Full text: A study of student loans and their relation to higher educational finance

Their Relation to Higher Educational Finance 
59 
that increased tuition and fees are advisable in the interest of higher learn- 
ing, what reasons can be advanced for the carrying out of such a policy 
which at first seems inhuman and hard-hearted ? To refuse to assist the 
young person to “get on his feet” so to speak, is strictly against tradition 
and sentiment, but if kept within reason it is not against common sense 
and clear thinking. The task should not be made so difficult that the 
Student will give up, but sufficiently difficult to make him appreciate the 
value of the training he is getting. The fact that he has been paying 
full price for his clothing and amusements has caused him to give no 
less attention to these elements of his College life. A higher price for the 
academic element ought not to lessen his zeal for it. It is contrary to 
common sense to have the Student pay full price for everything in his 
College life except that which should be the most important to him 
—his intellectual training. In speaking on the cost of education to the 
individual, Dr. Thwing says: 
There is a fear among certain College people in America that the race 
of rieh men will die out, that they will be unable to give in large sums. For 
one, I do not so believe. New sources of revenue are to be discovered. ‘New 
forces of Nature are to be discovered. The creation of power through the 
tides, the making of nitrogen from the air, and new sources for electricity 
will be conditions out of which riches will be earned in the future.’ In 
securing larger revenues for the private institutions, the movement is strong 
in charging a higher price for tuition. Fees have been greatly increased.. Such 
merease is proper. Distinction should be made between the fee to be paid in the 
undergraduate College of liberal learning and in the Professional school. Al- 
though students do not enter the Professional schools in order to become rieh; 
yet the Professional school is a tool which immediately fits them for self-sup- 
port and for aiding the community. The undergraduate College has for its pur- 
pose the enlarging of the mind and sympathies of the graduate. It has a 
pecuniary value of course—and a great pecuniary value. But this value is 
not so significant as found in the case of the Professional school of medicine 
or law. Professional education, in money, is extremely costly. It is now 
costing the university seventeen hundred dollars ($1,700) for this year (1920- 
21) to educate each of its students in the medical school, for which the 
Student is paying two hundred dollars. The undergraduate cost is four 
hundred dollars, and the Student pays less than two hundred dollars. The 
endeavor for the better endowment of the College should be constant, and 
the endeavor also for the Student to pay as large a share for his education 
as possible should be continued. 81 
The idea here is not necessarily to have the Student pay the full 
cost of his education, but the full cost of that portion of it which is of 
positive benefit to himself and brings a direct commercial return to him. 
No argument can be raised against such a policy except doubtful and false 
sentiment and arguments based on false concepts. All other products 
which an individual purchases must be paid for at full value. No excep- 
tion must be made with training which should be the most highly prized of 
all products. 
31 C. F. Thwing, ‘'Support of Higher Fducation” in School and Society, March 19, 1921, 
pp. 356-7.
	        
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