Making College Affordable Again
The sad state of paying for college today.
By Elana Berkowitz and Adam Jentleson, Campus Progress
Thursday July 6, 2006
Ah, high school graduation season. We remember it well: envelopes mailed, decisions made, fates sealed. According to popular perception, the gap between the fifth-ranked school and the 50th spans worlds and fortunes—with those attending the most elite schools virtually guaranteed lives of bounty and witty banter over dry martinis, and everyone else consigned to a marginal existence, where hard toil yields no better than mediocre results.
But indulging in this glittering game of high-stakes college hype may blind us to a troubling reality: rising costs and shrinking access are pushing higher education out of reach for millions of young Americans.
The G.I. Bill, which expanded access to higher education and helped spur the rise of the great American middle class, turned 62 in June, making this a fitting moment to examine two related trends that are undermining higher education’s effectiveness as an engine of upward mobility.
First, financial aid has failed to keep pace with rising college costs, limiting access for low-income families.
Second, to finance a college education, students and families are borrowing more money on worse terms, and students are dragging more debt into the real world than ever before.
America needs a gut-check: We need to ask ourselves what the purpose of higher education is in our society. If part of the answer is to create opportunity and ensure that America remains a nation where anyone can build a better life for themselves, then we need public policy reflective of this goal.
Americans made just this statement 62 years ago. The G.I. Bill, direct thanks after World War II for soldiers’ sacrifices in defending our country, offered veterans funding for four years of college. But the principle it enshrined in public policy is timeless: Higher education is among the most powerful means of social and economic mobility and should be accessible to everyone.
Decades later, too many students believe that college is out of reach for them. Between 2001 and 2010, an estimated 2 million young people will forgo higher education because of the prohibitive costs of college.
According to the College Board, public universities’ average tuition and fees have more than doubled since 1986, while the effectiveness of the Pell Grant aid program for low-income students was cut by half. New programs are less effective in helping low-income families; for instance, a majority of the federal tuition tax benefits go to taxpayers with incomes of $50,000 or higher.
Meanwhile, more of the aid burden is shifting onto the backs of students and families. Most federal aid used to come in the form of grants; now, only 40 percent does. Today, 67 percent of students borrow money to pay for college.
While manageable debt can feed economic growth, today, 39 percent of all student borrowers graduate with unmanageable debt, according to the Department of Education. Since 1991, the number of students who delay buying their first house, having kids and getting married because of educational debt has gone up by 52 percent, 75 percent and 100 percent, respectively.
In short, education may still be a tool kit for building a better life. But the kit is becoming harder to obtain, and its tools less effective.
We need to re-assert our commitment to the principles that the G.I. Bill represented. Workable models exist: The state of Indiana, for instance, runs a program that pays for unmet financial need at a state school for graduating high school students with a GPA of 2.0 or higher who don’t use drugs or alcohol. Former U.S. Sen. John Edwards has launched a similar program, funded through private donations in North Carolina. Meanwhile, Harvard, Stanford, Yale and the University of Pennsylvania have embraced plans to offer free tuition for qualified low-income students.
These programs are laudable but piecemeal. We need to solve this problem on a national scale instead of relying on the generosity of elite schools with large endowments, private individuals or a patchwork of state-level programs.
Eventually, we should implement a national program modeled after these programs, which are proving effective at expanding access, especially in low-income communities. In the short term, Congress could expand access by raising the maximum Pell Grant to $5,100 and ease the debt burden by cutting interest rates on student loans in half.
The most common argument against these simple actions is that we can’t afford it. This is simply untrue. We can afford them, but we need to make them a priority.
That means making different choices than the ones we’re making now. It means putting the expansion of opportunity ahead of tax cuts for the wealthy. It means using taxpayer dollars more efficiently, by ending the corporate welfare system that funnels billions of dollars in subsidies to banks and lenders when a more efficient lending system exists. According to a conservative estimate from the Congressional Budget Office, we could save $13.4 billion over 10 years if a quarter of American schools switched to the more efficient system.
Lack of money is a legitimate roadblock along millions of students’ paths to higher education. It is not a legitimate reason to fail to make America stand for the principles we enshrined in the G.I. Bill.
(Oh, and by the way, congratulations class of 2006! College rules.)
This article originally ran in the Charlotte News and Observer.
--------
Comments
|
!
Student Loan Debt; The Ball-And-Chain Reality
I’m finding more “student loan” stories from ordinary folks like you and me. These are sad but true tales of dreams left behind because of copious amounts of college debt.
“Sam” got a four-year college education like a responsible, goal-oriented, citizen. Having a degree to fall back on, his dream after graduating was to move to California to pursue acting. However after receiving his first student loan bill, he realized he could not afford to leave. Instead, he stayed in school, put his loans on deferment, and borrowed more money to go to law school. Today, his student loans are more than his mortgage payment.
“Erica” wanted to live in Japan and teach English after graduating college. But her student loan payment was a huge drag on her living expenses. With her loans, she could never afford the experience with the humble salary offered to English teachers. Today, she is in Sales.
What’s your story? Please feel free to share on the College Is For Suckers Message Board!
— April - Jul 7, 02:21 PM - #I could not agree more. In this day and age we are trying so very hard to maintain a competitive edge on countries who are rising in the global scene. In all of these countries, a strong emphasis is placed on education, making it much more of a social stigma to not achieve to your fullest at ALL possible levels of education. We are so concerned about being a world leader 10-20 years from now, and yet your suggestion is the simplest answer to that problem. Giving more people the access to higher education could be the catalyst for advancing our country even further in the global market.
