<p>America was built on the principle of equal treatment. Equality for everyone.</p>
<p>I was thinking, isn’t financial aid for college students discrimination? </p>
<p>There’s kids that go to my school virtually for FREE, because they ‘qualify’.<br>
Meanwhile, other kids are shelling out $30k/year.
And they both get the same education and resources.</p>
<p>Now consider if a hospital emergency room decided to treat the more ‘well-off’ patient first over the guy on welfare. The media would be all over this like NOO how can you do this its discrimination.
But for college tuitions, it seems like a non-issue.</p>
<p>Financial aid is generally given out based on how much you need it. It would be literally impossible for many students to go to college without need based aid, which would mean a less educated workforce with lower social mobility, which would slow the economy down in the long run. Thats a Bad Thing.</p>
<p>In the hospital situation, it’s literally life-or-death. With tuition, it isn’t only “you get aid” or “you don’t go to college”. If you don’t qualify, it means you can most likely afford to pay for school without aid.</p>
<p>Are you gonna say your parents bought you a $52,000 car, but won’t pay for your school?</p>
<p>If it wasn’t for colleges giving me full financial aid (which includes the max. number of subsidized loans allowed), I wouldn’t be able to go to college. Why? Because my parents never went to college and work mediocre jobs. I would then be stuck with a mediocre job and continue the cycle, even though I worked just as hard, and perhaps harder, than people with more money in high school. </p>
<p>I think the way the financial aid system works is just fine. If your parents can afford to pay for college, then they should. If I have a child and am working in a high-paying job I expect to pay for their education so another student with less fortunate parents can have their child go to school. </p>
<p>My boyfriend’s father paid for his education and will have far less loans than I will - thats already a better start in my book.</p>
<p>Don’t think that financial discrimination doesn’t happen in hospitals…only it’s the poor people who suffer. In fact, it is usually poorer people who suffer in almost everything.</p>
<p>Financial aid isn’t perfect. There are plenty of people who fall through the cracks. But it does help level the playing field a little bit.</p>
<p>And those who can pay full freight usually get a leg up in the admissons competition and don’t get held back because they can manage the loans/tuition/expenses.</p>
<p>If America is supposed to be the land of opportunity then financial aid provides the opportunity for everyone to get a higher education. And the more highly educated a society –>the better off we all are in the end.</p>
<p>Your analogy to the hospital really doesn’t make sense. In fact, if anything, it can be used most effectively against your argument. Not giving poor students need based aid to attend college would be analogous to refusing to treat patients who could not pay, which is clearly wrong. In one case, you don’t get an education due to lack of money, and in the other, you don’t get treatment. </p>
<p>And Sligh<em>Anarchist (I almost typed Slight</em>Anarchist, because I guess you like anarchy, but only in small doses), it’s not just you.</p>
<p>My family is comprises of people who make 400 dollars a month; the people that raised me and nurtured me are victims of a system which DISCRIMINATES against the needy - has no care for them - so that the well off may continue to profit from them. My mom was able to pull herself and me forward, and get us out of our country so that I may someday bring our lot forward and discontinue this cycle of unnecessary poverty. Financial aid is not ‘discrimination,’ it is a hand that comes down upon the all too irregular socioeconomic field and levels it, so that people like myself may rise along with my family, who have been dispossessed of opportunities for too long.</p>
<p>It’s sad that the middle class is against stuck with the financial burden of debt. The rich can afford to put their children through college without financial strain (most of the time) and the poor can simply apply for aid and end up getting a free ride.</p>
<p>I’m firmly against the idea of socialism so I don’t feel that financial aid should be given out to everyone on the sole condition of parental income. Scholarships make sense because you are working for your privileges in life. If you’re neither willing to work hard to get the necessary funds for your education or do something outstanding to receive funds from an outside source, then you really don’t deserve to be in college.</p>
<p>My parents are poor but that didn’t stop me from saving money to put myself through school. People choose to be poor. If you don’t want to end up living on welfare then work hard, simple as that.</p>
<p>Its always, either youre rich enough to pay the tuition or youre poor enough for financial aid. The middle class get stuck with neither. Its a little screwed up.</p>
<p>People aren’t poor by choice, often they’re born poor. My dad was pretty much a rags-to-riches American Dream story: grandparents moved here as immigrants from 3rd world, dad worked 2 jobs in HS while getting A’s and acing his SAT’s, got into Dartmouth which has great FA, got a job in college to pay off loans while working his ass off to graduate in 3 years, made a ton of money and lives comfortably in upper middle class suburbia. I had it so easy growing up, now I go to a pricy college where my parents pay a lot for tuition, but I understand why it’s fair. I could have gone to State U if I wanted to. If my dad didn’t have FA, he would probably still be poor. </p>
<p>People can’t help if they’re poor, but FA gives them a chance to get out of poverty. And don’t say, well, they can work throughout HS and pay for a cheap college themselves, some teens pay for their families food/bills with their salaries. FA gives hard-working students a chance to rise above the conditions they were born in. Even then it’s hard cause they go to crappy HS’s and can’t afford to spend all their time in EC’s/Volunteering/Varsity sports and whatnot.</p>
<p>I’m sure most people wouldn’t choose to be poor but then again those that are poor don’t work hard to move up in life so they are kind of defeating themselves. Nothing happens simply by “wanting” it; people have to take action to get what they want out of life.</p>
<p>If you want something bad enough in life (within reason) then working hard will steer you in that direction. Most people that are poor are lazy.</p>
<p>I never said that hard working students should suffer. Currently, financial aid accepts all individuals regardless of grades and achievements. This is wrong. If you’re motivated to make a change in your life and your motivation reflects your hard work then you should be rewarded. I don’t believe any student should be rewarded aid simply because their financial status.</p>
<p>that’s a pretty disgusting generalization. </p>
<p>also, as far as FA accepting “all individuals regardless of grades and achievements,” that’s only federal aid, and federal aid is barely enough to cover costs at Big State U. institutional aid is often merit-based and completely necessary to be able to attend college. and not to mention, isn’t the fact that a student applied to college and had a good enough record to get in indicative of hard work?</p>
<p>I’ve meant plenty of poor people who are quite the opposite of lazy. I live in a bad town, and many of the students at the HS had to work 1 to 2 jobs, watch their younger siblings, cook and clean, and then, if they had time, do school work. Of course their grades are going to be lower than a kid with the doctors as parents. And unfortunately, because of that, they probably won’t get much of an education. I think there should be scholarships for people like this, because they had it rough as a child and deserve a second chance, perhaps away at a college so they don’t have to deal with their parents issues for a bit and can prove themselves.</p>
<p>I know that if I was working full time in high school, my grades wouldn’t have been nearly as good, and I wouldn’t have gotten any merit scholarships that basically allowed me to go to school. And the same holds true for my college grades when I transferred to a more expensive, private university. I work a part time job, but I would have had much lower grades if I was working a full time job to support myself, but yet some “poor” people still manage much better than myself.</p>
<p>I’m probably in the lower-mid class and my dad works extremely hard every day to make sure I don’t have to have a full time job and go to school, but its not possible for him to pay my college, and I’m extraordinarily appreciative of the aid I receive so I can go to school and concentrate on it.</p>
<p>And honestly some middle class to rich students are the laziest people I’ve ever met in my life. They party 6/7 nights of the week getting wasted, and spend an hour or two on work while their parents are paying the bill, along with allowances that supply them with the alcohol. Its ridiculous.</p>
<p>Yes, it is unfortunate that the middle class people kind of get screwed, but there state schools tend to be reasonable, though they’re not always ideal.</p>