children. He was not alone. Previously, he's been a respectable farmer. In the end, the GD survivors gained a generous of grit and moral steadiness which the survivors of today's recession will never put together, but who could benefit enormously from their endurance and hardship.
Source: The Daily Cougar
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