Part 5 | Educational Leadership Series – The Way Bahamas
Jordan’s Choice
Jordan counts the bills on her kitchen table for the third time this week. A sophomore at a mid-sized public university in Georgia, she’s working two part-time jobs and still coming up short. Her tuition has climbed again—just over $11,000 this semester. The federal Pell Grant covers less than half; the rest sits on a credit-card statement and a student loan account she’s afraid to open.
She stares at the unpaid balance and wonders: Is it worth it?
Jordan’s story is no outlier—it’s the new face of higher education in the United States, where tuition increases have far outpaced wages, public funding has shrunk, and students, especially those from low-income and minority families, carry the heaviest burden.
