Yes to Net Neutrality

     After a heated debate between the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and two unofficially cooperative half-monopolies Comcast and Time Warner, the FCC passed net neutrality with a vote of 3-2 on Thursday, February 26th, 2015, establishing internet service as a regulated utility much like that of electricity or water. Cristina Maza, a staff writer for The Christian Science Moniter, in her article, FCC passes net neutrality: what this means for America, discusses the issues addressed in this ruling. Net neutrality is a term referring to the concept that internet service providers (ISPs) cannot speed up or slow service based on the content of data and that all data is to be treated indiscriminately. This is important to the internet and those that use it because the world wide web is an important tool and knowledge database that provides common people with a tool for achieving things that would otherwise be ordinarily difficult to accomplish. For example, the online company Kickstarter allows people with creative ideas and a limited budget to acquire funding by receiving pledges from people who would like to see that idea come to life. So far, its reported that over 200,000 (thousands of) creative projects have been funded by more than 7,800,000 (millions of) people, with upwards of  $1,500,000,000 (billion!) being pledged. That's a lot of little people making big differences!

     The internet should be an equal opportunity utility, unbiased in use and ease of accessibility. With increasing numbers of companies offering job applications only online, and many of those jobs requiring internet usage, it has become a necessity for much of America's workforce. While the big names in internet service provision argue that this ruling infringes on their right as a free enterprise, it is apparent after examination that the legal action they want would infringe on the freedom of the people to voice and listen to the ideas openly discussed and easily accessed through the use of the internet. This is important to the people of not only our generation, but of our time, here and now, and to the future people of the United States of America. The internet is meant to allow the free exchange of ideas over distances both vast and adjacent. The internet is meant to bridge the gap between people of every socioeconomic class, level of education, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, and combination of possible differences, highlighting the similarities that exist within and between each and every one of us. The internet is a web of connections. It would not be the internet if we, the people, let big business separate it, separating us from each other in the process. 

College IS Expensive: What Are We To Do?

     It seems in this day and age that the increasingly elevated monetary payment required for attending even the least costly university in pursuit of higher education is out of most peoples capable spending spending zone, preventing many from such an informational investment. And while the most prestigious of universities have long since been reserved for the financial elite of society, what you might call the common people's colleges are becoming more and more exclusive as the average cost of tuition continues to rise. One solution is suggested in the New York Times' opinionated editorial How To Make College Cheaper, written by Steve Cohen. Cohen, being a lawyer and co-author of the book "Getting In: The Zinch Guide to College Admissions and Financial Aid in the Digital Age", seems to have both legal expertise and part of a book's knowledge relating to financing personal education. Speaking to America, as students, as families with students, and as tax paying citizens who help fund certain institutions dedicated to public education, he does well at prompting people to voice that the rising cost of tuition in a country drastically needing educated persons is an important issue that need to be addressed. As a student attending community college and working to go back to a university, this article resonates with me.
    Among the things Cohen discusses, he emphasizes that an important aspect of the dilemma is who it affects. While those living in poverty cannot afford either tuition or the repayment of borrowed student loans and the wealthy elite can afford to pay for college enrollment out of pocket, those in-between-ers of America's middle class are stuck in a problematic situation. Many families simply to not make enough net annual income to pay for their children's tuition in full, yet they make slightly more than enough to be above the federally calculated poverty line, disqualifying them from receiving significant financial aid. The financial aid that they do qualify for is far from enough to allow such families to be able to send their kids to college. Currently, the only other option, it seems, is for the young student to take out student loans, putting them in a large accrual of debt to begin being paid the moment they finish with their schooling, a crucial time when they are just starting to earn a salary capable of enabling such a task; those without a good job by that point happen to be on the tracks to financial disaster. 
     Cohen's proposed solution is one he refers to as tuition deferment, a college-offered alternative to student loans in which colleges would borrow money and then loan it to students rather than the students taking out loans personally from either the federal government or a third party. According to Cohen, this would reduce the interest rates on loan repayment because it college institutions would be taking out a large sum in bulk rather than what would be thousands of individual loans. Colleges also have collateral to offer in case of default and default is unlikely due to increases in national population increasing student attendance, therefore ensuring both the bringing in of future cash flow and of loan repayment. Student repayment rate would be base on earnings once out of college, meaning that lower salary graduates would have longer to pay back the loans. It would spread out payments to a period of up to twenty years, allowing new additions to America's workforce to build a life while at the same time paying of their student loans. By making it easier and less financially straining to attend college, college attendance would see a surge in both applicants and graduates. More college graduates means more skilled workers earning more money, fueling our economy and better this country, one college education at a time. 
     I very much like the proposed student of tuition deferment. I attended a university for a year, but due to too much partying and not enough homework being done, my GPA dropped and I lost eligibility for financial aid, without which I cannot afford to attend and my parents don't have the excess income to send me. If tuition deferment were an option, I would likely attend at my own expense with the goal of working to pay it back with urgency.