To: The Virginia State House, The Virginia State Senate, and Governor Ralph Northam
Tell Bob McDonnell to reduce tuition for Virginia college and university students!
I'm asking our legislators and our Governor, Bob McDonnell, to please review your priorities and consider creating a clear solution, or a merit based scholarship program, for Virginia students who can not afford to attend Virginia state colleges on their own anymore. I'm asking our legislators and Governor to consider reducing tuition costs to public state colleges, or creating a state funded, merit based incentive, like the South Carolina LIFE scholarship or Georgia HOPE scholarship, to high school students who feel like giving up for the sole reason of lack of funds.
Our public education system in VA is among the top in the entire country. Several high schools in Virginia are nationally ranked in the top 100 high schools. We have the talent right here in our state. Let's not allow them to go elsewhere for college, let's allow them to continue studying in Virginia, and investing in their home state when they graduate.
Our public education system in VA is among the top in the entire country. Several high schools in Virginia are nationally ranked in the top 100 high schools. We have the talent right here in our state. Let's not allow them to go elsewhere for college, let's allow them to continue studying in Virginia, and investing in their home state when they graduate.
Why is this important?
Last week I learned that my 19 year old cousin had been kicked out of her home by her own mom, for no reason other than she could no longer collect child support on behalf of my cousin. Beyond that, I learned that my cousin's mother also refuses to help my cousin co-sign her FAFSA paperwork so that my cousin can claim financial aid and attend a Virginia state college to earn a degree.
My cousin sought support from my uncle, a bus driver who claimed just over $30,000 in earnings in 2011. My uncle helped her fill out the necessary paperwork to see what financial aid my cousin could receive to attend Radford or any other school in Virginia. She was awarded $5,000 - a generous gift, but not enough to cover the nearly $20,000 per year cost to attend Radford or other Virginia colleges.
I find this outrageous. I graduated from Godwin High School in Richmond, VA in 2005, and opted to attend an out-of-state school in South Carolina. My tuition cost to attend an out-of-state school was approximately $25,000 per year, and I was lucky to have the financial support of my parents and their help to secure my own loans to pay for school.
Many students choose to study at a school in their home state, simply because they are unable to afford the cost difference between attending a state school and a school in a different state. Now you're telling me that I could've chosen USC or Radford and still graduated with nearly the same amount of student loan debt? That's insane.
Moreover, some states in the U.S. offer an incentive to ANY high school student who graduates with a particular GPA, or who excel in a Math or Science related field. In South Carolina, that's known as the LIFE scholarship. In Georgia, it's known as the HOPE scholarship. I don't know off the top of my head, but I can imagine there are similar programs in other states as well. I could be wrong, but I don't know of a program that exists like this that is funded by the state of Virginia and is accessible to all Virginia high school students.
I appreciate and understand the immense challenge that our legislators face in balancing our state budget, but investing in our students and allowing them a clearly defined path to attend a Virginia state school will pay off handsomely in the future of our state. It's a remarkably daunting task to choose what services and programs to cut or fund, but I can't support legislators who choose to make access to affordable education seem impossible for good students like my cousin, who feel like they're on their own.
She knows she will have to work hard. She knows she will likely need a full time job while studying full time. She knows all of this, but she wants more than anything to create a better situation for herself than the one she finds herself in right now.
My cousin sought support from my uncle, a bus driver who claimed just over $30,000 in earnings in 2011. My uncle helped her fill out the necessary paperwork to see what financial aid my cousin could receive to attend Radford or any other school in Virginia. She was awarded $5,000 - a generous gift, but not enough to cover the nearly $20,000 per year cost to attend Radford or other Virginia colleges.
I find this outrageous. I graduated from Godwin High School in Richmond, VA in 2005, and opted to attend an out-of-state school in South Carolina. My tuition cost to attend an out-of-state school was approximately $25,000 per year, and I was lucky to have the financial support of my parents and their help to secure my own loans to pay for school.
Many students choose to study at a school in their home state, simply because they are unable to afford the cost difference between attending a state school and a school in a different state. Now you're telling me that I could've chosen USC or Radford and still graduated with nearly the same amount of student loan debt? That's insane.
Moreover, some states in the U.S. offer an incentive to ANY high school student who graduates with a particular GPA, or who excel in a Math or Science related field. In South Carolina, that's known as the LIFE scholarship. In Georgia, it's known as the HOPE scholarship. I don't know off the top of my head, but I can imagine there are similar programs in other states as well. I could be wrong, but I don't know of a program that exists like this that is funded by the state of Virginia and is accessible to all Virginia high school students.
I appreciate and understand the immense challenge that our legislators face in balancing our state budget, but investing in our students and allowing them a clearly defined path to attend a Virginia state school will pay off handsomely in the future of our state. It's a remarkably daunting task to choose what services and programs to cut or fund, but I can't support legislators who choose to make access to affordable education seem impossible for good students like my cousin, who feel like they're on their own.
She knows she will have to work hard. She knows she will likely need a full time job while studying full time. She knows all of this, but she wants more than anything to create a better situation for herself than the one she finds herself in right now.