Is School Free In America? A Detailed Look At School Costs – Save Our Schools March

Soaring Costs and Rationing Learning: America‘s College Affordability Crisis

Public universities were long the pathways to opportunity for generations of students seeking career skills and economic mobility. Yet with state funding slashed by billions and tuition on the rise for decades, college today often seems out of reach – a luxury reserved for the wealthy few.

How did America‘s engines of prosperity turn into a crisis of crushing debt and fading dreams? Understanding what drives the rising price tag for higher education is key to bringing college back within reach for all students.

The Benefits Gap: Why College Still Matters

While horror stories of unemployed grads with six-figure student loans grab headlines, the data shows college remains a sound long-term investment. Bachelor‘s degree holders enjoy substantially higher lifetime earnings and lower risks of unemployment.

• Median weekly salaries for full-time workers in Q1 2022:
  • No high school diploma – $588
  • High school graduates – $802
  • Bachelor‘s degree – $1,348
• Unemployment rates in Q1 2022:
  • College grads – 2.1%
  • High school grads – 4.6%

But who reaps these rewards? Students from the top income quartile are 8 times more likely to obtain a BA by age 25 than those from the lowest quartile. With earnings gaps only widening based on educational credentials, restoring college access and completion for lower-income learners remains critical.

Why Does U.S. College Cost So Much? Debunking Some Myths

Pinpointing exactly why college tuition outpaces inflation year after year proves contentious. State disinvestment and tax revolts shoulder much blame. As legislatures direct more funds elsewhere, public colleges raise tuition to compensate. Private non-profits also rely heavily on tuition revenue as endowment growth stalls.

However, the Bennett Hypothesis merits consideration – does expanding federal aid actually enable and incentivize colleges to charge more? Either way, students ultimately pay the price.

Other culprits include the academic arms race for amenities, from luxury dorms to climbing walls, as colleges compete for a shrinking pool of applicants. All while keeping administrative staff and salaries swelling.

Curiously, investments in actual instruction have mostly flattened – even with technological needs rising. Colleges seemingly pour money into everything but proven classroom improvements around small group learning, undergraduate research, and faculty development.

How Debt Became An American Rite of Passage

With costs spiraling ever upwards, student loans now fuel the $700 billion enterprise of American higher education. Nearly 70% of bachelor‘s degree earners take out student loans, with average debt reaching a record $30,000 per borrower last year.

These loans pile atop other major expenses Gen Z and Millenials face in early adulthood- soaring rents and child care costs, stagnant entry level wages, etc. Little wonder over 10% of borrowers default on student loans within 5 years, wrecking their credit scores for years.

• Student loan delinquencies spiked by nearly 40% during the COVID forbearance period as borrowers missed normal payments
• Almost 40% of loan holders delay major decisions like buying a home due to debt burdens
• The class of 2020 faced the highest unemployment rate on record at 11.5%

Far from offering a leg up, student debt now severely inhibits millions of American‘s financial stability and mobility for years post-graduation.

Investing in Access: Policy Levers to Pull

With trillion-plus student loan balances now a drag on wider economic growth forecasts, expanding college access demands urgent attention from policymakers. Tackling the college cost crisis requires targeting funding levers at the federal, state and institutional levels.

States like Tennessee, Oregon and New York lead one wave with tuition-free college or "last dollar" grant models for qualifying in-state students at public institutions and community colleges. By filling the gap after existing aid such as Pell Grants and scholarships, full tuition gets covered without inflating institutional charges or oversubsidizing wealthy students.

Another pathway is through income share agreements (ISAs) which allow students to pay a fixed share of future salary over an set timeframe rather than taking out traditional high-interest loans. Purdue University offers an ISA option where students earning under $20K post-graduation make zero payments. Other ISA models peg payments to as low as 1.8% of income with more generous terms for those in lower-paying fields like social work or teaching.

Both policy interventions show promise in restoring access, completion, and economic mobility to students without saddling graduates with decades of unaffordable debt repayments. Keeping college affordable and equitable for all Americans demands similar bold, innovative funding models in more states nationwide.