(The Anon Guy) – An interesting post about a college student finding herself and family with $100K in student loans (for a BA in English, no less). While most people are telling her to stop whining about it because it was her own doing, and her woe-is-me lament can be annoying, the thing that caught my eye was when she said she avoided her local college despite having a financial aid package “which would have basically paid (her) to go there.”
That school was UNLV.
It begs the question of how bad must a school be that a student would rather acquire a six-figure debt and go somewhere else, in this case Tulane, than attend? In fact, one of the more sympathetic comments was from a UNLV graduate who agrees with her decision and is, himself, ditching a full-ride offer from their law school to go elsewhere.
Of course, that’s just two people and I’m sure there are many UNLV grads who will be more than willing to go on the record saying their school is the greatest thing since sliced bread. So you take that for what it’s worth. But, according to the U.S. News and Reports, UNLV is a Tier 4 school — the bottom quarter.
What makes the story interesting, though, is the current battle over budget cuts and Nevada’s universities.
I could see this student’s plight being used by both sides. Those against cuts would say, “See, we are losing students because our schools rank so low and need more funding to be competitive,” while the other side will counter, “See, we’ve already spent money for decades and we are still in the bottom rankings. Even students with full-rides prefer to go elsewhere.”
(The Anon Guy writes the Dullard Mush blog in Nevada)
