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We have an education crisis. We also have a potential solution: a need-based college tuition program in exchange for public service, which could eliminate much of the $1.5 trillion in student debt, strengthen financially teetering private colleges, save taxpayers money and revive communities.
Well before COVID-19 claimed tens of thousands of lives and collapsed our economy, our education crisis was causing justifiable panic. Student debt put tremendous pressure on individuals, and free state tuition put a large number of financially stressed private colleges on the brink of extinction.
COVID-19 has clearly made the situation significantly worse for students in debt and colleges on the brink. But the solutions proposed have their own problems.
Some politicians advocate simply canceling outstanding student debt; others call for free tuition to state colleges and universities. In neither instance, though, does the return to the public on that investment come close to matching what a national service program would provide.
While college tuition is free in a number of European countries, a significantly lower percentage of students go to college in those nations, and the tax rates in them are 20 percent to 60 percent higher than in the United States. Importantly, those countries have few, if any, private colleges and universities.
Nothing is truly free; someone always has to pay. The question is who? In the case of canceled debt or free tuition, the public, through increased taxes, pays. If the public is to pay, it should receive a significant return on that investment. Service provides that return.
Advocates of student debt cancellation and free state tuition overlook two key points: they fail to account adequately for the true financial costs involved and for the missed opportunity of transforming communities across the country.
Implementing free tuition for state colleges adds costs to states, at a time when states are ill prepared to handle them, and pressure on private colleges that, in many cases, were barely financially viable before COVID-19. If that pressure results in colleges closing -- which it undoubtedly will -- students will go elsewhere.
Where will they go? Some might end up at other private colleges. Most will go to state institutions, however, which will have to add buildings and staff members to accommodate the increase in the size of their student body. In other words, the cost to taxpayers will go up.
A better solution, one that the federal government first successfully employed 75 years ago, can transform lives today, as it did then. From 1944 to 1956, the GI Bill of Rights sent untold numbers of servicemen to college -- both private and state colleges. The Post-9/11 GI Bill covers full tuition at public colleges and up to $25,000 in tuition at private institutions.
In the past, federal programs also provided free tuition to doctors or teachers who agreed to work in underserved geographical areas. So students have long received tuition in return for service, past or future.
Federal legislation presently under consideration would increase national service programs by as many as 300,000 participants. Although those participants would be used to engage in contact tracing for COVID-19, the legislation could easily be amended to return to the model of earlier federal programs and provide for the cancellation of participants’ existing student debt.
During the years I was a college president, I used those models and implemented a cancelable loan program based on need and tied to service. If a graduate went into public service -- broadly defined to include government or military service, nonprofit organizations or teaching -- the loan provided by the college was reduced by 20 percent for each year of service. After five years, therefore, the debt was eliminated.
Now may be a good time to revisit that concept nationally, rather than simply eradicating debt or providing free tuition. In addition to allowing college graduates to follow their dreams instead of making career choices for financial reasons, a federal cancelable loan program would strengthen our nation.
The federal government could even tie the same approach to debt accumulated by older graduates by establishing a program that allows them to pay off that debt through volunteer work. Despite presenting additional challenges, such an approach could work, with the National Guard’s weekend and summer program serving as a useful model.
By having people of all backgrounds, ethnicities and geographical regions work together, a loan-for-service program might also help heal our deep national divide. In the process, our communities and country would be made stronger, which, in the wake of COVID-19, we certainly need.
A need-based cancelable loan program tied to service would be a win for all. Students would attend college tuition-free. Fewer private colleges would collapse. States would have to spend less to accommodate transferring students, and communities would be strengthened. Now more than ever, we could use that win for all.
