These days, it’s not a stretch to say that every parent who dreams about sending his or her child to college also worries about how to pay for it. Tuition costs have risen around the country, and Nevada is no exception. Unfortunately, Democrat Steve Sisolak is part of the problem.
For ten years, Sisolak served on the Nevada Board of Regents. There, he repeatedly voted to raise tuition and fees on things like student registration and room and board. And in 2008, he voted to raise in-state tuition at University of Nevada, Reno and University of Nevada, Las Vegas by 5 percent for the next two years.
A 5 percent tuition hike may not sound like a lot, but to working families struggling to make ends meet, it could mean the difference between college and no college.
If only Sisolak’s history with tuition hikes stopped there. Yet according to the Chronicle for Higher Education, student tuition doubled while Sisolak served as University Regent.
That should be alarming for every Nevada family. In 2008, the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education released a report warning that rising tuition costs would eventually put college out of reach for most Americans. The report also pointed out that student borrowing had, at that point, more than doubled in the last 10 years. That will likely only continue to rise as hard-working taxpayers search for years to make their child’s college dreams possible.
Elected officials should make the goal of going to college easier, not hard. But maybe Sisolak missed that memo. It seems putting college out of reach for some and piling up debt for others was his modus operandi while he was involved with Nevada’s higher education system.
Bottom line: Steve Sisolak is just another politician Nevada families - and their wallets - can’t afford.
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