In which we ponder the cost of education
You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed. ~Psalm 139:16 (NLT)
Isn't it amazing how God had written out our lives before we even lived one day of it? That's how precious we are to Him. And we can't surprise Him with ANYTHING.
You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book. ~Psalm 56:8 (NLT)
The Psalms are an awesome place to go if you're sad. This verse has always intrigued me. Not only are WE precious to Him, but even our tears are precious enough for Him to collect them in a bottle and write them in a book. It's almost like when a child brings home a test with an A for the first time -- Mommy is so proud she puts it on the refrigerator. Our tears are so much a part of us that our Father collects them when others would throw them away. Awesome man, awesome . . .
So, I got to thinking about these things when I was pondering possibly going home next semester. He knows what I'm going to do and either way, it's going to be ok. My biggest motivator is lack of money . . . I just did a bunch of complex mathematical stunts and figured that I need to make $2433.16 between now and the end of February to break even -- and that's only if I have absolutely NO expenses aside from my cell phone bill, tuition/room and board and books. That's not accounting for food on the weekends, nor for gas for my car to get to and from work/church/holidays. I know I have roughly $750 for sure coming in from Commons and I'd have to work 25 hours a week at Shopko on top of everything to break even with no money left over for food or gas. Doable? Ugh. Why do the people in charge think college students can afford this? I was just looking at my account records from the entire time I've been here, and tuition has gone up $800 per semester from 2002 and R/B has gone up roughly $400 per semester -- that's a total of $2400 more per year than when I first started. (Rough calculation -- not done on paper or with a calculator, that's a total increase of 25%) What do they think we are? Rich? We don't come here because we ARE rich, but because we seek to be financially independent and on our way to BECOMING rich. I think they should have price caps for university level publicly funded education. I mean, seriously now . . . at the tune of $175/credit, with 30 students in each 3 credit class . . . If a professor teaches 4 classes per semester (and a lot of them do -- some of them more), he/she brings in a total of $126,000 for the school. If his salary is $40,000, that leaves $86,000 for the school. If you take that times . . . let's pretend that there are 200 professors . . . that would be a total of 17,200,000 in profits for the school. Plus, all the fees (roughly $850 per student/year times about 5,000 students), that's an increase of $4,250,000. Added together, that is a total of $21,450,000 that the school is taking in. PLUS all the federal aid they get . . . I don't think they really NEED to be as greedy as they are . . . And we haven't even talked about R/B yet . . . They should say that publicly funded universities can not charge more than $4,500 per semester per student in combined tuition, R/B and fees. Yeah. I like the sound of that. I'd still be short, but it would be way more doable. Seriously. And they should have price caps on textbooks. Yeah. Let's not even go there.
I talked to Matt about this situation. He said not to run away. I knew people would tell me that. But it's more than that. It's money. It's home. It's family. It's being able to -- for the first time in my life -- come home from school and say "Mum! Guess what I learned today!" and actually have a mum who wanted to know. It's being able to see my family every day. It's maybe getting to work with my sisters-in-law. It's being in a bigger, more challenging school. It's being able to shop when and where I want for what I want and being able to afford it because I don't have to pay half the cost of my education out of pocket. It's cheaper. It's not living on campus. It's home. Matt said, "you should talk to Bernie about it. See what he says." Yay -- at least I was able to convince him it wasn't JUST about the people here. It is to some extent -- but not because I'm mad at them or anything. I just don't have anything to hold me to this school anymore. There's only one thing that would keep me here -- my church. Even Andy has faded away. It's like in a play. When the scene changes, the lights go off and they turn on in another part of the stage. The lights are turning off in Marshall for me. But they're turning back on at home. What a pretty thought . . .
But I don't want to leave Matt and Kelly and Rob . . . I don't want to leave Joyce and Rick and Bernie and Judy and Glen and Mary. I don't want to leave -- ever! Randy? He can go to Alabama. For serious.
