The government has shut down, but the world hasn’t ended. Yet. So what has changed? How will the government shutdown make a difference in your life?

Handouts

What does government shutdown mean?

A government shutdown is the name of the process the federal government must enter when Congress fails to pass legislation funding government operations and agencies. On Oct. 1, the U.S. government entered this shutdown after Congress failed to enact regular appropriations (a sum of money devoted to a special purpose) for the fiscal year 2014.

How could it affect me?

1. Your grants and research funding could be stalled: With federal programs being defunded, government subsidies for scientific research — like that at public universities such as ours — just might become inaccessible. Already granted awards are to be honored, but the government does not have the money or the initiative to provide new funds. With the Department of Education having neither a budget nor a full staff, ongoing and proposed scientific research are not a priority.

2. All research funding could be stalled: We may not always think about it, but government research, such as that at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has a profound impact on our lives. Not only has the annual surveillance of the flu virus has been halted, but food inspection facilities have been closed as well, leading to outbreaks in salmonella and hepatitis.

3. Academic resources will not be updated: Speaking of research, if you’re looking for federal data and information for a research paper, you might have to keep looking. The websites for the U.S. Census, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Education Resources Information Center, the National Archives and more have not been kept up to date since.

Going somewhere?

4. You might have to change your travel plans: Oh, you need a passport to study abroad next semester? Might want to get started on that application. No last-minute passports are being granted, and, in fact, you can expect delays in the process. You might be delayed at the airport, too, as the TSA has furloughed its “nonessential” employees. But even if you were thinking about driving down to Yosemite to go camping for the weekend, you’re going to have to change your plans. Many attractions run by the National Park Service have been closed. You’ll just have to wait until the government starts working again.

5. And what’s the deal with financial aid? Thankfully, federal student aid should go largely unaffected, at least for the time being. There is supposed to be a limited impact on both the administration of FAFSA and student loan repayment abilities, while direct loans, Pell Grants and other financial aid dollars will continue to be distributed. In the long term, however, a shutdown lasting awhile might curb funding to public universities, such as us here at UC Berkeley.

Has the government ever shut down before?

Yes. Technically, this is the 18th time since 1976 that the government has shut down. But only two other shutdowns have lasted longer than two weeks, as this year’s has — when Bill Clinton and congressional Republicans wrangled over budget matters from Dec. 16, 1995, to Jan. 5, 1996 (21 days), and during Jimmy Carter’s administration from Sept. 30, 1978, to Oct. 18, 1978 (18 days).

When does it end? 

It will end when Congress passes the bill(s) to fund the government and the president signs them.

A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that a government shutdown during President Jimmy Carter’s tenure lasted from Sept. 20, 1978, to Oct. 18, 1978. In fact, that shutdown lasted from Sept. 30, 1978, to Oct. 18, 1978.

Image Sources: NPCA Photos, wanderingnebulaandadog, 401(K) 2013, Claus Rebler, Hash Milhan, Sean MacEntee, John-Morgan, sleeping-on-the-clouds, and motionlmags 

Contact Holly Secon and Sujin Shin at blog@dailycal.org.

The post How will the government shutdown affect you as a college student? appeared first on The Daily Californian.

They came to me in the middle of the night. They were young and beautiful and dressed up like they were about to go out. I had about an hour’s warning, and their knock on the door was light so as to wake no one who wasn’t already up. When they got to my doorstep, I was ready. I knew it would be hasty and impromptu, but there’s no reason even a simple wedding can’t be beautiful.

We shared grapes and wine, and I told them that what begins as new and perfect fruit can end up a rich, fermented, much-changed substance that the vine might not recognize. They tasted both and said their vows, and we signed the paperwork. With a little help from their friends, they were married.

In the state of California, any recognized member of the church clergy can marry individuals to one another if the couple has a license. Over the years, I’ve married a handful of couples in the woods and in my living room. I’ve seen the state and the nation struggle over the definition of marriage, and I’ve seen it take many forms. I’ve heard the academic and feminist arguments that marriage was, for many centuries, a primarily economic arrangement to secure the merging and inheritance of property. Much about marriage has changed, but for the very rich and the very poor, the economic part remains the same.

