Education Accessibility

Hi, I'm Viktoria and I live in Vancouver. This being my first quarter at PSU and taking public health classes I have been really reflecting on my educational pursuits and the accessibility and opportunities that are available to me. After learning about the social determinants of health I became very aware of the importance of education and really started thinking about how different people have different levels of access to education. Being an out of state student means that I have to pay out of state tuition: which is more than 3 times the amount than in state tuition. PSU was pretty much my only choice for pursuing a public health career and being able to stay in Vancouver. I really started thinking about how people finance their education and how people living in poverty can even access education. It frustrates me that someone who is simply trying to accomplish their educational goals has such big obstacles in the way. I am blessed enough to be able to have this problem solved but I would assume that there are many people that are not so fortunate. It seems like people in poverty who want to attend school out of state are simply set up to fail in even attending it. They obviously won't have enough money to pay for school out of pocket and if they apply to financial aid and get the maximum amount they still won't have enough to cover their tuition bill. On top of that, the additional maximum federal student loans that they are allowed to take out are not enough to cover the cost of a 12 credit quarter.. they are left with taking out either a Parent Plus Loan or a private bank loan. A private bank loan would require them to get a cosigner- someone living in poverty would probably have a very hard time finding a person who has a good credit history and good credit to debt ratio who also trusts them enough to put their name down on such a document. If that person's parents don't qualify to be the cosigners (most people living in poverty don't) then that person has to go through a stressful experience of finding someone who does. A Parent Plus loan requires the parent to have a good credit history; also somewhat unlikely if they are living in poverty. I'm not saying this applies to everyone, but it is reasonable that this would happen. Now think about it? If you had to go through so much trouble would you still try to go to school? I really feel like out of state students living in poverty are set up to fail if they really want to pursue their educational goals. We wonder why we have such health disparities in impoverished communities and the answer is because we aren't doing much to help them succeed in the one thing that can change that- education.