From Harford Community College:
Harford Community College student Giavanna Tserkis recently provided emotional testimony in Annapolis in support of College Promise Programs that would allow eligible state residents to attend Maryland community colleges tuition-free.
Gia, who does not qualify for financial aid, described the personal challenge of working three jobs to pay for her college education. She explained that her father has serious medical issues which make him unable to work and that her mother, who is the sole provider for the family, earns a modest salary.
“One of my jobs begins at 7 a.m. before classes. I work another job in the hours after classes end. Thursday through Sunday, I work my third job—an overnight job in a warehouse. I am one of many college students left in the gray area: I am not eligible for financial aid, but I can also not afford college without holding a job. Having my community college tuition paid would relieve the emotional and economic stress of college and allow me to focus on maintaining a 4.0 grade point average. I hope to attend law school after earning my bachelor’s degree in political science, but I know that tuition expenses will only get higher. I want to pursue my goals of making this world a better place, and a College Promise Program would will help me to do that,” Gia said.
The hearings before the Senate Education, Health, and Environmental Affairs Committee on the two College Promise bills (SB 317 and SB 261), which took place on February 7, had many supporters, including community college students, parents, and presidents, and many higher education representatives. The bills propose the means for recent Maryland high school graduates to attend community college tuition-free.
Nine states currently have, or are instituting, tuition-free programs for students.
Earlier in the day, community college students and presidents from several colleges attended Student Advocacy Day 2018, an annual event that provides an opportunity for students to meet their elected representatives and solicit continued support for the community college mission. The event was sponsored by Maryland Association of Community Colleges.
Well back in the day I worked my way through college and nobody helped me. I’m not complaining one bit but life often isn’t easy and you figure it out. My Dad used to say “hard work will get you everywhere.”
She works very hard if you read it states 3 jobs. She had responsibilities at a young age where others can sit back and their parents give them everything!
Whats wrong with a student loan ? Pay it back with the 300 large a year working as a lawyer.
Pay your own way like I did.
Don’t see why I have to pay for someone else’s kids to go to college. No one paid for my kids.
No one wants to simply WORK HARD anymore. Everyone is looking for a hand-out. It will get to the point seriously when an AA or BS/BA Degree will be worthless to an employer because everyone will be handed one for free. “Oh, YOU have a Bachelor’s Degree?….great…here is a broom…go sweep that corner”.
My Dad had many great sayings. Another was, “Don’t wait for someone else’s money, go out and earn your own.” That’s what he would have said if he were reading this story.
I agree 100% !! Stop handing out OUR money! Ifvi wanted to give someone money for college I’d give it to my kids who still have loans to pay off. Yes, they earned their degree all by themselves and probably appreciate it more because they worked for it. Stop the free rides and you’ll be a better person for it.
If you want to make the world a better place, don’t become a lawyer.
I am so proud of this young lady! As a former coworker, I feel blessed that I had the chance to work with someone with as much drive, ambition, and intelligence as Gia. It’s a true shame that adults can’t seem to envision life from a different perspective. I’m not sure where people are getting is notion that she or other students want handouts when she is working three jobs? I think, at minimum, Gia would at least like the cost of her education to be affordable rather than being as inflated as it is. College can no longer be paid for with an after school job like it was back in the olden days. Times have changed. Because you had to pay for your kids’ schooling, you’ve decided that you want it to remain that way forever? Many well-developed countries allow their students to attend college for a lesser or nonexistent price. If America wants to keep up this facade of being so great at everything, tuition-free or tuition-reduced college education would be a step in maintaining that facade.
She’s asking someone else to work for free, so she can have the profit.
No.
She is asking for a handout so she can stop working 3 jobs (and good for her – she’ll be better off for it in the long run.) There is no such thing as FREE tuition – someone else just pays for it. Maybe you don’t like to keep your own hard-earned money, and that’s just fine for you, but the rest of us don’t feel like we should have to pay for someone else’s college education.
