Recession and public universities

Richard Zhang

The recent recession has hit the public colleges such as Georgia Institute of Technology very hard. According to US news, many state institutions have cut back on the amount of class and lectures available. These state institutions, in an attempt to cut back costs, drove more and more people in signing up for overcrowded classrooms. Some students, due to the lack of classes, will lose their financial aid because of their empty schedules. Even top universities cannot escape the recession. Many of these top universities rely heavily upon donations and endowments; however, recently their endowment and donation have dropped significantly. Many professions such as law are hit the hardest. Law students take out ridiculous amount of loans because they expect to receive fat paychecks at giant law firms. But during times of recession these big law firms are in the red, they cannot afford to hire more inexperienced law school fledglings. Interviews and opening positions fell as hard as 50%. (NY Times) There are certain steps students like us can deal with recession. Due to the increase demand in higher education, President Obama has set aside a decent amount of student loans in his bail out plan of 2009. Another way to combat the recession is to actively searching for various organizations. Most of these organizations offer contests in which students compete for a small scholarship ranging anywhere from a hundred to a few thousand. This will lessen the financial pressure. The first role of the student is to study. In order for a student to study and learn well, they will require financial stability. The famous writer, Virginia Woolf argued in her essay “A Room of One’s Own” that in order for women to write fiction they would need money and a room of one’s own. Therefore money is essential to the success of any education.