COLLEGE PRICES DON’T REFLECT QUALITY Schools continue to charge full tution for less than satisfactory online learning ANA PAULA IBARRARAN OPINONS EDITOR
EMILY FRIEDMAN SPORTS EDITOR
LAINE PHILLIPS FEATURES EDITOR
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rica Bass, a freshman at the University of North Carolina at are compromised by online learning. Chapel Hill (UNC) who graduated from McLean in June, was “Usually you make a lot of friends during orientation week, looking forward to beginning her college experience this fall. Before but that was all online for us,” said Ava Rotondo, a 2020 McLean she set foot on campus, though, it appeared that she was not going graduate who attends Columbia University. “The online orientation to get the university life she deserved, and this year, millions of other we had was barely sufficient, and I didn’t meet anyone.” college students nationwide are also being stripped of their college A lot of schools seemed to have plans to reopen in person at first, experience due to COVID-19. but many of those plans fell through. Bass had a particularly worrisome start “Prior to moving in, I thought that UNC had to her college experience, as she caught a good plan for how they were going to handle KIDS DON’T HAVE COVID-19 upon arriving on campus. [COVID-19]. We were receiving email updates, ACCESS TO ALL OF “People started getting sent home, but and I thought that they were going to be doing THE ELEMENTS OF AN since I was living in a hotel instead of a dorm, more intense testing. None of that happened,” EDUCATION THAT THEY Bass said. I didn’t have to leave until I got COVID,” Bass said. Because of the overwhelming tuition cost, WOULD IN PERSON.” Catching coronavirus is traumatic for some students have decided to take gap years. - AVA ROTONDO anyone, particularly for an 18-year-old living COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY STUDENT Unfortunately, that is not realistic for everyone. on their own for the first time. To make “I know there are some students who have things worse, the university wasn’t very helpful in dealing with Bass’s deferred a year or started NOVA classes with the intent to transfer situation. later,” said Laura Venos, McLean’s college and career center specialist. “I had to figure out how to get my own testing done and how Rotondo considered taking a gap year, especially because of to deal with the health insurance all by myself. I’m an out-of-state Columbia’s extremely high $61,788 tuition, but she was unable to as student, so my parents were obviously not there [to help],” Bass said. many colleges, including Columbia, made the decision deadline for Despite these challenges and never actually stepping into a gap years far too early and without enough information about their physical classroom, Bass and other out-of-state students attending fall plans. UNC had to pay the outrageous tuition price of $36,159. Learning online does not give students the same enrichment and Tuition should reflect the quality of education available to students environment as in-person classes, and oftentimes technical difficulties because they are supposed to be receiving high quality instruction in occur that interfere with the quality of education. a superior learning environment. Without these things, students are “Under these circumstances, colleges should reduce the cost missing out on much of what they’re paying for. of tuition,” Rotondo said. “Kids don’t have access to all of the Besides missing out on quality of education, students’ social lives elements of an education that they would in person, and I don’t think professors are able to deliver the same caliber of education through online platforms.” There are reasons a school might need to keep tuition costs the same, such as paying professors. However, most colleges have endowments that could cover these costs, and surely they are saving money in other ways by not having students on campus. “I understand that schools are facing a financial crisis because of COVID, but students have been going into debt for decades because of college,” Bass said. It is important to understand that both students and the colleges themselves are struggling during this time. “This is a global health crisis for everyone,” Venos said. “I feel terrible for college students who are not having the experience they intended and also have a great deal of respect for colleges making difficult decisions in service of their students’ health.” Next semester, if school continues virtually, colleges must lower tuition. College students who are feeling concerned about online education should email the administrators at their college to demand change. Page design by Saisha Dani | Cartoon by Jayne Ogilvie-Russell
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