The Biden administrator recently announced its plan for student-loan forgiveness, which included $10,000 in forgiveness for students earning under $125,000 per year and $20,000 for Pell grant recipients (Ho 2022). Even though the government is trying to make reforms to help students with their debt, the college debt problem is worsening with the cost of college tuition increasing. The average four-year public college or university increased tuition by 6.5 percent between 2008-09 and 2009-10, while tuition at private colleges and universities went up 4.4 percent (Infobase 2010). With the cost of college continuing to increase dramatically, students have left nearly $100,000 (Warren 2009) in debt following their education. With all these faults we must reduce the cost of college.

Former college students, such as Christa Schimitsch, claim that the problem with college tuition is due to its “rapidly increasing price.” Even current High School students understand how overpriced college is, such as Jonathan Vo, a senior at Pennridge, who said, “Some colleges are overpriced; like for me Neumann was cheaper in comparison to Ursinus.” Many people have concluded that the solution to the college tuition problem is to make college accessible, but this solution has many counterarguments. The main problem with making college accessible is that it will lower the quality of schools. In other countries where college is free, it reduced the quality with the number of students in a classroom surging which lessened student education (Schrager 2022).

The best solution to this problem of college tuition surging, causing debt, is to create programs that help students pay for college. Currently, states like New York have been providing tuition-free four-year college education to low-income students across the SUNY and CUNY systems (Chakrabarti 2019). If the government were to create more programs like the one in New York, it could help to reform college debt nationwide.

 Sources:

Chakrabarti, R., & Nober, W. (2021, August 3). Is free college the solution to student debt woes? studying the heterogeneous impacts of Merit Aid Programs. Liberty Street Economics. Retrieved January 6, 2023, from https://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2019/10/is-free-college-the-solution-to-student-debt-woes/

Crelin, J. (2017). For-Profit Universitities Often Target the Poor and Leave Students Burdened with Debt. Ebscohost. Retrieved 2022, from https://web.s.ebscohost.com/pov/detail/detail?vid=15&sid=c938cd9b-864f-434b-b954-f8915ae5d531%40redis&bdata=JnNpdGU9cG92LWxpdmU%3d#AN=127339865&db=pwh

Ho, J. D. (2022, September). Education and Student Loan Debt: Guide to Critical Analysis: Ebscohost. Retrieved 2022, from https://web.p.ebscohost.com/pov/detail/detail?vid=4&sid=6abb1bfa-c1af-4081-80b0-b101b32b01c2%40redis&bdata=JnNpdGU9cG92LWxpdmU%3d#db=pwh&AN=124170740

Infobase, I. (2010, February 22). College Tuition Costs. Infobase. Retrieved December 19, 2022, from icof.infobase.com/articles/QXJ0aWNsZVRleHQ6MTYzMjQ=.

Schrager, A. (2022, September 9). Free college in America is a bad idea. just look at Europe. Bloomberg.com. Retrieved 2022, from https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-09-09/free-college-in-america-is-a-bad-idea-just-look-at-europe#:~:text=Free%20college%20will%20not%20only,pay%20or%20take%20out%20debt.

Simpson, L., Smith, R., Taylor, L., & Chadd, J. (2012). College Debt: An Exploratory Study of Risk Factors Among College Freshmen. Louisville Library. Retrieved 2022, from https://ir.library.louisville.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1039&context=jsfa

Warren, E., Baum, S., & Sitaraman, G. (2009). College Debt Can Be Managed with New Social Programs. Gale. Retrieved 2022, from https://galeapps.gale.com/apps/auth?userGroupName=perk75268&origURL=https%3A%2F%2Fgo.gale.com%2Fps%2Fretrieve.do%3FtabID%3DViewpoints%26resultListType%3DRESULT_LIST%26searchResultsType%3DMultiTab%26hitCount%3D9%26searchType%3DBasicSearchForm%26currentPosition%3D1%26docId%3DGALE%257CEJ3010584206%26docType%3DViewpoint%2Bessay%26sort%3DRelevance%26contentSegment%3DZXAY-MOD1%26prodId%3DOVIC%26pageNum%3D1%26contentSet%3DGALE%257CEJ3010584206%26searchId%3DR1%26userGroupName%3Dperk75268%26inPS%3Dtrue&prodId=OVIC