College Costs

College costs, which became more expensive for many with federal budget cuts enacted this year, have forced more high school students and their parents to consider community college as an economical starting point for a four-year degree. From a value standpoint, it could be a smart spending decision. Thinking about college costs became more important in light of the $12.7 billion slashed from the student loan programs in recent federal budget legislation. Federal loans will carry higher interest rates, adding thousands of dollars to the cost of college for many students, according to estimates.

Cody Inglis dreams of playing for a major league hockey team. To do that, he wants to play ice hockey for the University of New Hampshire Wildcats. But to make all that happen, he knows he's got to get good enough grades to win a college scholarship. That's a whole lot for a 10-year-old to think about. "I just don't know how people pay for college anymore," said Robin Inglis, 42, Cody's mother. Inglis and her husband, David, also have an 8-year-old daughter, and 19-year-old twins, Jessica and Amber, who are enrolled at Towson University.

In a few weeks, students in Maryland and across the nation will be gearing up for a rite of spring: taking Advanced Placement exams. A lot rides on their success on these tests. That's why it's disturbing that - although Maryland leads the nation in the percentage of its high school graduates who pass an AP test - there are such large disparities in AP pass rates and course offerings within and across school districts. Those disparities reflect the widespread patterns of education inequity and access that plague this nation.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Free is good. That's my rallying cry for coming high school seniors starting the scramble for every dollar they can get their hands on between now and next spring to cover college tuition, textbooks, and room and board. Yet, at a time when college costs continue to escalate with no end in sight, many sources for "free" money are being overlooked and untapped. By "free," I mean millions of dollars in scholarships that are typically available annually to qualified students with no repayment strings attached.

The courses of South Carroll High School graduate Kristine Lumadue included calculus, chemistry and English last year.But the 18-year-old student didn't take the courses at South Carroll High School. She earned enough high school credits to skip her senior year and take classes at Carroll Community College instead.Lumadue is among a select group of Carroll high school students taking college-credit classes at CCC. While she was able to bypass hersenior-year classes, other students are taking college courses alongwith their high school curriculum.

Back in the day, when their stocks were flying high, Colleen and Daniel Ganzer would plug their savings information into financial calculators and smile. It was early 2000, they were still in their mid-30s, and Dan's 401(k) plan was worth a quarter of a million dollars. Five years and one tech-stock meltdown later, things look a lit tle different. They've continued to save and have added to other accounts, but the 401(k) account stands at $105,000 - largely because of losses on his own company's stock - Lucent Technologies.

Three or four times a week, Nicole Angeli straps on ropes and harnesses and clambers up the 33-foot climbing wall in the Johns Hopkins University recreation center. The 22-year-old senior says her strenuous climbs reduce stress from the demands of classes. But the climbing wall, installed by Hopkins in 2002 at a cost of $100,000, also represents the lengths to which universities go to pamper students - and one reason why college costs have soared in recent years, far outstripping inflation.

With the tab for attending the nation's top universities exceeding $30,000 a year, there's plenty of angst over higher-education costs among students and parents over higher-education costs. But many tend to overestimate actual tuition rates -- and often know little about discounts increasingly available at most colleges.High tuition costs recently stirred Congress to create a federal task force to study the problem. Earlier this year, a Time magazine cover story declared that college costs $1,000 a week.

Education beyond high school is a key to success later in life. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, 62 percent of all U.S. jobs now require a minimum of two-year or four-year degrees or special post-secondary training. That number is expected to increase to 75 percent by 2020. Unfortunately, at the same time that some form of higher education is becoming more important, it's also becoming increasingly more expensive. The College Board calculates that college costs have risen faster than the rates of inflation over this previous academic year.

I agree with Marta Mossburg's commentary about the unemployed college grads with lots of student loan debt, and liberals who want to believe in black-and-white narratives of the country's financial collapse in order to blame someone ("In Md., your taxes support many of the '1 percent,'" Dec. 7). A possible answer to the college students' plight would be if colleges work with industry to offer grad students free education if they agree to work for a participating company for five years after earning their degrees.