Oregon's New Plan for Tuition-Free College Education

(Image source: Flickr / S. MiRK)

?

?

BY MATT PICHT

?

?

Due to congressional deadlock, student loan interest rates are set to double nationwide Monday. But while the national debate about student loan debt rages on, lawmakers in the state of Oregon are experimenting with a new way to pay for college ? getting rid of student loans altogether.

?

The proposal, which recently cleared Oregon?s House and Senate with bipartisan support, is called ?Pay it Forward, Pay it Back.? It would allow students to attend state colleges without paying tuition fees or taking out loans. Instead, students would pay 3 percent of their future income back to the state for 20-25 years after graduation. (Via?The Wall Street Journal)

?

According to?The New York Times, the plan was developed by a class of Portland State University students in conjunction with the Economic Opportunity Institute, a Seattle nonprofit policy group.

?

Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber is expected to sign the bill into law Monday. State Sen. Mark Hass told?KGW?proposals like this one could help solve the national student loan crisis.

?

?Right now, student debt has reached a dubious milestone: It?s a trillion dollars. That?s more than all the credit card debt in this country. Clearly something has to change.?

?

The plan has prompted many positive reactions. A writer for?Truthout?says paying to directly fund future college students reinforces the importance of higher education from one generation to the next.

?

?I think I?d have felt good about having 3 percent of my paycheck deducted, in lieu of a loan, if I knew that it would go into a fund to pay for the education of future students. ? It reinforces the idea that we all have something invested in more people having access to higher education.?

?

And a writer for?The American Prospect?says this system is beneficial to the taxpayer because it keeps college costs within the pool of college graduates.

?

?The problem with financing higher education [through general public revenue] is that it is deeply unfair to those who do not attend college.???A universal [income-based revenue] system like the one Oregon is proposing does not have these fairness problems. Only those who attend college pay into the revolving fund that makes college tuition-free.?

?

But not everyone supports Oregon?s experiment. A writer for?Washington Monthly?says the Pay it Forward plan might actually lead to a rise in college costs as public education becomes increasingly privatized.

?

?This policy might very well be a relief to students, but it?s really only moving further along in the trend of shifting public higher education funding from the public to individual students.?In the long run it?s not clear students will benefit.?

?

There?s also the question of where the program will draw its initial funding from. Although the Pay it Forward fund should eventually be self-sustaining,?CNN?reports implementing the program statewide??comes with a price tag of $9 billion.?

?

If the Pay it Forward bill is signed, a pilot version of the program could start up by 2015.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/newsy-allvideos/~3/NssnP_rH9B4/oregon-s-new-plan-for-tuition-free-college-education

Opening ceremony London 2012 Olympics Schedule 2012 Olympic Medal Count 2012 Olympics 2012 Olympic Schedule 2012 NBC Olympics NBC Olympics schedule