Let’s first look at the inherent problems with the college payment and lending system, both private and public, as it stands today. In Part II, we’ll look at potential solutions under consideration across the country.
A study by the Urban Institute found that almost 300,000 Americans with master’s degrees were on public relief, along with 30,000 with doctorates. The average debt of a college graduate is $35,200 and that can take decades to pay off. For most students, the payoff is worth it. By today’s number, a college graduate with a bachelor’s degree can expect to make nearly 1 million more than high school graduate peers in a lifetime—well over the cost to attend.
Still, with college graduation estimated to be a basic requirement for nearly 60 percent of jobs by 2018, and certainly the key to the American Dream for many young people, the question arises: Should a college education come with such a high price tag?
The timing for the call for a more affordable college education, at least in the urgency of the past decade or so, makes sense. It comes on the heels of a recession that undercut the value of a college education. Even those with a college degree were not immune to the financial hit that the economy took, and those still paying off their student loans were often left without the very job they had always assumed would pay off their educational debts. A look at the way college loans are distributed and administered was certainly in the cards as the latest generation of college graduates saw the real ramifications of payment in an economy that simply could not support it.
The Obama administration has spearheaded college loan reform at the federal level. No stranger to student debt himself (nor the First Lady), he has implemented payment reform starting this year that includes:
