As Plymouth State students work on creating their schedule for next semester, we find ourselves forever frustrated by the limitations that suppress us as we attempt to finish our education. Seventeen credits a semester – and the brutal punishment of going over that sacred number? $480 per credit for out of state students – in-state students do not fare much better; they reach into their pockets to produce $220 a credit. How does that motivate anyone to create that “dare to be great” situation when they know it will cost them an arm and a leg?
As you set up your schedule for any semester, it rarely works out to that perfect number of seventeen. Each major is different, and the combination of classes one must take in any given semester continually reek havoc on trying to come up with that magic number. Perhaps the most frustrating is when you have one class that puts you at eighteen credits – that one class is one less you would have to take in another semester, but is it worth the money you will pay out in return?
Plymouth State – stop punishing students by inflicting incredible overload charges on us. Most of us are not even seeking the challenge of more than seventeen credits – we just want to get out of here in four years like everyone else. Almost fifty percent of college students change their major at least once, and that requires playing catch-up. This game of cat-and-mouse often requires students to take more than seventeen credits in one semester. But again, at what cost? An out-of-state student will play an addition $1500 to take one three-credit class once over that precious number of seventeen. In-state students do not fair much better. On top of this absurd overload costs, the New Hampshire Board of Trustees still finds it necessary to hike our tuition another five percent for next year. Where does it end? We are a state school where sixty percent of our students come from New Hampshire and most of the in-and out-of-state students bear the brunt of the majority of their education costs.
Tuition hikes across the country, not just in New Hampshire, are making it harder and harder to pursue a college education – which is now more vital than it ever was. A high school education gets you nowhere nowadays; a colligate degree is now, in many places, the minimum education that is demanded by an employer. How can we, as the next generation to enter the workforce, be as prepared as employers expect us to be when we cannot afford the education they demand? Everyone knows that FASFA and other federal aids are often less than helpful, if they offer any help at all. The only other choice is to get loans – loans that carry high interest rates and leave college students even more in debt.
Overloading is often an option to try and avoid staying at an institution for an extra semester or an extra year to stay away from high tuition costs. Now, it does not seem to make much difference.