On to the university...
In the fall of 1958, 17-year old Arnold with good grades in high school, entered the University of California Berkeley. Officially, the education was free – no tuition. Students were required, however, to pay an “incidental fee,” which I recall being $42 a semester, or $84 for the entire academic year. The expenditure was worth it, as students were thereby entitled to library privileges, to reduced or no fee for campus athletic and entertainment events, to the student newspaper and most importantly, to free medical care (with a hospital on campus!).
Now, years later, capitalist reality has hit home, and hit hard, to students and their families:
“Undergraduate Student Budgets 2018-19
Academic Year 2018-19
Direct Costs Charged by UC Berkeley
Tuition and Fees
$14,184
Room and Board
$16,160*
Total Direct Costs
$30,344
These are the costs for students residing in the state of California. For non-resident students, tuition is considerably higher: The 2018 undergraduate tuition & fees of University of California-Berkeley are $42,184 for out of State students.
Optional Student Health Insurance Plan add $2,994.” (Cost of Attendance | Financial Aid and Scholarships | UC Berkeley)
In state California students should consider themselves likely. If they wanted to go to prestigious Harvard University: “The total 2018-2019 cost of attending Harvard College without financial aid is $46,340 for tuition and $67,580 for tuition, room, board, and fees combined.” (Harvard at a Glance, Harvard University)
And nearby (about 60 minutes by auto from Berkeley) is even worse: “For academic year 2017-2018, undergraduate tuition & fees at Stanford University is $49,617.” (2018 Costs of Attendance | Stanford University - College Tuition)
Such fees are totally out of reach for many, many tens of millions of Americans. No higher education for them!
Others borrow, borrow and borrow to get a university education: “Approximately 43 million have student loans, with an average balance of $30,000. In 2017, average student loan debt reached $39, 400, an increase of 6% compared to 2016. Americans owe more than $1.48 trillion (44 million borrowers) which is roughly $620 billion more than the overall credit card debt in the country.” (Student loans in the United States – Wikipedia)
“America’s daunting student debt crisis is about to get even worse” (Quartz, Jan. 29, 2018)
“America’s pile of student loan debt is near-incomprehensible in size.
“What’s going on? The rise of for-profit colleges, many of which have been publicly accused of deceiving students into debt, is one leading cause...
“Another cause is simply record-high tuition figures that colleges across the country—for-profit, public, and private—charge for an education these days. It is now common for a bachelor’s degree to cost upwards of $200,000. With a college degree a near necessity for getting a foothold in the workforce, Americans have little choice but grin and bear it, and many are falling into debt as a result.”
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These are the sort of facts about real life in the USA that are consistently hidden by the CIA-controlled mass media in Russia.
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Правительство США жестоко нарушало мои права человека при проведении кампании террора, которая заставила меня покинуть свою родину и получить политическое убежище в СССР. См. книгу «Безмолвный террор — История политических гонений на семью в США» - "Silent Terror: One family's history of political persecution in the United States» - arnoldlockshin.wordpress.com
Правительство США еще нарушает мои права, в течении 14 лет отказывается от выплаты причитающейся мне пенсии по старости. Властители США воруют пенсию!!
ФСБ - Федеральная служба «безопасности» России - вслед за позорным, предавшим страну предшественником КГБ, мерзко выполняет приказы секретного, кровавого хозяина (boss) - американского ЦРУ (CIA). Среди таких «задач» - мне запретить выступать в СМИ и не пропускать большинства отправленных мне комментариев. А это далеко не всё...
Арнольд Локшин, политэмигрант из США
BANNED – ЗАПРЕЩЕНО!!
ЦРУ - ФСБ забанили все мои посты и комментарии в Вконтакте!
… и в Макспарке!