访谈录 2008-12-08&12-10 金融危机－或将摧毁我的大学梦！（在线收听）

Nineteen-year-old Vanessa Massarotti was accepted at her top choice private four-year university, but for economic reasons, had to enroll instead in Brookdale Community College.

“Financially, I have a brother and sister in college also, so it was really hard, so I just had to come to Brookdale, save money”, like Vanessa, more students may be squeezed out of their dream school or college in general. For a public four-year college tuition has skyrocketed from 1,600 dollars twenty years ago to nearly 7,000 now, for a private school, from 8,000 to 25, 000 dollars.

“For a long time, we just thought about the poor, but now many middle-class students can’t go, the tuition’s just too high”. A new education report card found that families making less than 19,000 dollars a year doled out 39% of their income on public college costs in 1999. That number jumped to a whopping 55% in 2007, the share for middle-class families making less than 90,000 dollars also climbed from 18 to a hefty 25%, while families making more than 90,000 saw the lowest increase, from 7 to 9%

“And the problem is only likely to get worse. Historically, education experts say during tough economic times, states tend to cut college budgets which sends tuitions up”, “I think it’s gonna be very interesting to see if states that have relatively high instate tuitions if they are not gonna to lose students to other states that have lower costs”, “I know money is still always gonna be an issue”, Vanessa’s college dreams ultimately will be determined by her family’s bottom line.

Kelly Wallace, CBS news. New York.