So you wish to use a mockery of my namesake to promote your cause, here I go. The money she is asking for is NOT your money. Your money is not your money. It is nothing but a fictitious piece of cotton pretending to be a currency of some sort of value. There is no value to the scraps of cloth issued to everyone as there is no form of collateral associated with the cloth you perceive as money. The gold standard was repealed by the traitor Richard Nixon and your money is henceforth worthless. You all work, buy goods and pay bills with currency of no value to anyone but the Federal Reserve and that entity actually uses you as collateral for debts incurred by our treasonous government, thanks to another traitor, Franklin D. Roosevelt. Since she is asking for funds that have no actual value, you have no right to complain because that money is the property of the Federal Reserve and you have no legitimate claim to any of that cotton. Furthermore, even if that money was real and you had a claim to it, you forfeit that claim when it became withdrawn as a tribute to your treasonous government in the form of a tax. You don’t own any part of the taxes you pay and it doesn’t matter because that money is fake to begin with. Each and every citizen of this country is an indentured servant to a corporation known as the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA and a corporation can not own flesh and blood human beings, nor can it rule us by the use of rules and regulations of a corporate code. This is especially unreasonable and intolerable because there is no time frame or end to the slavery our government has placed all of us under and you can never pay back any debts because the money you use has no real value. Value is only given to funds backed by a bullion of precious metals and what we are talking about isn’t backed up by anything at all. She is asking for a fiction, to use in exchange for an education, to place her in a higher position of her indentured servant status that she will never escape from in her lifetime. Your complaint is unfounded and has no merit based on your concept of money. She is entitled to the money because it doesn’t exist, nor does it have any value. So shut your mouth and know your role, troll. Leave this woman alone and let her have her education without the slavery you propose she endure. You are a rotten human being and a complete waste of air and elements. Don’t ever use a mockery of my namesake again…..
Agree with your dislike of someone messing with your screen name, but your rant of your definition of what “money” is , was a true waste time… All money aside,,,Who or Whom? is paying for this “Free” college? 10 words or less please.
No one. You can’t pay with what you don’t have.
If you don’t understand what you refer to an my “money rant”, please read the following and be enlightened…….http://www.serendipity.li/jsmill/us_corporation.htm
Your arrogance to the REAL topic is astounding..No wonder someone would mock your title…how is that for “enlightenment “?
Arrogance?? Really? I just gave you an explanation to all the government corruption that has been manufactured in this country since the early 20th century and you got the stones to call me arrogant. I’m not arrogant, I’m the truth. You were given the truth. A gift, from me to you and you too ignorant to understand it. Why don’t you read it again. Then again and again until you understand what I’m talking about. Your money isn’t paying for this country or this woman’s education. Quite frankly, you are displaying the arrogance by suggesting that she continues to suffer in order to get that education. Knowledge is power and knowledge is free to those whom search for it.
Thanks,,, you just proved my point (again),,, “knowledge is power and knowledge is free to those whom search for it”,, Explain to the young lady,,WHERE she can get her “FREE” college, sure she would love to know… You must be from CA, You get paid in peanuts?, ahhh, gold bullion? I prefer the green back,,,(dollars), and who said anything about corruption??? lighten up on the meds will you???
You’re just clueless…
Yeah… Good luck with all that. Bitter much?
Bitter? Dead men can’t be bitter. Dead men can only be dead.
Tell your liberal professors pushing this entitlement class of people to take a pay cut or teach for free.
Let them practice what they preach and stop stealing my earned money.
GOOD LUCK ON THAT!!!!!!!!!!
Let’s get started on this right now! Step 1: Dr. Phillips, you’re salary is now $1 per year. Cool?
I miss Lawrence Welk.
how about reimbursing all of those parents that worked 3 jobs to pay for their child’s college education! Where are the parents! I already paid for my child – why should I pay for yours!
You want free money? Start a GoFundMe. LOL
Yeah, people want an all expense paid trip to whatever it is you want to do in life while others foot the bill. Right.
Maybe you should talk to a financial advisor first? See if your timeframe/income is realistic to your goals?
Maybe you’ll have to adjust your timeframe to get to your goal without having Joe Taxpayer foot the bill for you?
Maybe you should find employment that suits your goals better?
I don’t my money going to little brats like this.
Well, Meryl, I partially sympathize with you. I don’t want my money going for a lot of things that the government spends it on after they take it from me. And the cost of higher education is higher than it probably needs to be. And don’t get me started on the student loan scam which adds fuel to the fire at the risk of putting students and their parents in to an untenable financial position when they should know better. I applaud her work ethic and it alone will probably reward her with a successful financial life. Personally, I got a privately funded scholarship which someone else paid for but but not the government.
Want to talk about craziness, let’s talk about student athletes scholarships.
My fav are basketball scholarships. 1 year and then they think they are ready for the NBA. Such a joke. What a waste of $$$
You could always invest it in one of Donnie jr’s condos in India.
TANSTAAFL.
Bless you. Maybe take some cold medicine for that?
I still want my money!