The rich have assets to protect. They draw up contracts and agreements to ensure no one is seduced into a holy and blissful union by a heartless and calculating gold digger.

The poor have other arrangements to make. We are more likely to cohabitate to save money, whether it is appropriate for the relationship or not. In my life, I have known men and women who choose to stay with partners who are abusive or merely unsuited because breaking up means giving up a place to call home.

My friends who were married that night in my living room loved one another and probably would have chosen to marry at some point. The reason they came to me with so little notice, however, was not a pregnancy or a shotgun or even a romantic whim. It was the deadline for FAFSA submissions for the following academic year. Too young to be considered independent from their parents, they were desperate for enough financial aid to transfer to a four-year university. They were the children of vanishing middle class. On paper, their folks could afford to contribute to their tuition, but real life is complicated with gambling addictions and jobs that don’t offer health care.

It wasn’t young love. It wasn’t an impetuous gesture or an adherence to belief. It was a financial decision. Like many decisions forced upon us by poverty, it was a decision that puts the future in jeopardy — no money down, crippling credit terms down the road. The FAFSA considers married students independent and places a student in a wholly separate category for aid. Choosing to marry now to qualify for aid may result in a possibly messy and potentially expensive divorce later, but in the moment, we do what we must. In the meantime, we give one another the gift of an education otherwise out of reach.

Tuition has outpaced the cost of living, outpaced inflation and shows no sign of slowing. People all over are taking drastic measures to afford school, and at the University of California, we are no different. A recent discussion on the cost of housing led some of my classmates to speculate on the appearance of quad dorms with four bunks to a room and the feasibility of (not kidding) camping on the Glade and writing a blog called The Great Outdorms. The idea of getting married for mercenary causes may rankle the romantic soul, but in the scheme of desperation, it seems almost a tame solution.

In my tradition, couples being wed grasp hands and are gently tied together to symbolize their bond. When this couple was tied, I told them to remember that it’s only one hand they’ve given and that the other remains free. True of their marriage, this also became a symbol of their shared commitment to helping one another get through school, support one another’s dreams and be good partners; they were not entirely bound, but they were also not entirely free.

Marriage was never pure. It is sometimes undertaken in the spirit of perfect altruism and true love, but my friends’ practical decision was perfectly in line with the long and fraught history of this evolving institution. They might have given up, waited a few years or taken on crushing loans to move forward with their education. A license to marry costs $97 and takes effect the moment both people say “I do.” They’re responsible to one another and for one another, and they take that seriously. This year, they’ll both graduate from a UC school with their respective bachelor’s degrees.

I now pronounce you educated to the minimum degree necessary to get a decent job.

Meg Elison writes the Monday column on financial issues affecting UC Berkeley students.Contact Meg Elison at melison@dailycal.org.

The post For richer or for poorer appeared first on The Daily Californian.

My best friend’s parents both went to Cal. Some of her earliest memories are of the Campanile and the Cal Band performances, and she was very excited to come visit me when I started here. When we were preparing to graduate from high school, her parents really wanted her to follow in their footsteps and stay in California. She got into Cal, but she wanted to do something different from what they had done.

She got her letter from Georgetown University and took off across the country. I remember watching the whole process of her applications, her worrying and her excitement as acceptance letters came in. We were the same age, and I should have been doing the same thing. She and I are different in a lot of ways, and having two Cal alumni for parents is just one of the ways in which she had an advantage. After she left for Washington, D.C., I went to work and did what most people do when they don’t go to college. I learned the value of lost time the hard way, by punching a clock and sacrificing potential for survival. I did not figure out how to follow her for almost 10 years.

When I was new at UC Berkeley, I was really hoping to meet people who came from a life like I had come from. I remembered the statistics from CalSO about the percentage of students who received financial aid, and I thought I’d meet lots of people who had grown up poor. I thought about everyone who had stood when we were asked to stand if we were first-generation college students. Despite my expectations, many of the people I meet at Cal are like my best friend: Their parents went to college or at least stressed it to them early in life.

Sometime in the last year, I’ve stopped comparing my journey to theirs. I stopped wondering how things might have been different if I had been born to somebody else. What matters is what I’ve got and what I do with it now, because I can’t go back. Although my parents aren’t college graduates, I’ve inherited other gifts.

