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Lescano 1
Kevin Lescano
Dr. Denise Hill
ENG 102
21 November 2018
Part 1: Real-World Argument
Dear Mr. Michael Crow:
I am reaching out to you because in the past years the cost of tuition has only increased
and has made it difficult for students to attend college. As a community, we all need to figure out
a solution to do the opposite, so it does not affect students as much as it does now. In an article
titled What You Need to Know About College Tuition Costs it states that, “College tuition prices
are a lot higher today compared with two decades ago. For instance, the average cost for tuition
and fees among National Universities – private and public – has risen significantly since the late
1990s” (Powell). With this being an issue it affects students in several ways. Students from
colleges across the United States get to worry about all the debt they gain from trying to get their
degree. In college, tuition is only a portion of the costs that students have to pay, there are
multiple things that add up when you are attending school. For example, other things that
students have to worry about paying for are dorms, parking passes, food, books, and etc. Some
college campuses across the United States have actually started to lower their price of tuition,
like Harvard and Duke University. With all this being said, I feel like we should come up with a
strategy to start reducing the price of tuition here at Arizona State University.
A major problem that ties in with the whole tuition issue, is how expensive out of state
tuition is compared to in state. I feel like this makes students stress more about getting a college
degree, since this will increase their debt if they need to borrow money. I read an article titled
Lescano 2
What’s the Price Tag for a College education? and it states that, “the average cost of tuition and
fees for the 2017–2018 school year was $34,740 at private colleges, $9,970 for state residents at
public colleges, and $25,620 for out-of-state residents attending public universities” (What’s the
Price). From this, the price difference is over $15,000 and that is just ridiculous. Students across
the country struggle with this price difference and I myself actually deal with this. At Arizona
State University, the price difference from in state tuition compared to out of state is also an
unbelievable amount. I was researching and on the financial aid and scholarship services website
of Arizona State University it says, “the cost for an Arizona resident undergraduate student is
$10,552 and the cost for a nonresident undergraduate student is $28,336” (Standard Cost). This
is almost a $20,000 difference and since I am a resident of California, I have to suffer the
consequences of the cost. Together we should try to reach a percentage of how much we drop the
tuition not only for in state but also out of state. Our goal can be to get it to decrease by 20% and
start in small portions by decreasing it 5% a year until we achieve our goal. This is just a
proposal, but achieving this will help out thousands of students that are constantly worrying
about tuition costs, like myself.
Tuition is not the only thing students have to pay for when attending college. We also
have to take into consideration how much parking passes, food, dorms, and books are. In another
article titled Quick Guide: College Costs it states that, “There are five main categories of
expenses to think about when figuring out how much your college education is really going to
cost: tuition and fees, room and board, books and supplies, personal expenses, and
transportation” (Quick Guide). All of these do add up and can make it difficult for students that
have to pay it out of pocket. Students that come from wealthier families tend to find it easier to
deal with all of the financial complications that come from trying to gain a degree. In an article
Lescano 3
titled College: Ticket to the Middle Class it states that, “Students from higher-income
backgrounds find the expense, including debt financing, easier to bear than those from poorer
backgrounds.” (College). Another thing to take into consideration is that students from lower
income families that want to attend college, usually end up not going due to the all of the costs.
Usually wealthier families have more of an experience in school, so they know the costs that
comes with it. In another article titled Education it states that, “Tuition was sufficiently modest
as to make education affordable to all but the destitute, although poor children generally attended
school for fewer years than their wealthier fellows” (Coulson). This should be another reason
why we all should start thinking of a solution to lower the price of tuition and not increase it.
Several students across the country even drop out of college before they graduate, because of the
debt they have already gained. In an article titled 3.9 Million Students Dropped Out of College