We are coming for your entitlements next old man. I hope your not counting on that Social Security and that Medicare. We need those dollars to pay for the huge ass deficit that we have created by irresponsible spending and unpaid for tax cuts. Who are we you may ask? We are your federal government. Currently controlled entirely by the Republican Party, but we did much of the same under Democratic Party control. So quit your crying and hand over those $$$$.
Look again numbnuts just like under every other republican administration the deficit is headed up again.
and OBUMMERS debt was????? take a guess,,,lol, or dont we count shovel ready jobs..(back to the basement, moms got cookies and milk for you)
your “Title” is a little short,,, what admin has NOT tapped into SS??? silly liberal.
I deserve an all expenses paid trip to Hawaii, I work two jobs but it is still way too expensive for me to afford to go. I feel like tax payers should send me to Hawaii for free simply because I want to go.
You can actually get a grant for that from the federal government. You should apply.
What will your all expenses paid vacation add to the economy for the next 45 years? Someone who advances their education and is more productive will undoubtedly add far more to the GDP in marginal dollars than the original cost to educate them.
The Navy, Coast Guard or Air Force will take you (or her) to Hawaii on Uncle Sam’s dime. I’m not sure if that stop is on the Army or Marine Corps college tour, but they have other exciting destinations as well. That free education also includes housing, transportation, food, clothing, books, gym membership…probably a free laptop, too.
As a society we have agreed to pay for 13 years of free education, during that time, if you work hard, you can get almost an entire years worth of college credit via AP courses and tests. After those 13 years you have been granted one of the most wondrous things in the world, a free world class education. You can now enter society and begin to pay dividends on the investment society has made in you. Please do not beg for more free stuff, if you did not take advantage of societies goodwill then shame on you. Now you have to provide something of value in return for education, the free ride is over.
Try getting a loan like everyone else does idiot. The rest of us had to pay for our own education and if we couldn’t afford it we took out alone. Liberals think everything should be free, but NOTHING is free. Just because it’s not coming out of your pocket doesn’t mean that it’s not coming out ornament someone else’s. I had to pay for my own tuition and I’ll be damned if I have to pay for someone else’s.
What you fail to realize, is she is representing the College and its future students. If you take time to read the Bills, you will notice, she will have graduated Community College, before it goes into affect, if passed ! So, stop belittling her !
This applies to her and all the students. What many posters here are saying is that we either worked our way through college, or, saved money to pay for our kids college. We didn’t ask for a handout for someone else to pay. I keep getting appeals from my college, as an alumni, to donate to scholarships for deserving kids. The only scholrship funds I can donate to right now is my kids 529 plans because nobody is going to giveour family anything. We take care of our own, as someone once said.
The military is a great place to get an education. A hard working person can often earn a Bachelor’s degree while serving their country for four years. When they leave the service, if they wish to do post graduate work the GI Bill covers much if not all of the cost.
Not for all troops.
Some people feel an Intelligentsia status via higher education is a birth rite. The world isn’t served with managers only. The engineer designs, the welder welds. Seems that the intelligentsia class feels that they should get THE free ride, education, while the guy they contract with the welding rig should go $100,000 into debt. That’s very classist.
Additionally…… THESE COMMIES MAKE ME MAD ! I worked my self silly to get where I am today. The attitude of…do for me…you owe me…is what is wrong today. So lets see….SHE IS ASKING FOR ME TO PAY HER BILLS SO SHE CAN BE MY BOSS AND GET A BONUS BY BROW BEATING ME….SCREW HER…LET HER MOP FLOORS FOR HER DEGREE. LET HER BE A LAWYER MON TO FRIDAY AND WORK AT GIANT FOOD ON SATURDAY NIGHTS STOCKING SHELVES…MAYBE ROYAL FARMS NEEDS A REGISTER OPERATOR OVERNIGHT ON SUNDAYS…AFTER SHE GRADUATES !
The bright side is: If we make tuition free, we’ll lose less revenue, because Dr. Phillips has allowed enrollment to slip so much. Who hired her? She actually told the board that she was behind the 8-ball! Without giving them a strategy. I’ve never heard an executive take that stance in my life. At least an executive that was qualified to run an enterprise the size of HCC. Does she even care about the board’s oversight?
Guess what – I didn’t qualify for financial aid either and my parents didn’t give me a dime to pay for my tuition. I worked 2 jobs (1 overnight) to pay my way through HCC. Then I got a better paying job and paid my way through a bachelor’s degree. Now I’m working on a master’s degree and I’ve never had a student loan and my parents didn’t pay my way – I worked for it every step of the way. I’ve got my own tuition to pay for, I shouldn’t have to pay for other people’s.