My mom is very smart. She is ultrasupportive of my siblings and me pursuing our educations. As I’ve grown up and learned and changed, she’s been my biggest fan. She understands the value of education — that’s not an issue. She can read a stranger’s face perfectly, and she makes business deals and handles money in a take-no-prisoners way that she’s always referred to as “Jesse James-ing.” She’s cunning and quick and very creative when she chooses to be. She did not, however, go to college. She dropped out of high school, like me. Unlike me, she immediately got pregnant and had three kids whom she had to support and raise almost totally on her own. The path of her life has not yet led back to school.

The difference of growing up poor and raised by people who didn’t go to college is one that is hard to communicate. My friend on Sproul Plaza was told her whole life about college, both as a concept and as a reality. Her parents told stories about it, derived who they are from it and probably expected her and her siblings to go without question. Growing up without those stories and that expectation is a disadvantage, no question.

However, the almost insurmountable obstacle comes from not knowing the process. Parents who did not go to college don’t know when you should take the SAT or how to fill out applications. They may or may not be willing or able to provide their kids with the information on income that they’ll need to apply for both admission and aid. They are far less likely to arrange campus field trips or even talk about where and how the process began. Counselors are overtaxed and underpaid in high schools all over the country.

So we fly blind.

Shortly after I went back to school, I brought home a friend for dinner. My mom is the most generous and welcoming of hostesses, and she was no less so to my new friend. Over dinner, my friend and I got into a spirited discussion on what we thought was the best treatment of the Arthurian legend in literature: “Le Morte d’Arthur” or “Idylls of the King.” We went back and forth for a long time, shutting everyone else out of the conversation. When she could get a word in, my mom interjected: “I like Ziggy — sometimes Calvin and Hobbes, but Ziggy is the best.” I realized then that keeping my mom in the conversation was not just something I needed to do to be polite. I was moving to a foreign country called Academia, and if I forgot how to speak the language we used at home, I’d lose her, too. Bridging the gap within my family between education levels isn’t easy. For people who come to UC Berkeley broke, sometimes the steepest learning curve is outside the classroom.

Meg Elison writes the Monday column on financial issues affecting UC Berkeley students.Contact Meg Elison at melison@dailycal.org.

The post The failure to communicate appeared first on The Daily Californian.

The FAFSA she fills out every year does not provide an option for her to report both parents’ incomes, because her parents are of the same sex.

“She is frustrated because she wants to be truthful, but there is no way legally to do that,” said Paul Williams, her brother and the LGBTQ ally cohort leader for the UC Berkeley Gender and Equity Resource center.

In 2014, that will change.

The U.S. Department of Education announced April 29 that the FAFSA, completed by more than 15 million students every year, will begin to collect information about students’ parents regardless of their marital status or gender.

The new form is an attempt to more accurately calculate students’ financial needs and ensure a fairer and more inclusive application process, according to a press release.

“The change will strengthen the integrity of the student aid programs by more accurately capturing a family’s ability to pay for college,” said Secretary of Education Arne Duncan in a press conference.

The new form will allow applicants to describe their parents’ marital status as “unmarried and both parents living together” and will use terms like “Parent 1” and “Parent 2” instead of father, mother or step-parent.

Starting in 2014, Anderson will be able to record her biological mother’s income as well as her mother’s partner’s income, which will more accurately reflect her household’s finances. Both of Anderson’s moms are teachers, earning together what Williams estimates is around $105,000. On the old form, Anderson only recorded half of that income.

“She gets a lot of aid now — and she isn’t complaining about that,” said Williams. “But she feels guilty. It’s not as if her parents are unable to pay if they had to.”

According to a report by the Center for American Progress, a nonpartisan educational institute, the current form’s narrow language misallocates financial aid based on sexual orientation or gender identity — characteristics the report says are “completely divorced from an applicant’s actual need for financial aid”.

A major consequence of the old form’s discriminatory language, according to the report’s author, Cal alumnus Crosby Burns, was that it frustrated students with LBGT parents. The language often discouraged students from filing for financial aid, he said.

“There are barriers and delays,” Burns said. “It hurts the student’s ability to get equal access to financial aid for higher education.”

