Benefits or drawbacks to raising tuition in public institutions

Benefits or drawbacks to raising tuition in public institutions

Readings: P. Altbach, R. Berdahl, & P. Gumport (Eds.), American higher education in the twenty-first century: Social, political, and economic challenges (pp. 315–340). Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

You just learned about a planned 5 percent tuition increase at the public college in your area. The news about the tuition increase has triggered a debate in the community about whether or not the tuition increase is justified.

After completing the assigned Readings for this unit, write a “letter to the editor” (about 1 page) explaining your position regarding the proposed tuition increase. As an introduction to your position, write a brief reflection on your own educational experience — the type of school you attended (public institution), the quality of your education (valuable), and what you have been able to do with the degree you earned (My Business major with a concentration in Finance has helped me to manage my finances and guide others to balance their finances as well as learn to handle businesses) .

Then, address the 5 percent tuition increase and the benefits or drawbacks to raising tuition in public institutions. In your discussion, address the costs of higher education and your perspective on how the costs should be covered. Be sure to assimilate relevant sources to support your discussion.

A letter to the editor should be specific and concise. Although guidelines vary on typical length, your letter should be about 300 words for this Assignment. The paper is a small town paper, and your higher education knowledge will be an asset to your community. Be sure to consider the audience in writing. The paper requires that you cite your sources in APA style. Often, editors will access the sources to verify the information.

You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.

Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.

Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.

The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.