[deep_eyes]

I am in the middle of a very large term paper involving lobbying. For the ones who do not know, lobbying is basiclly the herasment we give our politicians to take a look at our problems we want addressed as people, and now.

My lobbying (Political Science course) project involves the Fesability of Free Tuition, particularly in the City of New York (NYC) with the largest Municipal Public School System in the country (City University of New York-CUNY), and im required to create a questioneer (not long) as to the benefits or flaws of the proposed legislation in the great system im stuck in...

I am requesting others, particularly the HLP higher up's whos in colleges, especially those within community colleges (senior as well), to answer these questions. Due to the fact that of the members here are within the states, and every state has a community college system (California being the cheapest-thanks arnold!), that you guys could answer these.

The Request: NYC Council Proposal

The Questions:

1. How much of a diffrence does Financial Aid (Federal, State, Local) make for you when you are attending College?

2. The City University lost it's Free Tuition Policy in the 1970's due to the (New York) Cities financial crisis of that time period. Since then tuition has increased in both the Community and Senior college levels almost 40%, and another 10% since 1998. The City (even after 9/11) isn't in a state of crisis as it once was, and still duing the 1990's, CUNY retained it's tuition policies still, does it make any sense now to keep paying for a quality college education when CUNY was meant to be a free university since its founding in 1847 when the city could pay for the 60% of finances students are having to pay for-and most are middle class or worse? (Long one sorry)

3. The State (NY) wants to cut funding to CUNY by $105 Million (13.2%) and yet raise tuition for the whole University system by $1400 for Community and Senior colleges. They are also reducing Temporary Assistance Payments (NY State TAP Awards-Like Pell Grants - Free money) by $161 Million to payouts all over New York State. With more and more students, particularly minorities with lesser income, shouldering the burden of financial responsibility, do you think this is a fair course of action the state should take (making it harder for minorities-who make up most of the CUNY schools populace to obtain a college level degree)?

4. Asside from wanting free tuition restored in the Community College System, would you favor atleast a begining to that end with Tuition Cuts of up to 400$ a semester from 1400 community/ 2100 for senior colleges?

5. Based on the limited knowledge of New York financing issues, (play devils advocate) if it were feasible to grant free Tuition once again at CUNY, what are some ways CUNY could obtain extra funding and monies?

6. Do you believe a medium should (or could) be met, common ground on tuition issues and meeting the students needs on non-expensive but high-standards of education requirements? If so, the in what ways could you obtain these mediums?

-I thank everyone who could participate with this. I know its to ask for. Even if you dont understand the numbers to a degree, obviously something free is always good, but even something free costs something somewhere, and some responce is better than no responce. Please guys assist me in this. I need good educated (or guess-ticated) responces, Pretty much i just need enough responces by Sunday evening to compile my data with people from my location. Since this online community is a mixed one, I put these questions here only as a means to show an unbiased responce from external sources rather than unreliable ones from NYC.

Thanks!

[Stryke 9]

1. ****loads. Nobody can afford tuition except the disgustingly rich. In fact, I hear it's supposed to be structured that way.

2. Personal opinion? I'm for as much being free as possible. Doesn't mean it's going to happen- never mind that the states and the city have only been getting poorer over the last couple of years, the current trend is emphatically away from education and civil service funding, and more towards more cops, more army/national guard, more surveillance of the populace. Which is vaguely creepy- possible someone feels the winds changing. Either way, operations once privatized are rarely reintroduced to government funding.

3. It's a leading question, and you might wanna check that for your paper, but no, of course not. See above.

4. $800 a year isn't nearly enough. It isn't even the runty distant cousin to "enough" with the clubfoot. It isn't even his pet dog. It'd be an improvement over nothing, but far from grounds for compromise.

5. All the usual suspects- initiate private funding for sports teams, cut new building development (which is inevitably the real cost drain), try and get the rich alumni to cough up more bread and the poor ones to come back and teach for peanuts. Get rid of those goddamned enormous hundred-dollar textbooks, they're the biggest ****ing waste of money I have seen in my entire life and are usually inaccurate/confusing anyway- there's plenty of cheap sources of textbook-level information for basically any subject. The databases strike me as hugely overpriced given their use (people'll use them maybe once a class, tops, and while they're nice they're certainly not necessary), but those are rather handy so they'd only be sacrificed after all the wholly unnecessaries are gone. Eventually socialize the entire system, if more is necessary, so that the city's paying for a good deal of the school's needs, possibly in the form of a tax on use of doctors or lawyers or whatever profession it is that the school is particularly adept at turning out. If philosophers, writers, or artists, make it a tax on everybody, and possibly a punitive fee on television use.

6. "Compromise" is a dirty word. And it's quite easy to meet students' needs without gouging them thousands of dollars. Somehow they managed to do it before the last coupla decades, what were they doing right then that we're ****ing up now?

Actually, I can answer that- sports teams and textbooks that cost as much as if they were printed on gold leaf and contain no worthwhile information. Probably the generally unnecessary and poorly-maintained computer systems most colleges feature. And the databases running in the tens of thousands of dollars. Other things I don't even know about.

[deep_eyes]

atleast someone tried.... thanks stryke...