The Department of Education has not yet calculated the effect of introducing these changes to the FAFSA. The amount of financial aid students will receive next year will vary by student, with some receiving more after the change and some receiving less.

Duncan said finances were not a consideration in the department’s changed policy.

“It’s really the right thing to do, and cost savings actually had nothing to do with it because we don’t know whether it will cost more or less,” he said in the press conference.

The announcement comes about a month after the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments on the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act, a federal law that defines marriage as the union between one man and one woman. The DOMA prohibits any federal agency from recognizing any form of same-sex relationships, including marriage, domestic partnerships and civil unions.

According to a joint Washington Post-ABC News poll, about 58 percent of Americans favor legalizing same-sex marriage.

“I think the Department of Education read the tea leaves and saw public acceptance on the rise and realized they should get on the ball sooner rather than later,” Burns said.

Alex Berryhill covers higher education. Contact her at aberryhill@dailycal.org and follow her on Twitter @berryhill93.

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Trevor Mcgoldrick/Courtesy

While UC Berkeley stands to lose millions of dollars in funding due to the federal sequester, the campus has yet to develop a plan to mitigate these effects.

Following Congress’ failure to reach an agreement on a budget deal by March 1, the federal government will face $85 billion in automatic spending reductions. Those spending cuts are expected to continue over the next 10 years, totaling approximately $1.2 trillion in cuts in federal spending.

Among numerous cuts, UC Berkeley will see a reduction in federal support for research grants, financial aid and work-study programs.
Still, the campus remains uncertain about how it will cope with the cuts in funding.

“We need information from federal authorities regarding what to expect on the research side and on the financial aid side,” said UC Berkeley spokesperson Janet Gilmore.

Across California, 9,600 fewer students will receive financial aid this year, according to a statement from the White House.

While the federal Pell Grant program will not be subjected to immediate reductions in funding, it could face deep cuts beginning in the 2014 fiscal year, according to Gilmore. Thirty-five percent of UC Berkeley undergraduates received Pell Grants during the 2011-12 academic year.

Students employed in work-study positions will also bear some of the brunt of the sequester. In California, 3,690 fewer students will receive work-study jobs, according to a statement from the White House.

“I couldn’t imagine putting the entire burden of my loans and room and board on my parents,” said Haley Tessaro, who is employed as a secretary at the Haas School of Business under UC Berkeley’s work-study program.

Additionally, there will be an $86 million reduction in Federal Work-Study and Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants across the nation, according to a statement from Information for Financial Aid Professionals.

“Cal is a great institution, but with lower financial help for students in need, just being a great institution isn’t enough,” Tessaro said.

In the next fiscal year, UC Berkeley’s research programs, 63 percent of which are financed by federal funds, are expected to face $49 million in cuts.

The programs have already incurred $49 million in cuts this past fiscal year, as federal agencies such as the National Institutes of Health have been implementing cuts in research grants since October in anticipation of the sequester.

Federal contracts and grants constitute about 18 percent of campus revenue.

Recognizing that 85 percent of NIH’s funds are allocated to universities across the nation, including UC Berkeley, NIH director Francis Collins said the “impact will be felt across all 50 states.”

Collins said the agency will be penny-pinching, looking for anything that could possibly be delayed as well as cutting travel and conference spending.

“There definitely is a high level of concern, particularly knowing that we have already seen an impact on the research side,” Gilmore said. “We need answers in order to understand what to expect and what students’ financial future looks like.”

Alex Berryhill covers higher education. Contact her at aberryhill@dailycal.org and follow her on Twitter @berryhill93.

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Student loan debt is on the rise, according to a report released Nov. 27 by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

In its Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit, the bank announced that outstanding student loan debt has increased to $956 billion in the third quarter of the 2012 fiscal year — an increase of $42 billion from the previous quarter.

“One reason (student loan debt) has risen is that states are still under enormous fiscal pressure to cut state funding, which means that tuition and fees continue to rise,” said UC Berkeley professor of public policy Robert Reich. “That in turn requires that students take out more debt.”

Of the $42 billion rise this quarter, $23 billion came from new debts while $19 billion came from previously defaulted upon student loans.

