Tuition bill mandates students pay $2,000 up front
Amanda Smith
Arizona legislation attempts to put more financial responsibility on desperate college students with the recent changes in HB 2675.
Proposed by Rep. John Kavanagh, the changes in the bill state that, “Each student who is a full-time student enrolled at a university…shall personally contribute at least two thousand dollars during the academic year for tuition.”
At no surprise, students are upset.
“I think it is ridiculous,” Marcus Van Hassel, nursing major at MCC, said. “I can’t just pull two grand out of my pocket.”
Kavanagh feels that the students have been given too much for nothing. “What we discovered is that the universities are subsidizing the tuition of nearly half of the undergraduates.
“They (the students) pay nothing.”
Erin Borman, general education major at MCC, can relate saying “I know some that work the system to their advantage.”
Kavanagh explained that, “when students have a stake in what they are buying, they take it more seriously.”‘
Kavanagh claims that the bill will make it easier on taxpayers and give money back to universities as well, “it would free up $18 million for the universities to use to improve their academics or whatever they want to use that money for.”
Arizona cannot hand out money to universities much less anywhere else.
But is attacking the students necessary?
Where will students get the two thousand dollars out of pocket?
Many just don’t have it.
Flustered and shocked, Cullen Rogers, political science major at MCC, commented that, “This is making it even harder to even consider going to school … right now students don’t have money.”
In a statement made by the Arizona Board of Regents chair, Fred DuVal, on Jan. 27, DuVal expressed the board’s opposition to the bill. “If Arizona is to recover and flourish economically, our citizens must have access to a high quality and affordable university education. Our elected officials should focus their efforts on incentivizing more students to enter and complete a college education, not stifling access to it.”
Sarah Harper, spokesperson of the board, pointed out that legislators are not taking into consideration all the other expenses students take on every year.
There’s transportation, books, fees, room and board, etc. All expenses included, a university student is looking at $17,000 a year, on average.
“It (the bill) makes sense for people that have money, but for others it doesn’t,” said Lilibeth Alvarado, psychology major at MCC.
DuVal also stated, “While we are still analyzing the full impact of House Bill 2675, it would appear that as currently written, it flies in the face of the Arizona University System’s mission of ensuring affordable access to higher education to all segments of Arizona’s population.”
