From the article:
(Please discuss WITHOUT making this a political discussion).
I do not think this will help the majority of middle class students who are not qualifying for need based FA and still won’t qualify. Many states do offer free community college once grants and other aid are factored in, and still that doesn’t seem to prevent students from ‘dreaming’ of a big school or an Ivy or an LAC and taking out loans to make that dream come true.
Student loan interest rates are pretty low anyway, and were even lower for the last 6 years or so. It might help to allow students to consolidate loans, but it’s not going to change the principal borrowed or private loans.
I think the only fix will be if there is a cap on the total amount of loans guaranteed by the government. It may mean that students can’t go to the fancier school, can’t go to school for 6 years, can’t financial a master’s degree. I think that govt guaranteed loans should be limited to $30-40k. Period. If a school costs more, too bad, pick another school.
The potential issues would be:
- For CC, no tuition would mean that there's not really an incentive to perform well. There's no cost pressure of "If I fail this class I have to pay hundreds to take it again."
- Interest rates are intended to reflect the risk involved. Federal student loans are already quite low for the risk involved, lowering them further could push it into a net cost for taxpayers. Additionally, the crushing debt stories we hear are not from people who only got federal loans, they're from people who got private loans.
- This will encourage colleges to take more OOS students and fewer IS students if they must provide more aid to IS students (as presumably this "no-loan" deal only applies to IS students)
I disagree that these proposals would increase tuitions directly (though it’s possible, colleges could raise the “sticker price” and offer more financial aid, practicing even further price discrimination, though I think changing the demographics is more likely as most states have deals with the colleges that limit tuition) but I don’t think they help utilize educational resources more efficiently and I don’t think they’ll do a whole lot to reduce any sort of “crushing” debt, only slightly reduce otherwise easily manageable debt.
“If a school costs more, too bad, pick another school.”
$40k divided by 4 years is only 10K/ year. I doubt there are any 4 year colleges these days that cost only $10 K/ year.
I wouldn’t want US schools to become like ratty European ones, which are generally low-cost or free. You get what you pay for.
However, it seems like the only real way to fix the problem in the long run is to decrease the constant increases in tuition, meaning that (1) schools will need to get more funds from other sources, (2) schools will need to become leaner, such as by slashing administrative staff.
Why not micromanage universities like some people want to micromanage companies, by setting maximum amounts that can be payable to senior leaders of universities, by conditioning Federal grants and not being too “top-heavy” with administrative staff and by requiring disclosures to students and their families about how inefficiently schools use their tuition dollars? The SEC and employee benefit laws do all of these things to private companies; if they’re allegedly good for them, why not use the same methods to rein in schools?
Where does the $350 billion come from?
In the article, tax code change. Who knows if that amounts to 350B, but that’s the idea.
Minus the smoke and mirrors, where does the $350 billion come from? WHICH tax codes would we change?
It’s in the article. Capping itemized deductions at 28%. More than what’s in the article I can’t tell you.
The getting the funds “from somewhere else” is exactly what allowed this runaway train to gather speed. The history behind unfettered increases in cost did not start yesterday. The money “from somewhere else” is what permitted to keep the lavish lifestyle of reasonable salaries without much demand to persist.
Cutting the administrative expenses and slashing all the “trimmings” associated with offering a 24/7 entertainment to teenagers should be a good start, but digging deeper into the sacrosanct elements of academia is more important: tenure and low demands on … educating the next generations.
Ask yourself how much academic production in THIS country did we have in the last … 60-90 days and you have a roadmap to what has to change. And this is not only for college but in the entire K-12. Simply stated it has become impossible to pay for a system that has shown no interest in keeping costs in line. Our education system is our … Greece, with the only difference that ours is even more wasteful and unresponsive.
It will get worse before it gets better.
Get rid of the ranking system. That should help cut down some of the costs.
Yep, and throwing out thermometers in hospitals should go a long way in reducing the fever of patients!
The federal government doesn’t rank colleges. What are they going to do, make it illegal for anyone to rank colleges?
If a CC is free, do those students still qualify for Pell? If so, why? I think that just encourages wasteful spending and encourages kids who otherwise shouldn’t be in college, just to go to get the $5700.
I hope that if tuition at a CC is free, then a minimum GPA is needed, such as 2.5 in one’s major and a 2.0 overall.
I don’t care which party helps decrease instate tuition for instate students. I think it’s crazy that states like PA, Michigan and IL have such high instate rates. My own state has high rates.
I think that there should be an effort to encourage kids to commute instead of borrowing solely to have the “sleep away” experience. That is just not wise borrowing.
In this analogy, some of the thermometers incent the doctors to raise the fever.
So let me get this straight, those of us w marginal tax rates above 28% are now “wealthy”???
Sure, reduce administrative bloat. Universities need an entire department called “Risk management” because parents like to sue. Kid gets drunk, falls off a balcony, parents sue. Stop the lawsuits and U’s could easily trim the number of lawyers on staff.
Universities need fully staffed health centers (back when we were in college there was an infirmary- remember them? It had a nurse and a room with two cots in it in case you got flu and your hacking cough was keeping your roommate awake). Now we send kids off to college with complex medical needs- anorexia, depression, substance abuse- and we expect university health to be able to keep them safe.
Universities need athletic facilities which have five star amenities for non-athletes, plus full on training facilities for the athletes. And nutritional counseling of course.
Get back to basics! It’s 1962, right?
What about states like Massachusetts where the tuition for UMass is $1,714 a year but the fees are around $10,000 a year! Seems like the plan wouldn’t be an advantage to many given the high cost of the fees.
So let me get this straight, those of us w marginal tax rates above 28% are now “wealthy”???
No. It would limit your deductions to 28%. If your AGI is $100,000, you’d only get to take $28,000 in deductions - home mortgage interest, charitable deductions, state taxes, medical deductions. I don’t think it would include personal deduction of $4000/per or business deductions, only Sch A deductions. (It really doesn’t matter as this isn’t really going anywhere, as the current bill to make community college free hasn’t gone anywhere).
I agree with mom2collegekids that Pell should be tied to these free tuition schools. I don’t think students should be making money on college. There was a recent article about prisoners getting free tuition, free books, free everything, and then they get $5770 in Pell money. Good work if you can get it.
The PA state system of higher education consists of the actual PA state universities and is the largest college system in PA.
http://www.passhe.edu/Pages/default.aspx
UPitt, Penn State, Temple, etc. are “state-related” universities and are not controlled by the state, but by their own boards.
The largest state university, IUP, has an enrollment of over 15,000 undergrads and the annual tuition is below 10 grand.
http://www.iup.edu/page.aspx?id=100677