But the report may be somewhat misleading because it lumps private loans and federal loans together, according to Pauline Abernathy, vice president of the Institute for College Access & Success. Private loans, provided by private lenders like commercial banks, are a riskier way to pay for college than federal loans, which include benefits like flexible repayment options for students and debt forgiveness programs, Abernathy said in an email.

Despite rising student debt levels, Reich said going to college is still a sound investment for students.

“The lifetime earnings of college graduates are still 50 to 60 percent higher than the lifetime earnings of someone with just a high school degree,” he said. “There’s no question that, for good or ill, a four-year college degree continues to be the gateway to good-paying jobs in America.”

Contact Andy Nguyen at anguyen@dailycal.org.

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The California State Senate failed to assist these students and their families this past weekend. Legislation known as the Middle Class Scholarship Act, authored and championed by state Assembly Speaker John Perez, D-Los Angeles, stalled after the funding portion of the act did not garner the two-thirds majority vote necessary to pass. Had it passed, UC and CSU students with family incomes of less than $150,000 per year would have seen their fees slashed by 60 percent, effective this academic year.

The act would fund middle-class scholarships by requiring multistate businesses in California to calculate their taxes based on sales in the state, as opposed to choosing the more favorable of two tax methods. Because of this, opponents voiced concern that job creation would be stifled. That argument is flawed.

For one, the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office recommended in 2010 that the state use the formula based on sales. The office also found that allowing corporations to choose between two formulas for calculating tax rates arbitrarily favors some businesses more than others. Legislators should prioritize supporting the middle class and in-state business instead of a tax policy that favors out-of-state companies.

Gov. Jerry Brown quickly assured the public that tuition relief for the middle class is not dead yet and that it will be considered in the future. But by the time that happens, it could be too late for many families. Fees at both the UC and CSU may rise significantly if Brown’s Proposition 30 does not pass on Election Day. The proposition’s  failure would deal a debilitating funding cut to both university systems and make it even more difficult for middle-class students to attend public universities in California.

At the campus level, UC Berkeley is already ahead of the game in providing aid to middle-income families. In December of last year, the campus announced its Middle Class Action Plan, which caps parent contribution toward undergraduate education at no more than 15 percent of family income for the middle class. That plan would be bolstered by passage of the state act.

However, Berkeley’s middle-class plan is jeopardized by the possibility of steep funding cuts hinging on the passage of Prop. 30, making aid at the statewide level all the more important. Still, campuses should do as much as they can to help middle-income families on their own.

Even if the UC avoids more cuts this year, the current socioeconomic makeup of the university warrants immediate attention. Middle-class students deserve access to public education in California — lawmakers must ensure they are not shut out.

The post Protecting the middle class appeared first on The Daily Californian.

As a result of a budget line-item veto, Gov. Jerry Brown’s cuts to the program will negatively affect more than 190,000 students, according to Lori Nezhura, legislative director of the California Student Aid Commission.

The Cal Grant A awards, which are given to the highest performing students and fund all four years of tuition, will not be affected by the line-item veto. Cal Grant B awards, which have lower income limits and academic requirements, will also remain unaffected.

However, the entitlement award, which is part of the Cal Grant B package, will be reduced by 5 percent. Nevertheless, Nezhura said she is content with the outcome.

“(Despite the cuts), we’re pleased that no Cal Grant recipients lost their awards in this budget,” said Catalina Mistler,  chief of the California Student Aid Commission’s Program Administration and Services Division.

Furthermore, the new provisions will include measures that Cal Grant-participating institutions must meet to continue in the program. Schools will be ineligible for Cal Grants if they have a cohort default rate greater than 15.5 percent and if the graduation rate is lower than 30 percent.

“It’s a good idea to make those cuts based on institutional performance,” said Judy Heiman, a principal analyst at the California Legislative Analyst’s Office. “Given that the state is in a position where it needs to make some cuts, and given that (the Cal Grant program) has been one of the fastest-growing programs in the state, this seems like a reasonable way to go.”

However, Charlie Eaton, financial secretary of UAW Local 2865, which represents nearly 12,000 graduate student instructors, readers and tutors teaching on UC campuses, said the Cal Grant decreases are harmful measures that unfairly target the lowest-income students.

