In a bid to make the school more attractive to prospective out-of-state students, ETSU has announced it will be cutting tuition for out-of-state students from borderline states – Virginia, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Kentucky. The $15,000 cut would dramatically reduce the gap between in-state and out-of-state costs, leaving only a $1,000 difference between the two. This is a monumental win for proponents of affordable education, but in this moment of economic hardship, is it enough?
For in-state students, the university’s relative affordability has long been an attraction to attend the school. As tuition has steadily risen in universities across the country, many students have been priced out of an education or otherwise strapped with loans they can never pay off. Though the university has followed this upward trend, ETSU has remained among the cheapest public universities in the state.
Even still, many students at our university struggle to pay their way through school. According to College Factual, the average ETSU student borrows $22,872 after four years. Though lower than the national average of $30,000, this is no small debt to accrue, particularly in a time in which the future of the job market is so uncertain.
While Tennessee has made commendable efforts to make higher education affordable with programs such as the Tennessee Promise, far more than some self-styled progressives on the national stage have been willing to propose, there is still considerable room for improvement.
Approaching education as a marketplace rather than a public good has generally led to unnecessary spending to make schools appear more competitive to prospective students who in turn have to take on the onus of paying for these expenditures with loans provided by predatory lenders who work alongside universities.
Public-private partnerships have only served to kneecap the public while enriching private interests. Going forward, our state and all others should set out to fulfill the real duties of public institutions: to provide a service for the good of the people, not to turn a profit for the few.
To give credit where credit is due, this is an encouraging step in the right direction and an undoubtedly great decision made by the university. The barriers to earning a decent living – without being bogged down by endless debt – should not be insurmountable. If we are able to accept higher education as vital and increasingly necessary to make a living in our society, we must move past language of accessibility and choice and recognize education as a right.