~MK
Isn't it amazing how God had written out our lives before we even lived one day of it? That's how precious we are to Him. And we can't surprise Him with ANYTHING.
You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book. ~Psalm 56:8 (NLT)
The Psalms are an awesome place to go if you're sad. This verse has always intrigued me. Not only are WE precious to Him, but even our tears are precious enough for Him to collect them in a bottle and write them in a book. It's almost like when a child brings home a test with an A for the first time -- Mommy is so proud she puts it on the refrigerator. Our tears are so much a part of us that our Father collects them when others would throw them away. Awesome man, awesome . . .
So, I got to thinking about these things when I was pondering possibly going home next semester. He knows what I'm going to do and either way, it's going to be ok. My biggest motivator is lack of money . . . I just did a bunch of complex mathematical stunts and figured that I need to make $2433.16 between now and the end of February to break even -- and that's only if I have absolutely NO expenses aside from my cell phone bill, tuition/room and board and books. That's not accounting for food on the weekends, nor for gas for my car to get to and from work/church/holidays. I know I have roughly $750 for sure coming in from Commons and I'd have to work 25 hours a week at Shopko on top of everything to break even with no money left over for food or gas. Doable? Ugh. Why do the people in charge think college students can afford this? I was just looking at my account records from the entire time I've been here, and tuition has gone up $800 per semester from 2002 and R/B has gone up roughly $400 per semester -- that's a total of $2400 more per year than when I first started. (Rough calculation -- not done on paper or with a calculator, that's a total increase of 25%) What do they think we are? Rich? We don't come here because we ARE rich, but because we seek to be financially independent and on our way to BECOMING rich. I think they should have price caps for university level publicly funded education. I mean, seriously now . . . at the tune of $175/credit, with 30 students in each 3 credit class . . . If a professor teaches 4 classes per semester (and a lot of them do -- some of them more), he/she brings in a total of $126,000 for the school. If his salary is $40,000, that leaves $86,000 for the school. If you take that times . . . let's pretend that there are 200 professors . . . that would be a total of 17,200,000 in profits for the school. Plus, all the fees (roughly $850 per student/year times about 5,000 students), that's an increase of $4,250,000. Added together, that is a total of $21,450,000 that the school is taking in. PLUS all the federal aid they get . . . I don't think they really NEED to be as greedy as they are . . . And we haven't even talked about R/B yet . . . They should say that publicly funded universities can not charge more than $4,500 per semester per student in combined tuition, R/B and fees. Yeah. I like the sound of that. I'd still be short, but it would be way more doable. Seriously. And they should have price caps on textbooks. Yeah. Let's not even go there.
I talked to Matt about this situation. He said not to run away. I knew people would tell me that. But it's more than that. It's money. It's home. It's family. It's being able to -- for the first time in my life -- come home from school and say "Mum! Guess what I learned today!" and actually have a mum who wanted to know. It's being able to see my family every day. It's maybe getting to work with my sisters-in-law. It's being in a bigger, more challenging school. It's being able to shop when and where I want for what I want and being able to afford it because I don't have to pay half the cost of my education out of pocket. It's cheaper. It's not living on campus. It's home. Matt said, "you should talk to Bernie about it. See what he says." Yay -- at least I was able to convince him it wasn't JUST about the people here. It is to some extent -- but not because I'm mad at them or anything. I just don't have anything to hold me to this school anymore. There's only one thing that would keep me here -- my church. Even Andy has faded away. It's like in a play. When the scene changes, the lights go off and they turn on in another part of the stage. The lights are turning off in Marshall for me. But they're turning back on at home. What a pretty thought . . .
But I don't want to leave Matt and Kelly and Rob . . . I don't want to leave Joyce and Rick and Bernie and Judy and Glen and Mary. I don't want to leave -- ever! Randy? He can go to Alabama. For serious.
~MK
posted by Mari Kate @ 11:16 PM
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