College Affordability and the Next Presidency

As the first in my low-income family to attend college, I took every form of aid available on campus -- work study, part-time employment -- and held seasonal jobs off-campus. Thankfully, I qualified for federal loans, signing my first promissory note as the sun set on the Reagan era. Their full weight became clear only after I graduated. A teaching salary paid rent, utilities, used-car payments and insurance, but I spent much of the 1990s freelancing, landscaping and doing other odd jobs to keep loan-default notices at arm's length.

In retrospect, I was lucky; my original debt was less than $10,000, compared to the average $19,000 note that the graduating class of 2008 took home with its degrees. And I was able to pay off mine in under a decade -- a time when gas prices rarely topped $1.25 per gallon.

Mine is one illustration of why the nation's largest association of educators is raising the issue of college affordability. The next president's budget priorities will begin restoring America's competitive edge in the global economy, or will serve as a eulogy to days of economic strength gone by. And the signal issue to watch will be college affordability.

Especially during our post-war history, college education has become the economic indicator that predicts lifetime earning potential. By extension, it's a measure of American economic strength: Witness the boom times of the 1950s, 0Awhen American colleges produced engineers and scientists of every stripe, fueling Kennedy's charges to the moon and elsewhere. Federal investment in higher education paid off for America, and other nations took note.

But national budget priorities changed in the 1980s, when Reagan scaled back ambitious investment and turned federal grants into loans. Those earlier priorities were never really restored, though the Bush I and Clinton administrations made more loan funds available.

By reading closely the budget priorities of George W. Bush, we could have predicted what has happened during the past eight years. Fewer students would qualify for shrinking federal dollars, and would graduate with debt outpacing their earning capacity. The administration would freeze the value of Pell Grants and cut federal loan funding, at precisely the time when our partners in the global economy were mass-producing advanced degrees to meet the demand for our highest-skilled jobs. Cuts to federal loan programs would lead to expansion of private-sector loan services, and loose regulation of that industry would allow "creative accounting" models that have soaked the middle class.

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For evidence of that damage, just go to Missouri.

Kristina Rieman's parents took Parent PLUS loans to help her begin studies at Truman State University in Kirksville, but rapidly-accruing interest demanded attention. Kristina ultimately took out private loans of her own to repay th e Parent PLUS debt, while still attending classes and working. Her estimated debt at commencement? $50,000.

When applying for aid, Amanda Backer of Missouri Baptist University told me, she learned her parents earned too much to qualify for loans but not enough to cover her tuition. She attended a local community college for two years, lived at home to save costs, then transferred. She graduated in May but faces loan repayment of $12,000.

Students and recent graduates aren't the only ones struggling. Some parents are facing the worst economic circumstances of their lives, too, wondering how to stretch few dollars to cover their own student debt and invest in their kids' college funds too.

As soon as he graduated high school, Sam Lawson of rural southwest Missouri enlisted in the Army Reserves for the college aid. He and his parents took loans to fill in gaps. To pay off his debts faster, Sam -- now a college senior -- will deploy to Iraq in January for the combat pay.

Finally, ask Paul Brother of Camdenton about his two kids, ages 8 and 12, and how he and his wife are expected to save for their college education while staring down a monthly repayment of $1,600 -- equivalent to their mortgage -- and that's after consolidating their combined college debts into one 30-year loan. They thought they'd be financially stable: He teaches high school social studies and she's a physician.20But their last loan won't be paid off until his wife is 64, and every check written to their creditor is one they can't invest in college savings for their kids.

Had enough? Hopefully so.

Hopefully, the next president will establish bold new priorities, think long-term and recognize that college education is an absolute necessity for greater economic opportunity. But solutions to the problem are easy. Fighting for real investments in opportunities for families is hard.

That's why NEA members are rallying friends and neighbors to consider their own economics and their kids' opportunities, and to ask our potential next leaders: "Got tuition?"

Comments

[enochsmoky]

Colleges and universities are overstaffed with professors who may only teach 5-10 hours a week and are never available during office hours. Much of the real work is done by teaching assistants. Add in exorbitant pensions and benefits for the whole education establishment and you get skyrocketing tuitions. Use those billion dollar endowments and make the overpaid profs earn their salaries. Giving the colleges more federal money only takes the pressure off of them to make some positive changes.

[scottman1085]

Everyone know that a college education is a god given right.

Gosh, I just can't wait until BO gets elected. My life will be so much better with the federal government government taking over the oil companies and managing my health care. I just know it will.

Imagine a world where we are all equal and no more wars.

I just can't wait.

[Squalish]

$19k is pennies.
I have friends who've taken out $100k in loans just to attend a public university for 4 years at in-state rates. Tuition, books, room & board add up very quickly living in dorms.

[jvarga]

Which state university costs that much for in-state residents?

[missette]

We must remember that an uneducated population is a ripe base for those politicians who want to manipulate voters on the basis of fear, guns and religion. The Republicans have thrived on them for years, knowing full well they can enact policies that will devastate these people financially with impunity. An educated populace is not the friend of our current government.

[collegeloanconsultant]

Let's hope that the next President and Congress will develop some backbone and tackle the colleges and universities' endowments, so that these institutions can begin to fund their own student's tuition. If they are not willing to at least provide their own funds for low-cost loans to make up tuition gaps, they do not deserve to receive federal money.

Most colleges do have funds (supported by alumni gifts) for small student loans, but the bulk of their money is invested elsewhere, rather than in their students.

University loans