An Ounce of Prevention is Worth a Pound of Cure – Unless You’re in D.C.

This November, the House of Representatives approved a budget that will cut $50 billion in federal spending to help offset the deficit created by the government’s unwillingness to prevent the hurricane disasters in the south, and whose mistakes have now cost the government tens of billions of dollars more than if they had just fixed the problem in the first place. Hurricane relief efforts had, as of September 12, reached just over $60 billion and that number is expected to climb at least a high as $130 billion and could even reach $200 billion. Louisiana, well before the threat of Hurricane Katrina was even present, requested that $3-5 billion be spend to build up the levees to survive the intense impact of a category five hurricane. With their requests ignored year after year, the government now finds themselves in a hole they cannot dig themselves out of – and wishing they had just fixed the levees in the first place.So where is all this money going to come from? A little bit over a fifth of that $50 billion, $14.3 billion to be exact, is going to be cut from federal student financial aid programs. If this bill passes, college students, will graduate $6,000 deeper in the hole. Federal aid goes out to more than five million college students each year in the form of the federal Pell Grant program, the federal supplemental educational opportunity grants (SEOG), federal work study programs, federal Perkins loan programs, leveraging educational assistance partnerships (LEAP), the TRIO program and the federal subsidized loan programs. Even without this drastic budget cut, it has been harder and harder for college students to make ends meet financially. The maximum Pell Grant, worth $4,050, is worth fourteen percent less in constant dollars since 1975. Inflation and all-around higher costs are making college, every day, more and more out of reach for even students of average household incomes. While Pell grants, which go to the neediest students, are not in danger of being eliminated, other federally based aid programs are in danger of being revoked completely with little or no plans to replace them to their fullest capacity.So how does this break down to you, a Plymouth State student? Pell grants for some Plymouth State students would initially increase, but that would result in more than 64 students losing their Pell Grants entirely. Furthermore, thousands of dollars that will be lost to Plymouth State students in federal aid that will just have been cut entirely. So what is being done to try and prevent this from happening? The Student Senate has introduced Resolution Nine, a resolution calling to both senators in New Hampshire, Jeb Bradley (R) and Charles Bass (R) to vote against the bill and to stop the raid on student aid, taking away money that is already so few and far between for most college students. There are several websites that have already filled out letters to senators; all that needs to be done is print it out and sent it. Stand up and fight for what we as college students fight so hard for. Money does not grow on trees, regardless of what Washington thinks. It is already hard enough to afford to pay for college, do not sit back and let the senators that you elected to represent your thoughts vote “yes” to a bill that intends to make it even more difficult. We are the only ones who stand to lose anything here – the senators have nothing to lose. They will not feel the burden of rising interest costs, they will not have to delay buying a house or a car because they are still in too much debt from their student loans, they do not have to worry about how they are going to afford graduate school because of their undergraduate loans. The only people that stand to lose anything here are us – you. me and the person reading The Clock next to you. Read the resolution, come to a Senate meeting, write a letter to your senator, come help us beat this bill and keep the student financial aid intact. There is no reason that today’s college students should have to pay for the government’s mistakes.