University Star

A four-year degree at Texas State is becoming more unaffordable every year for many students. The university should offer more alternative classes and work with community colleges to provide an affordable degree plan for cash-conscious students.

Tuition is going up every year. As the price tag on a full semester rises, more students are finding themselves unable to afford classes. To help these students finish their education, Texas State should look into providing cheaper alternatives to traditional coursework. The university should work with nearby community colleges to craft course loads that correlate with Texas State degrees. Students could get two years of course-work out of the way at a cheaper price, and Texas State would retain undergraduates who might otherwise drop out. It would actually profit the univserity if it redirected students to community college. There should be a program where students could get two years of cheaper coursework at a community college and move seamlessly into Texas State for the last two years. This program would help attract intelligent students who previously wouldn’t have been able to afford Texas State, as well as retain students already enrolled.

Making degree plans cheaper isn’t the only way Texas State can help students to graduate. A wider variety of online and correspondence classes would go a long way for students who work long hours in order to pay for classes and living expenses. Having to juggle work and family responsibilities with school is a recipe for failure. Having more choices when it comes to alternative classes would help many students stay in school, and attract more new students with families and jobs.

Crafting entire degree plans is not necessarily the only action Texas State can take with respect to community colleges, either. Simply being more liberal with course transfers and equivalencies would help bring in more students. It would relieve a significant financial burden from students’ shoulders if they no longer had to worry about community college credits not transferring over and wasting their money,

As tuition goes up every year, Texas State is becoming inaccessible to lower-income students. The university should offer more online and correspondence courses, be more generous with course transfers, and work with community colleges to provide cheaper degree plans. These actions will help retain lower-income students, provide cheaper options in general and attract new students who couldn’t otherwise have afforded school here.