[Grey Wolf]

1. I'm basically going to be stuck with massive loans, since I am:
-Caucasian
-Male
Causing all technology colleges to not give me massive scholarships. Hence, I am in favor of more financial aid. Not that I'm going to get it.

2. NYS is in a massive financial crisis right now, due to decreasing tax returns and an increase in the money spent on services. Hence, it sends the costs down to municipalities. The money spent on this is diverted from other uses, due to the fact that raising taxes is political suicide. Hence, it is actually logical for CUNY to make people pay to attend due to the fact that NYC can't afford to make it free.

3. See #2.

4. Again, I'd favor it, but the state budgets, in addition to their perpetual state of missing deadlines, are above the actual income of the state. Hence, the students take the costs.

5. Basically, lie, cheat and steal. Short of that, they'd have to get massive grants from dozens of sources each year.

6. It should, but it can't. Inflation and rising labor costs means that either cost must increase, or quality must decrease. And I'd prefer the cost to increase over a decrease in quality.

[deep_eyes]

Ok, this is good, thanks grey, u gave some good points, also being that nominally, this is the responses i expect to get (and they arent wrong or right), and these are good. Thanks! if i could only get a few more people in here to help. if u guys could recomend setekh or kal, or even stealth (i think he from ny too), or anyone with just an opinion, please help!

[Knight Templar]

1)What Gray Wolf said. That and I don't have any magical money cahces hidden away.. meaning I am a poor chap.

2) What Stryke Said. Cheap is good. And Very creepy indeed.. bleak future we have.

3) Cutting Education is bad. Just because California doesn't think Education is really important anymore, doesn't mean NY should.

And on a side note, to demonstrate how poor California is, (I'm in High School still, but whatever) my school is so strapped for funding, that my teachers are alotted $125 to spread out for all their classes for the entire year. That $125 includes paper, ink cartridges, supplies, movies, etc.

4) Agreed with the first two. If more can be afforded to spare the students, then it should.

5) I'm strapped for time so.. more sponsers? Advertising? If you've seen the simpsons episode with the bilboard in the church, than you know what I mean.

6) Yes... and once again, strapped for time, but uh... less superfluous junk I guess.. if that helps.

[aldo_14]

Right....er, i don't really understand the whole US education system (beyond the fact that it lasts a bit longer and costs a lot), so I can;t really answer those specific questions,  but my opinion is;

- All education should be free to the student.  Imposition of tuition fees simply discourages learning.  In turn, this hurts society by reducing the level of intelligence & skills

- Tution costs should be paid by governments.  Ideally, through higher (but fair) taxes on high wage earners and particularly on companies with an extremely large turnover / profit.  Also through encoragement of exploitation of any research developments (i.e. from universities).

- companies should be given breaks/reductions on the aformentioned taxes for sponsoring students / institutions (i.e providing directing funding).

- finally, all funding should be allocated fairly, to prevent a 2 tier system - as the introduction of variable top-up fees would do to the UK.  Unfortunately, UK universities are already somewhat 2 tier. For example, the highest drop-out rate in Scotland is Paisley Uni - also the uni with the highest number of 'lower class' or poor students.  the lowest drop out rate is St.Andrews - the uni with least lower class students (and decreasing by 15% on last year).  coincidentally, St. Andrews is the only Scottish university supporting top-up fees.

I wish I had a better idea of a US perspective on this, but hoepfully this will be of some use.

[Kosh]

1.) With Greywolf. Tehn again a friend of mine is an Iranian male who is in the same position I am.

2.) I think quality education should be free to those who can't afford it otherwise. But of course, that's not what happens since they are too busy funding their ******* sports programs. Appearently brawn is still much more highly valued than brains over here.

3.) Hell no. But then again I guess that they can't help the fact that america does not care about their childrens education.

4.) For sure that won't happen at my university. Especially since they just INCREASED the tuition AGAIN by a bunch. My opinion is irrelevant

5.) I'm with Stryke on that.

6.) There must be a way.

[Styxx]

Can't really answer those properly since I'm not american and I don't fully understand your university system, but here we have lots of private universities, which are (usually) fully paid for by the students, and a few federal and state universities, which are completely free.

The federal universities are, almost always, the best ones in all aspects of education, even if they lag behind in infrastructure, but they're quite hard to get into: you usually have to compete with twenty or thirty other candidates for each opening on a good course, such as computer science, law, or a decent engineering course. They always have the best professors and the best curriculum, though, and you earn a lot more respect for getting into - and graduating - in a federal university than you get for any private university, so I'd say it's worth the effort.

The fees on private universities vary a bit among them, but they're all inside a rather specific range. Even in private universities you can still get government aid, though, in the form of student loans - to be paid starting one year after you graduate - or scholarships of various kinds, granted by city, state or federal institutions. Student loans are available to pretty much everyone who wants them, and the rates are rather low, but not that many people use them. Scholarships - specially research scholarships, which are scarcer on private universities (but fairly abundant on federal universities) - are granted on a merit and/or need basis, so it's not for everyone. Also, if you can prove that you can't afford paying the fees, you're eligible for special aid, provided by the government. Some private universities have their own aid system too, though.