Critiquing Andrea Coj

Although I agree with Andrea Coj's message about the Obama administration, her argument is poorly supported and leaves a lot to be desired in the way of references, making it seem like a rough draft rather than a final blog post. Coj's message is that the Obama administration is not as bad as everyone is making it out to be and cites the new immigration executive order as her evidence of this, saying that Obama "secretly working" on this plan makes his administration worthwhile.

Ignoring grammatical errors, her argument is very weak, relying mainly on her experiences only and general statements about what has been happening in the political sphere. Coj also references ebola in what seems to be an afterthought, a point which, having been more developed, could have greatly improved the viability of this piece. Like I said, although I agree with the message that the Obama administration is not as bad as everyone makes it out to be and blame is laid on the president for things out of his control, I do not believe this article would convince anyone who disagreed with her point that this is a viable opinion.

The Root of the Issue of College Costs

Everybody knows that a college education in America is not cheap. 69% of students left college in 2013 with student loans and the borrowers owed an average of $28,400 in combined private and federal loans. The cost of college has increased by over 500% from 1985, compared to a 286% jump in medical costs and a 121% increase in the consumer price index in the same period. This ridiculous increase makes college difficult to afford for many students and increases the economic disparity in America. With this increase in price, the demand and competition for federal aid, scholarship and loans has greatly increased over the years, further making it difficult to finance college without taking out loans. Do you want to know who does't have this problem? Students in Germany. The entirety of the country's universities have been tuition free since this past October when the last of their states got rid of fees. Other countries such as Finland, France, and Brazil have little to no fees to go to their public colleges. In Germany the effect of this has been an increase in the proportion of the population that is entering and graduating from college. If America took steps not to increase aid to fund each individual's education, but deal with the problem at the source and decrease the cost of college, much less strain would be put on families who cannot leisurely afford college. Currently there is a lot of aid for the financially disadvantaged, as long as you know how to apply for it there are already generous sums of money awarded to people who otherwise would not be able to afford college. This is a great thing. In the upper class college can be paid for because they have enough money to pay for it. That leaves out the middle class we are oh so proud of in America out in the cold. The middle class consisting of those who are missed by federal financial aid but cannot easily pay for college out of pocket. The strain that is put on families of this type increases the economic disparity by only allowing the very elite of them, who can gain enough scholarship through academics, to consistently pay for college. This makes it increasingly difficult for the average middle class person to pay for college without gaining loads of debt. Raising aid is not the answer to this issue, problems cannot be fixed by throwing money at them. Decreases in the cost of public college would benefit all classes and be a factor in helping preserve our already declining middle class.