Students weigh options in funding education

While colleges including Boston University grapple with tuition cuts, students expressed interest in finding new approaches to dealing with the tuition rate.

A student group called at the University of California, Riverside, Fix UC, is working with the administration to pass an alternative to financing higher education. In the proposal, students pay a small percentage of their income after graduation instead of taking out student loans, Fix UC members said.

UCR junior Chris LoCascio, president of Fix UC, told The Daily Free Press in an email interview he plans to meet with the UC president in March to continue the UC Student Investment Proposal, which was released on Jan. 10. The proposal would let students wait until they graduate and secure a job, after which they would pay 5 percent of their salaries over a 20-year period.

A number of BU students said they find the idea appealing, but question its strength.

“It definitely appeals to me instead of having loans,” said College of Arts and Sciences sophomore Iesha White. “I think it’s a good idea in theory, I just don’t know how well it could be done in practice.”

White also said the proposal could prove too radical for BU, as the UC school does not have access to the large endowments that BU and other private institutions do.

CAS junior D.J. Walker, a member of BU Occupies Boston, said the Fix UC plan appears to be an “innovative solution,” but doubts it would be implemented at BU.

“The one problem is on a more practical level you can dodge student loans for at least a little while, but you can’t really dodge the money coming from your paycheck,” Walker said.

While BU students weren’t hopeful, LoCascio said UCR students are.

“People approach me daily around campus asking about how they can get involved and help make Fix UC’s proposal a reality,” LoCascio said via email. “I’ve found that when students are skeptical, they generally don’t have a firm grasp of the intricacies of the proposal.”

LoCascio said Fix UC is working on two additional models. One involves a progressive rate with percentage bracket system for low-, middle- and high-income students, while the other includes income thresholds and ceilings.

BU spokesman Colin Riley said although all creative proposals are “worth considering,” student loan debt is not too high compared to total tuition costs.

“The average student loan debt is probably just a little more than one semester, maybe a semester and a half of higher education,” Riley said in a phone interview. “The average student graduated last year with around $35-36,000 of student debt which is a lot of money, but as a percentage it is about 17 percent of the total cost of attending Boston University.”

Riley said because BU is a private, independent university, it could not go four years without receiving revenue.

Julie Wickstrom, director of financial assistance, said BU would probably not consider such a proposal.

“We’re not looking for alternatives at this point,” she said in a phone interview. “I don’t see it happening because I just don’t see the need here on campus.”

Wickstrom said the proposal could also drive up costs for creating an administration to collect the money.

“This can be a little tricky because that might involve actually hiring more administrators, which then drives up the cost of tuition,” she said.

While BU students may have mixed reviews about the Fix UC proposal, other approaches to driving down cost may garner more appeal.

BU Occupies Boston members continue working on plans for tuition transparency, which could lead to colleges bringing down costs.

“Paying $50,000-plus for yearly tuition is very new in the history of education, and we’re always talking about new ways to combat for students who can’t afford that kind of tuition to have access to that kind of education,” said CAS junior Brandon Wood.

Wood said BU Occupies Boston and other affiliated groups are searching to find ways to keep tuition prices from skyrocketing.

Riley, though, doesn’t see much hope.

“This is not a new issue,” Riley said. “This is something that has been looked at for decades. It’s something that would be great if there was a simple solution, but there isn’t.”

Re-Hao Ni, a freshman in College of Engineering, said the Fix UC plan would be a more realistic option for BU if it were devised prior to the nation’s current economic state.

“It seems a little unrealistic because the college has to afford for thousands and thousands of students to live on campus and provide them with food, education and all that,” he said. “It would just be nearly impossible for the college to expect only gradual income.”