Priced out of education

I graduated from the University of Arizona in the year 2000.  Tuition was $1,060 a semester. I worked at a drycleaners making $5.15 an hour. My siblings and I were first generation college graduates. Both parents took college classes but life interrupted their studies. They always instilled in us a desire to graduate. We knew to attend we had to earn scholarships and save money. The same advice was given to my own children; work hard and get scholarships. Although with our leg up we had some money set aside for our children. 

The University of Arizona is a public school designed at its inception to make higher education attainable and accessible. I have two sons who are freshmen at The University of Arizona this year. They work as life guards for the city of Tucson making $15 an hour. Tuition for one semester is over $6,800. There registration fees alone were $1400. More than my tuition, an increase of over 500%

In the last 25 years minimum wage has gone up by nearly 190%. Tuition on the other hand has gone up over 541%. My husband and I are both University of Arizona graduates our kids have been raised on red and blue and Bear Down. Each year I check to see the scholarship grid to see what merit aide and tuition will be. Each year tuition goes up and scholarship aide goes down. 

Parents if your child would like to attend the UofA next fall beware it is changing again. Right now the website says information to come. This will not be good news. Unlike the housing market there has been no crash to regulate inflated prices. The new normal is astronomical inflation. When will the steep increases end? 

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.azregents.edu/sites/default/files/reports/History-tuition-fees-2010-2020.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjew_zxtPmPAxXDJUQIHTxMJ68QFnoECE8QAQ&usg=AOvVaw39wJlPyp_iKTENp2hpMOu4

27 years married!!

Benjamin has a goal to visit all 50 states before he turns 50. So as his dutiful partner I want him to accomplish his goal!! So naturally we went to the state of Michigan for his 43rd state on our 27th anniversary!! We also headed up to Canada to make it a foreign experience. We hit one of the Great Lakes, Huron. We walked the beach, ate Canadian foods like (poutine, butter tarts, and had pickle soup....I don't know if thats Canadian but man they sure had a lot of pickle products. We ate fried pickles too). Canada has a lot of national pride, flags in their yards and signs in their grocery store indicating if the product is Canadian made. They also don't put ice in sodas at fast food places, Benjamin loved that!. We went to art museums, thrift stores and nature parks. It was a relaxing weekend to celebrate "my love forever and a day"

 

Nana turns 75 years young!!

Nana turned 75 on September 2nd!! We had the best week celebrating her. On Monday we went up to camp Zion to do our annual labor on Labor day. We painted the inside of the outhouses!! Hillary made it down along with her new foreign exchange student. We shot BB guns, shot arrows and played Telastartions. Tuesday for Nana's actual birthday Lindsey and I took mom out to Millie's Pancake house for lunch then we met up with our husbands for the evening and went to the Olive Garden. Afterwards we went back to mom and dads place and ate these fancy cupcakes that our friend makes. Then on Saturday we had dinner with all my siblings and a good amount of our children. We went to Pinnacle Peak Steak House, its a cowboy restaurant and if you wear a tie the Sheriff cuts it off! There were several brave members of the family who got their tie cut off. 

We sure love this lady!! She is adored by all her family, the rock and cheerleader of our large and growing crew. Mom always says she wakes up and tells herself that she is 60...What a great way to stay young!!

 

UofA event with visitors!

I helped run a booth at the Student Union so I called my boys up to join me. Parkin brought two high school friends ( one of which was Claudia's son Marco) with him. Holman is hiding but he was there too! I got a yummy Indian food meal out of the deal

 

New shelf!

I wanted a shelf to hang these 4 photos up in The Cottage so that they would all be straight! Benjamin constructed this and I sanded and stained it! It turned out so well! No to make some more 😁

First for our college boys!!

 The boys moved to the condo downtown. They work and go to school and live on their own like grown adults, making it happen! I asked them to take first day photos and they were sweet enough to obliged. 

I love their faces. Flashbacks of their childhood 😭. All grown up 💖 Their cousin Jared is also their roommate.  I am hoping for an excellent year for these boys!!

Samuel!!

 When Bella and Sam were were just starting to date, Benjamin and I ran into Sam and the Pershing family at Golf n' stuff. We very awkwardly went up to Sam and said hey take a picture with us so we can send it to Bella, she'll think this is so funny. Bella did not think it was funny. She was quite embarrassed but Sam was (is) such a good sport!! That's when we fell in love with him ❤️

Sam flew in this weekend to be there for when his brother went through the temple. So we met the Pershings at Golf n' stuff again and had a round of golf. We made sure to recreate this photo from 3 years ago.