Thoughts on Financing Continued Education
As many young Americans know, it is nearly impossible to secure gainful employment without first having a college degree. Usually that entails 4 years of schooling at an institution that costs around $20,000 a year to attend. There are alternate routes like 2 + 2 transfer programs and distance learning which can save students a lot of money. Regardless, 4 years of schooling is going to cost tens of thousands of dollars.
This begs the question, how can someone, yet alone the young adult, afford that? For most students the answer is federal financial aid and outside scholarships coupled with a series of loans. This means that most young adults are already stricken with crippling debt before they’ve even had the chance to start their careers, purchase a home, or start a family. The issue of college debt is one that’s just begging to be alleviated and reforms to the federal system of college financial aid need to be implemented.
The issue with federal aid is that it’s not merit based. It’s based solely on the financial needs of the student. These needs are usually determined by the combined income of the student and their parents. If the total income of the family is above $50,000 the student is not eligible for ANY Pell grant money, which means all of their college has to be paid for through personal funds, scholarships, and of course loans.
This usually isn’t an issue for the impoverished and the lower middle class as they are eligible for financial aid, nor is it much of an issue for upper class families as they have the excess money to throw around. The issue is for the upper middle class students whose families live at their income level. In other words they spend around the same amount that they bring in. Students from upper middle class families are forced to rack up a considerably larger amount of debt than students from lower income households because they are all but forced to borrow.
What if these people don’t want to borrow any money? There’s only a few options out there. They can immediately enter the workforce out of high school, but if they’re lucky enough to find a good paying job that they halfway like then it’s much less likely that they’ll ever go back to school. They could also join the military and use their GI Bill benefits, but since the military is at its smallest size since before WW2 and the recruiting pool is larger than ever, it’s become harder than ever to join up. The final realistic option is for the student to wait until they’re 24 so that they can file as an independent student, but again if the prospective student is somehow making over $50k on their own, they’re eligible for nothing. Otherwise their only hope besides a large inheritance from a distant relative is the lottery or a lucrative scholarship.
What this system of federal aid for college ultimately does is create a cycle. Prospective students from upper middle class families often start out their careers heavily in debt or they never even get out of the gate at all because their families couldn’t afford to send them to college. Still others are forced to sign away eight years of their lives to the military in order to afford a college education. Students from lower class families usually don’t come out of college with as much debt and therefore accumulate wealth at a faster rate than their upper middle class counterparts. A switch often occurs during this time and the upper middle class student becomes lower middle class due to their debts and late start in life, while the lower middle class student becomes part of the upper middle class. If nothing changes with the current system of financial aid, the flip will occur again when their children decide it’s time to go to college.
So, how do we go about fixing this problem? I propose a system that is merit based, rather than need based. If a student graduates from high school with a 4.0 GPA regardless of their family’s income level, then they deserve a full ride to a community college and the maximum grant amount to a 4-year school. From there it would be tiered based upon the student’s GPA. A student with under a 2.5 GPA would not be able to receive any federal aid to a 4-year school, but would be eligible for a small amount for a community college. This system is based upon my belief that in everything, people should be rewarded upon the merit of their actions and efforts. No one is entitled to anything without first earning it. In my opinion such a merit based system would be among the most effective ways to start building a smarter and stronger America.