— Corey Ponder - Jul 7, 02:35 PM - #Everybody benefits from more highly educated or highly trained citizens. When I went to the University of California long ago fees were $43. a semester and dorm fees were $30. a month. I worked for $1.51 an hour and I could afford to go to the University. My family and I could not have afforded more. I had a career as a teacher and I believe society benefited from my education and my work. That is as it should be. It is incredible to me that politicians don’t understand that students education is better for society than more tax cuts for the rich.
— Jana Lane - Jul 7, 06:00 PM - #The situation is only getting worse with the Bush administration cutting more student aid. The interest rates are also sky rocketing. A friend of mine’s expected contribution went from 8,000 to 13,000 from last year to this year. So now he has an extra 5,000 that he has to find a way to pay off. People need to start thinking about the future of america…college students.
— the pawn - Jul 15, 02:18 PM - #Universities are bloated, inefficent enterprises that can demand exhorbiant fees because the customer (the student) has all this subsidy money in the form of grants and loans. Cutting finacial aid might force colleges to rein in costs annd thus lower tution….making it affordable to a greater number of people without the crushing debt load from student loans.
— michael - Jul 17, 09:42 AM - #Student applies to several different colleges/universities. Student goes to school with most financial aid. Student loses scholarship. Student forced to get loans and work two jobs. Student cannot apply with co-signer because co-signer’s lack credit. Student applies for credit card and runs into own problems.
The cycle repeats itself until student’s learn how to properly handle having credit.
Student pays multiple late fees and interest charges trying to stay in school. Student may not be able to graduate because there is just no money.
— scorpio - Jul 22, 08:59 PM - #I am beginning the process of assisting my daughter with her educational goals. The cost of education is far beyond the reach of the average American.
My costs were minimal no loans and if you did have a loan it was due at 2% interest 10 years after you graduated. This certainly gave you an opportunity to mature and well afford the payoff.
Today one need only stay out of school one semester and the “loans” become due. You cannot bankrupt on them they follow you to the grave. This is a very “grave” future for our youth. We are teaching our youth to “stay” in debt.
Much like the government deficit which is out of control.
What about college is so expensive? There is no guarantee that if you pay 40,000.00 for a degree you will at least make that much a year. Most liberal arts degreed graduates start off between 25-35,000.00 a year. Take the taxes out( especially single individuals) and your bring home is about half of your salary. I talk to young graduates who owe phenominal amounts of money 40,60,80,000.00 dollars. We have crippled a generation.Don’t be suprised when the young have no feeling for the elder generation. We are proving that we don’t care about their financial future. We unfortunately have DEBTED away a whole generation.
Our ancestors well knew that debt was poor business and a terrible social practice.“Lending money at interest gives us the opportunity to exploit the passions or necessities of other men by compelling them to submit to ruinous conditions; men are robbed and left destitute under the pretext of charity. Such is the usury against which the Fathers of the Church have always protested, and which is universally condemned at the present day.”
Such was the wisdom of our fore-fathers.
We are an uncaring nation who is on a path of personal greed with no feelings about our fellow man and included among them are “our” children.
We are recruiting teachers, engineers, and high tech from other nations who educate their youth at far less.
I am in Texas and to see Kenneth Lay and the “greed” with which he pursued every facet of his life not caring about the lives of others. This is a classic example of the type of citizens were are breeding.
A nation cannot stand forever on greed and avarice. The very young you cut out of a decent life today will certainly affect your tommorrow.
What kind of morals are teaching our children?
We care little about them. We would sell them into the “bondage” of “eternal” debt.There are many who are still paying their student loans as their children approach college age.
The elders who will mortgage their homes, sell all their possessions and will be left penniless.
The young will owe so much they will resent the elders who are still alive as they are a financial burden.
What a society we are creating. A society in which we care little for our children, one in which we abandon our old, one in which corporations abandon their employees as thay make millions.
OUR SOCIETY IS DESTINED TO FALL FROM WITHIN. Did you notice the Katrina victims shown on TV abandoned, under-educated, left with hopeless? It reminds me of France ” It was the best of times and the worst of times”. an unjust society of the greedy who cared nothing about the citizens.Is there anyone who is paying attention? The cost of education will cripple our future citizens and we will live to see the chaos that the current laws are causing.
How “greed” drips from the lips of our father’s as they care nothing for their children. It is a selfish era where fellow men do not care about the “children” who will inherit the earth.
“Student’s abandon the universities who seek your blood for life.” Rebel against the father who in the night will rob your very soul. “Debt is Bondage” Owe no man!
If you are not in the classes there is no demand for the business of college. Colleges are privatized now. There are not the hallowed halls of new and exciting ideas, free spirit and education but education corporations who along with our banking system in America plan to sell you into”eternal debt!”
Beware of the college loan, Fasfa and all the other debt documents that will RUIN your life before it starts.
Just imagine that you and your wife have a total of 100,000.00 in student loan debt.
“SAY IT RIGHT NOW! ”
Goodby children,Goodbye house, Goodbye new car, Goodby one income families and say Hello to a life of financial stress and certainly an early death.”
We must rail against this life that surrounds us and find a way to secure a bright future for those who would inherit the earth!
Suggested reading a book called “Strapped” author: Tamara Draut
— Shiju - Sep 24, 04:25 PM - #