Music and Cost of College

From the five days that I have been in Puerto Rico it has been evident that there are many cultural differences between here and where I live in Chicago. I obviously cannot fully understand the Puerto Rican experience since I am not Puerto Rican, but from what I have seen so far during this trip, I can identify a few differences between my culture and my world view, and that of the Puerto Rican experience.

The first thing that I can think of is music. I am really into music, listen to it all the time, and it plays a huge role in my life. I feel very passionately about the music that I listen to, and find myself head-banging and sometimes even dancing around when I listen. But why do I listen to the music I listen to? What is the connection that causes an organized array of sounds to bring pleasure to my everyday life? The answer for me is simple: because I like it. However, while being in Puerto Rico I can sense that there is something else in play. In the time that I have been here I have realized that everywhere we go, especially in the little beach town Cabo Rojo, there is always music playing. The kind of music that I have heard here is stuff that I am not very familiar with; these kinds of music are Bachata, Salsa, Cumbia, Merengue, and Reggaeton. These genres of music are unique to the Puerto Rican culture and they are something that every Puerto Rican can feel a connection with. It is fascinating how Puerto Rican Music is directly a part of the Puerto Rican culture. You can tell that it is a deep rooted part of their culture because everyone is dancing to it and they are doing so so passionately and embracing it as a part of themselves. I feel like I cannot say the same about where I am from, I have not been born into any kind of music genre, other than what my parents listened to. There isn’t a cohesive genre of music that is linked with American culture, at least from my experience. There is obviously some kind of gap here. As an American I view music as something I listen to because I like, and, in comparison, I’m sure Puerto Rican people also listen to music because they like it but they also listen to some music because it is an innate part of their culture.

This music culture plays an important role in the lives of Puerto Rican people. In Cabo Rojo, at all times in the day there was always some kind of traditional Puerto Rican music playing somewhere, and almost half of the time it was live. I also saw karaoke at almost every bar we passed by. At night they closed off the street, put up speakers and microphones, and there was always some live band playing. This only highlights the importance of music in the Puerto Rican experience and how valuable to their music culture it is to them. During the three nights holiday (a holiday in Puerto Rico that we learned is very similar to Christmas) there was a huge celebration in town and people filled the entire streets. There were live bands playing all day and night and the Puerto karaoke going nonstop and everyone was dancing and celebrating their culture. There were three people dressed in kings, who probably played a big role in the celebration, and they were also singing and dancing with everybody. Not only is there music that can be associated with culture but there is This just goes to show how much they see music as such an important part of their culture unlike my culture.

Another view that I think differs greatly between the United States and Puerto Rico is the cost of college. In the United States, some of the only ways to get a decent college education and being able to afford it is by either going to community college, your state’s school (which can still be too expensive and can be very competitive), or get a scholarship which are always extremely competitive and sometimes don’t even give you enough money. There are so many high school students in the United States that do not go to college merely because they cannot afford it. This is unbelievably unjust; a college education should be a right, not a privilege. The amount of money that a family has should not determine whether their kid can attend college.

In Puerto Rico, although college still costs a good amount of money, especially at private universities, it is a lot less than it does in the United States. One of the Agricultural Engineering professors at the university that we visited told us that at that particular college students paid about 45 dollars per credit hour. To put that in perspective, students at the University of Illinois pay about 452 dollars per credit hour on average. The engineering school that we visited was a public institution so it would generally cost less than most private schools in Puerto Rico. The professor told us that typically the private institutions in Puerto Rico cost 3 times as much per credit hour as the public ones, which makes the private schools cost 135 dollars per credit hour which is still significantly less than the cost of the University of Illinois. Although school still costs a good amount of money in Puerto Rico, it is so much less than the United States. It seems that they actually understand that all hardworking students should go to school instead of people with money. This is one of the many big problems in the United States that leads to our incredibly messed up capitalistic society, in which everyone is competing with each other to stay afloat in life. I really think that we should take a lesson from Puerto Rico and begin viewing things as they do so that we can become everyone can have an equal opportunity to become passionate about learning, not competing.

One thought on “Music and Cost of College

  1. I couldn’t agree more with what you said about the music here. I feel that the music helps to connect a lot of the people together and creates a whole new vibe felt among the people. Music is always a great media when it comes to connecting people, and that’s why I feel that it would be a great thing to have at the booth at open house. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been to a fair like open house and all of the booths are just boring and bland. Having music will ensure that our booth stands out and will set us apart from all the others there. It will plunge the viewers right into the vibe of Puerto Rico and place them in an atmosphere that feels new, exotic, and inviting. Also, with it being such a vital part of their culture, it seems almost a necessity to have. All over PR I’ve seen people dancing and singing karaoke and bobbing their heads to the music. I think that we can get the people who see our booth to do just that.

    The dynamic of education is also very different in the states compared to PR. With the current system we have in the states, it bars many people from receiving the higher education that they truly deserve. I think this can also draw back to things like social class in America and why it is so hard for people to move up in the social hierarchy. Without a very well paying job, paying for college becomes almost impossible. When the lower income families do end up making enough to send their child through a community college, it becomes increasingly difficult for those graduates to find jobs because employers are more likely to choose graduates from top rated, expensive universities. This creates somewhat of a trap in the lower classes and leads to many social problems such as having kids very early, getting into drugs and alcohol, and high crime rates. It’s a shame that it isn’t as easy to make it in America as it used to be. With jobs being so competitive, those who pay more for a more prestigious college have a greater opportunity of getting a job than the ones that can’t afford it. If the school system was similar to that of PR, I think it would be a lot easier for lower class graduates to get well-paying jobs and climb up the social ladder.

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