“While Governor Brown relented in accepting a tuition freeze, his vetoes hurt students, especially those from underrepresented communities,” Eaton said. “And, (they) side with the wrong priorities of the scandal-tarred CSU and UC management and boards that are closer to Wall Street than they are to Californians.”

Still, Mistler said she believes the changes to Cal Grants still work to improve the system as a whole.

“The governor and the legislature, in working (the provisions) out, really tried to focus most of the cuts on promoting institutional quality for the benefit of California students,” Mistler said.

Although the budget includes cuts to Cal Grants, it also allocates $125 million each to the UC and CSU to prevent tuition increases for the upcoming year. The UC Board of Regents had previously speculated that tuition would have to increase by 6 percent for the coming year without an increase in state funds.

If Brown’s tax initiative on the November ballot does not pass, a series of cuts will be triggered in the UC and CSU that will likely lead to tuition increases for the university systems.

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Brown’s  recently published revised budget proposal — informally called the May Revise — proposes that eligibility for the Cal Grant be tied to eligibility for the Federal Pell Grant. Diana Fuentes-Michel, executive director of the California Student Aid Commission, said the change could leave 37 percent of new financial aid recipients in 2013-14 with reduced or no Cal Grant aid.

Cal Grant A recipients currently receive full funding to cover systemwide tuition at the UC and CSU, and eligibility is not affected by whether the recipient also receives a Federal Pell Grant.

If the change is implemented, students would be awarded full or partial grant amounts based on GPA, financial eligibility and Pell Grant eligibility.

According to Judy Heiman, a principal fiscal and policy analyst for the Legislative Analyst’s Office, of the 37 percent who would be affected by the shift, 6 percent would lose their Cal Grants and 31 percent would see their Cal Grant amount reduced.

A UC Office of the President report indicated that 6,613 students at UC Berkeley received Cal Grants A and B in the academic year 2010-11.  In that year at the Berkeley campus alone, $67,723,879 in Cal Grants were awarded.

However, Heiman said the methodology change could be seen as more logical than the previous method of Cal Grant dispersal in which the entirety of student fees was covered for eligible Cal Grant recipients.

“That sort of system where you award all-or-nothing has problems, and this addresses that by essentially reducing the amount of grants so that the most needy students get full grants,” Heiman said.

Heiman said that while the change could address issues inherent in the current system, it could also lead to some students incurring more debt because of a lack of financial aid. She added that it could also lead to students being unprotected from fee increases because Cal Grant awards will not necessarily increase as fees go up.

The proposal precedes a meeting in July at which the UC Board of Regents will discuss the possibility of raising student fees by 6 percent.

UC spokesperson Dianne Klein said in an email that the withdrawal of some Cal Grants affect financial aid awards for many undergraduates even if their own awards were not decreased because the UC taps into all available funding sources when distributing aid.

“When the grant pool shrinks, a relatively small amount of belt tightening is required of all grant-eligible UC students,” Klein said.

Klein added that the UC will work toward counteracting the possible cut to the Cal Grant program and easing the impact on students who lose the grant.

“UC will spread the financial ‘pain’ around equally to other grant-eligible students so that the effects on those who lose Cal Grants are not so dramatic,” she said.

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Brenna Alexander/Staff

Navid Shaghaghi’s three undergraduate years at UC Berkeley featured a string of unique, successful experiences — he participated in the Occupy Cal and Open University movements, worked with faculty members to set up Earth Day activities, regularly reviewed academic papers with fellow members of the Philosophy Club and took classes under world-renowned professors.

Yet, when asked to sum up his entire campus experience, Shaghaghi chose just one word: “disappointment.”

“In the sense of the education I’ve gotten from my classes … I don’t think financially at all it was worth it,” he said, explaining that his array of extracurricular activities will become lifelong memories but that his academic experiences were far from worth the expense.

Shaghaghi, a fifth-year senior studying in the two departments of philosophy and electrical engineering and computer sciences, is graduating with roughly $29,000 in debt. When he transferred to the campus from a California junior college three years ago, he was “absolutely not aware” that he would have to take out thousands of dollars in student loans just to complete his education.

