68.8.32: College Costs
Addressing Rising College Costs. Other Information:
College costs, however, are on an unsustainable trajectory, rising year by year far ahead of overall inflation. Nationwide,
student loan debt now exceeds credit card debt, roughly $23,300 for each of the 35,000,000 debtors, taking years to pay off.
Over 50 percent of recent college grads are unemployed or underemployed, working at jobs for which their expensive educations
gave them no training. It is time to get back to basics and to higher education programs directly related to job opportunities.
The first step is to acknowledge the need for change when the status quo is not working. New systems of learning are needed
to compete with traditional four-year colleges: expanded community colleges and technical institutions, private training schools,
online universities, life-long learning, and work-based learning in the private sector. New models for acquiring advanced
skills will be ever more important in the rapidly changing economy of the twenty-first century, especially in science, technology,
engineering, and math. Public policy should advance the affordability, innovation, and transparency needed to address all
these challenges and to make accessible to everyone the emerging alternatives, with their lower cost degrees, to traditional
college attendance. Federal student aid is on an unsustainable path, and efforts should be taken to provide families with
greater transparency and the information they need to make prudent choices about a student’s future: completion rates, repayment
rates, future earnings, and other factors that may affect their decisions. The federal government should not be in the business
of originating student loans; however, it should serve as an insurance guarantor for the private sector as they offer loans
to students. Private sector participation in student financing should be welcomed. Any regulation that drives tuition costs
higher must be reevaluated to balance its worth against its negative impact on students and their parents.
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