I cannot afford to go back to engineering school

Which isn't highlighted because the narrative that is not "Hey we are helping people get college educations" the narrative is "Rich people can afford to send their kids to school, poor people can't, its increasing the divide between the haves and the have-nots."

That second narrative gets you rage views and votes for office, pretty much without regard with evidence to the contrary. Students can get a college degree at state schools for about the same cost as buying a new car, and on much more favorable loan terms.

That said, there are lots of ways we could improve how we grant student aid, in my last letter to my Senators I suggested that providing need-blind aid for STEM degrees (Creating in demand workers and part of the alleged worker shortage) would serve the double benefit of both getting people college degrees, and getting employers the legal resident college graduates they seem to so urgently desire. It is a simple idea but if you subscribe to the idea that tax payer funds should be allocated for the improvement of the citizenry and society, having a larger qualified worker pool seems to meet that requirement.

I consider myself very lucky. I did my undergrad and never struggled with money. My parent never supported me with a dime since they didn't have much. I didn't have any scholarships. I saved up some money from high school and used that for the first year of college, then started working as an co-op. How did I do it? I went to school in Germany. That's also where I'm from. Back then there was no tuition and I only paid 120 Euros of administration fee per semester. I had it easy. I could study freely, I had everything I needed and the beer at the universities' vending machine was cheap. Life was good. Back then in 2004 I never read any English/US news or community web sites. I didn't know what college was like over there.

After I graduate came to the US and I've been living in a typical college town at the east coast for ~7 years. I have many undergrad and graduate friends most of which are American. I'm _BAFFLED_ at the simple acceptance of this rip-off fucked up higher education system. It's not even a topic ever that our local University President just raised tuition by another 5% this year. And a ~40% raise in the last couple year. In Germany, they started talking about introducing a 500 Euro tuition in 2006(?) and introduced it in 2007. Students where furious, they protested on the streets, they occupied the main buildings. They raised there voices. They started petitions. The press was on our side. They introduced them and students investigated on how the tuition was going to be used (contract only allowed to use it towards better education and not for maintenance/bills) and problems were discovered. Long story short: In 2013/2014 there is only one state left that still has a tuition of 500 Euros. The rest abandoned it all.

I have asked this question many times:

Why do Americans not protest?

Take the French: they kidnapped their CEO and threatened to kill them (~2009). They burned down parts of their factory. They raise their voice. Yet, with a ridiculous policy here in the US, I see nothing ever happen. I heard there was some protest about PRISM in S.F. last week. I frankly missed the coverage about that since it may have been to small. There were bigger protests about PRISM in Germany last week. This is sad and I don't understand it.

Students of America: Stop wining on Internet forum, they do not tend to often get coverage of the media.

You want main stream TV coverage: Go on the streets and protest.

I am totally stunned. Are you telling me that you are not going to fund a student who does not have a degree yet but found a good enough job where she gets paid? Man, in fact you need to raise the money given to her because it will ensure one persona out of unemployment for sure.

I brought that sort of scenario up, was told it wasn't an option, although the lower level staffer I talked to wished it was. Perhaps my school took a particularly hard line, I certainly had a few peers who boasted of scams they and their family were running, e.g. borrowing at subsidized rates and getting >20% returns that Carter era inflation allowed them to earn (the government was slow to acknowledge the inflation it had created back then).

The government offers both need-based subsidized loans and unsubsidized loans. The latter are available to anyone, regardless of need. They usually won't cover everything, but they often cover a good chunk of your total bill.