Student Loans Insight

There are many reasons a student might miss a class or two in college, not all of them legitimate. However, more and more students are missing classes simply because of financial reasons. They may have a loan for the semester and all of their bills may be paid, but the money squeeze may hit them in an awful place – the gas tank.

When you commute to school or live on your own, you have to buy gas to get to classes and you may have to buy food as well as taking care of your energy, water, and phone bills. The problem is that as the price of gas is rising so is the price of some our favorite foods, both of which fuel students – one to actually get to class and one to allow them to be able to pay attention in class.

Because of this money squeeze, universities, colleges, and community colleges are looking for ways to help take care of some of the transportation costs for students and possibly even faculty members.

There are several ideas on the board, not the least of which is offering more online classes for students to be able to take. Online courses in the higher education arena may allow for greater savings on energy prices for both professor and student. If the professor is teaching online classes, he or she may be able to teach several in two or three days, allowing him or her the ability to stay home the other couple of days, using their home office as their school office. The same would be true for the student. The student may take one or two classes on campus and then fill up with the other necessary classes online instead of having to drive in on a daily basis.

Another suggestion is that colleges (and businesses?) run longer days for four days a week and then offer no classes on the other weekdays. This would save energy in a couple of different ways. The students and professors would be driving less and the campus itself would not have to air condition or heat buildings for that fifth day of classes.

Another suggestion is subsidized bus passes. If the student signs up for a full load during the semester, maybe the school could allow the student a subsidized bus pass. That would allow the student to be able to attend classes without having the $100.00 gas fill-up costs deter them from attending.

There are going to need to be several options given and several options taken. These need to be put into practice if students want to continue to go to the school of their choice and colleges and universities want to continue to attract bright students who will be a credit to them.