Perhaps Alden Gillespy should have looked up the definition of discrimination before writing his Wednesday guest column.
Or maybe he just wanted to grab peoples’ attention by using inflammatory words.
Either way, the UF Board of Trustees isn’t considering block tuition because it doesn’t care about financially disadvantaged students. In fact, one can argue encouraging students to graduate on time is actually beneficial to those who have to work in order to attend college.
This is clear when you see the opportunity cost of attending school for an extra year means
forgoing a job in which you could be making more than $40,000 that same year. When you look at the big picture, graduating on time is actually significantly cheaper. Also, I think the key phrase here is: on time. It’s called a four-year degree for a reason, so I don’t see how wanting students to graduate within four years is unreasonable.
The main argument against block tuition seems to be students will have to pay for credits they are not taking. However, when you stop to consider nearly 80 percent of all undergraduates at UF have Bright Futures scholarships, that argument seems to hold much less weight. And even though Bright Futures has capped its contribution to $125 per credit hour, the
fact I’m taking 17 credits this semester and only had to pay $700 in tuition to attend the top public school in Florida doesn’t really bother me.
For the average student who will be going from 12 to 15 credit hours, it will cost them an extra $129 per semester, which you can probably equate to one week’s paycheck. Even for students who only have the $94 per credit hour Medallion scholarship, the difference in tuition that will be paid out of pocket is $222. Plus, taking an extra class or two in the fall or spring is better than taking classes during the summer, which aren’t covered by Bright Futures at all.
Most degree programs at UF have a minimum requirement of 120 credits to graduate, and if you’re only taking 12 credits each semester, you’ll have to either pay for summer classes completely out of pocket or increase your
overall cost of education by staying an extra year.
The Princeton Review consistently ranks UF as one of the nation’s top party schools as well as one of the schools where students study the least.
Read the rest of this letter at Alligator.org.
