Mr. Grassley, you are just plain wrong on students….

Dear Mr. Grassley,

Let’s be honest, you never really were my favorite Senator but I used to think you made some sense. I was dead wrong.

You recent post about the Know Before You Owe bill to educate students on the cost of higher education is a puff piece to say the least. Trust me, students understand the COST of education. What we don’t understand Mr. Grassley, is why you think its the student’s fault instead of the continued rising cost of education?

Back when you were going to school in 1955, a student could work full time all summer and expect to pay for a whole year of education. Right now, on a conservative side, the average cost of education is probably about $7,000 in core charges. That means a student working minimum wage, which is a wage that you have determined is high enough but that is a different story, a student making 9.00/hr would have to work 40 hours a week for 19 weeks just to pay for a year of core charges. That doesn’t even include food to eat while at school, electricity, internet, water, gas, a phone and a whole mess of other charges that we need to incur just to be able to live. If a student works 25 hours a week, that pushes the time back to 31 weeks with no other charges. If you live on-campus, forget it… you couldn’t pay for that with a whole year worth of full-time work.

Remember Mr. Grassley when you made this statement…. well I think students in Iowa would feel like you just stabbed them in the back. Lets get to real solutions and stop the nonsense.

How about you look at other options, like maybe you should think about lowering the percentage rate that the federal loans accrue in interest to that of any of the big banks interest rates when they borrow money. Maybe we should look at how we can increase efficiency at universities and colleges so that the savings can be passed onto the students. Maybe you should give the colleges some relief so that they don’t have to bump up tuition because the Iowa House and Governor (from your own party) decided that students can take a back seat to fertilizer and corporate tax incentives.

Maybe instead of blaming the students, you should look at the real problem and blame the system. This system that you helped create. The system that you use to fund your spending in defense contracts and other unneeded expenses while your students back home are barely making ends meet.

I would like to see you publish how much you paid for your tuition and you will probably say something like “It was 1955 the cost of living was different.” That’s exactly right. It was much different and I think you have been in Washington too long. Maybe you should spend your time on campuses and talking to financial aid offices and find some real solutions. I bet you won’t, but here’s to hoping…