Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Better than some, worse than most.

I moved off campus a couple of years ago because Piedmont saw fit to saddle me with a scholarship that did not even cover the cost of my room/board and "required" meal plan. Not only that, Piedmont also saw fit to have "health and safety" inspections whenever; including when I am not in my own room. Once again, Piedmont is raising tuition and costs across the board while there is hardly any consideration to help off-set these rising prices with increased money in scholarships.

Piedmont, as far as rules while living on campus, isn't entirely bad. You can actually have visitation hours with members of the opposite sex (just take a ride down Highway 17 towards Toccoa Falls College, and you'll find you can't do that PERIOD.) There are still opportunities for students to live in a room by themselves and, when I lived on campus, I was able to live where the RD's and RA's were not Nazi-like in their approach to handling the life inside the dorms. However, where we are better than some, we tend to show up worse than most.

Our cafeteria food (not the workers, I do actually like the workers) is, quite frankly, a joke. The price students pay for the required meal plan is atrocious for the quality of food bought and served. If the school sees fit to charge so much for a meal plan (last time I lived on campus, it was $1000 per SEMESTER) then why do they not consider serving much better food? I've never seen a steak offered for dinner...yet they charge steak prices for Hamburger Helper taste.

On top of the cost of books, a meal plan, room and board and rising tuition, there appears to be no new help for students of the future at Piedmont College. While the cost of everything seems to rise annually, the amount of help money offered remains the same. It is time the school offered more scholarship money to students as the cost of living on campus increases. It would be the fair thing to do.

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