VoiceBox: Students react to president-elect Trump’s higher education promise

“What do you think our next presidential term will be like for college students if higher education institutes are forced to take accountability for their spending or lower tuition as promised by our president elect?”

“If the federal government is going to subsidize student loans, it has a right to expect that colleges work hard to control costs and invest their resources in their students,” Trump said. “If colleges refuse to take this responsibility seriously, they will be held accountable.”

Brianne Bigelow, 20, Photography, Gregory
“Honestly, I would rather the tuition drop because it is so expensive and so many people are going into debt because they can’t afford it, so they’re forced to take out loans, which puts them in more debt later on in life and they’re still paying it off. Either way, it [Trump’s promise] has it’s own pros and cons. I don’t feel that we should take on a full payment all upfront and not be able to take out loans but I feel like the tuition cost should also be dropped.”

Andy Pampreen, 19, Biology, Ann Arbor
“I guess it depends on how quickly they have to cut funding. There’s gonna be some drastic changes and I don’t think it will help the structure of our education system. In order to be competitive, there are some things we need to buy that are expensive and when you have to cut your spending, you can’t buy some of this equipment. Like at Denison University, there was some equipment we used that, when visiting other colleges, they just didn’t have it. It allowed us to learn certain things that we couldn’t learn anywhere else. That costs money. There are some things that the colleges just won’t be able to afford.”

Alec Seestadt, 19 Advertising, Milford
“I think that it will be more difficult for kids to afford college. I feel like at least community colleges should be affordable and there shouldn’t be as many of these responsibilities on the students and the teachers shouldn’t have to be worrying about this stressful situation.”

Al Arshad, 28, undecided, Ann Arbor
“Honestly I don’t think it’ll make any difference. I think it’s just a platitude that politicians throw out there to garner votes and support. Unless he presents a coherent plan to enforce this, it doesn’t mean anything. Until I see a plan that actually lays out a strategy to keep schools accountable, if that isn’t already something that’s happening anyway, it’s just another empty promise.”

Travis Wardell, 18
If they have lower tuition, it would help college students a lot.There’s less pressure on them while they’re in college. I think they would do better then because they don’t have to worry about the money in the future as much. I think it would just be easier.

Quadriyyah Williams, 16
I think students would be happy. Residents wouldn’t like this that much because they would have to pay taxes. I would like lower tuition. It depends on how they find a way to pay for it. The higher institutions might be able to stay together.

Aicha Kaba, 18 (No photo available)
Why not pay it? I feel like we go through so much to get accepted. We don’t all come from rich families so it would be easier. It should be lowered, it costs too much. They could have fundraisers to help pay for the costs.

Note 11/14/2016: This article has been merged with the “VoiceBox: 11/10/2016” article, as they relate to the same topic.

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