“The first semester I came here, I just remember that I was so excited to be here,” he said. “I kind of was like, ‘it doesn’t matter, there’s financial aid and it will be taken care of,’ but as the years went on, I was like ‘whoa, I’m paying way too much here.’”
Growing up in Stockton, Calif., Shaghaghi dreamed of attending UC Berkeley but opted to spend time at a local junior college first.

After two years, he arrived on campus eager and enthusiastic, but lingering in the background unknown to him at the time was the growing cost of higher education, even at a public, state-supported school.

Shaghaghi’s family members — who he said are not able to support him financially — were initially pleased for him, he said. His father, remembering California’s decades-old promise of affordable tuition for its students, even praised his son’s choice of a university that he believed would not force his son into debt.

“But I said, ‘no, Dad, (the tuition is) 20 grand a year,’” Shaghaghi recalled. “And he said, ‘what are you talking about?’ He couldn’t believe it.”

The financial aid office provided him with help for most of his expenses, but Berkeley’s cost of living, higher than that of many surrounding areas, forced him to take out student loans.

When asked about whether he thinks he made the right choice in transferring to UC Berkeley, Shaghaghi hesitated. He called it a “two-fold question” and a “bittersweet sort of deal” — he said he could not imagine spending the last three years anywhere else, yet he deeply regrets the financial situation into which the school has pushed him and wishes he had perhaps attended a more affordable California State University campus instead.

“The education we get here is definitely not worth the debt,” he said, emphasizing that he could have “audited the classes, read the same books and been just as successful” had he not enrolled on campus.

And now, with graduation marking a significant transition from the fantasy world of academia to the real world of job security, home mortgages and monthly bank payments, Shaghaghi will soon have to begin paying off the unsubsidized portions of his approximately $29,000 in loans.

“On one side, I don’t want to graduate because I really like the facilities here and my friends and the stuff I do on campus,” he lamented. “But at the same time, I realize that it’s almost great that (graduation) is happening because I would not be able to afford another semester.”

Graduate school appeals to Shaghaghi, whose background in both computer science and philosophy could allow him to explore a combination of embedded systems and artificial intelligence, an expansion of his thesis on robotic and biological systems. Additionally, attending graduate school would allow him to delay his debt payments.

But Shaghaghi stressed that, because of the thousands of dollars of debt he has already accumulated, he will not be able to attend a school that does not completely cover his expenses. The ultimate “deal-breaker” for him to pursue his intellectual passions, he said, will lie in the cost of future years of schooling.

“It doesn’t feel good at all,” he said of his troubled situation. “It’s just very disheartening.”

Another problem he now faces, he said, is that although a technical job from his engineering and computer science background would allow him to conveniently pay off his loans much quicker, UC Berkeley’s focus on theory and academics rather than teaching specific skills that employers seek lowers the of likelihood of immediately finding such a job.

“A degree only pushes you so far,” he said, returning to the seemingly cyclical nature of his dilemma: whether pursuing higher education truly offers more potential benefits than costs. “Yes, the degree is going to help at some point, but when and how and where?”
Shaghaghi is not alone. As tuition nationwide skyrockets, an increasing number of students are graduating with substantial amounts of debt.

UC Berkeley offers a variety of help for students who cannot pay the hefty rate of tuition, including scholarships, work-study and stress counseling for debt-related issues. Additionally, the campus’s implementation of a new aid program for middle-class families aims to relieve some of the financial burden on students’ families.

But it may not be enough. According to Karen Gee, a counselor at the campus health services center, financial problems “almost always come up” in her counseling sessions with students who come in.

“We offer education and support around the stresses related to financial debt,” Gee said. “But if someone were buried in debt, it would be more appropriate for me to send them back to the financial aid office.”

Gee said that “75 to 80 percent of students who come in say finances are an issue for them” and that she has seen extreme cases of students going hungry, unable to even afford food.

As for thousands of other graduating seniors, this week marks the last that Shaghaghi will be officially be on UC Berkeley’s campus as an undergraduate student.

Sitting on the steps of Sproul Hall, he looked out onto the plaza below and called it “sad” to see younger students walking by, oblivious to the fact that many of them could go on to graduate in debt.

“Some of them might not even know it,” he said. “Two years from now, the same person (walking by) will have a sort of bittersweet look on their face, like: ‘I’m happy I’m here, but …’”

Amy Wang is the lead academics and administration reporter.

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