Entry #3: Less and less college grads?

Hey everyone. I recently read a story Governor Doug Ducey put out about how Arizona needs more college graduates. I wanted to share my opinions on my own blog about this topic. Here is the original article link for anyone who is interested to read: https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/2016/09/17/arizona-needs-more-college-grads-ducey/90363958/

Ducey started off by saying "Less than half of Arizona's working adults have degrees or training beyond high school. We must fix that." This came as a shock to me. I would have thought that more adults in Arizona have graduated college. Both of my parents are college graduates and I grew up knowing college was after highschool, so I never really considered jobs that you can get without a college degree. College is very very expensive, so it is understandable why a lot of people don't finish. The average cost of schooling for an associates degree can be more than $20,000, and that is just the first achievable degree.

If states want to see more people graduating, I think there needs to be more help with student's financial situation. Students have to pay thousands of dollars for classes, and have a bunch of extra costs on top of that like housing, car payments, food, etc. We have to pay for all of this while working and doing school full-time. It is extremely difficult and is a main reason as to why not as many people are graduating. Ducey said he "added $142 million to K-12 education", and gave "an additional $38 million to universities." This is a start, but doesn't directly help students who need help.

I do agree that more Arizonans need to graduate college because 46% is less than the majority, but if Ducey wants that he should find better ways to help accomplish that. This is all my opinion and isn't meant to offend anyone in any way.