Pay It Forward: pay no college tuition, donate 3% of salary for 25 years: pays for future students

[WilliamPitt]

Plan would make tuition free at Ore. colleges
By STEVEN DUBOIS / Associated Press / July 4, 2013

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — On college campuses across the United States, the eternal optimism of youth has been throttled out by a fear of crushing student debt. That’s certainly the case in Oregon, where the cost of tuition has soared as public funding for higher education has declined.

But the state Legislature this week approved an idea that might ease the economic dread for future philosophy and art history majors. The concept — called Pay It Forward — calls for students to attend public universities tuition free and loan free. In exchange, students would have 3 percent deducted from their post-graduation paychecks for about a quarter-century. The money would go into a fund to pay for future students.

The bill, which passed unanimously and is expected to be signed this month by Gov. John Kitzhaber, directs the state’s Higher Education Coordination Commission to develop a Pay It Forward pilot project for consideration by the 2015 Legislature. One question that must be resolved is how to fund the program’s start-up costs, estimated at $9 billion, since the initial students who attend tuition-free would be years away from entering the labor force.

Though the timing was coincidental, the bill won final approval on Monday, the same day that federal student loan interest rates doubled from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent.

The rest: http://www.boston.com/news/education/2013/07/04/plan-would-make-tuition-free-ore-colleges/uXtpQwCMERsuA49GhGYcyK/story.html

Simple genius.

[BenzoDia]

1. I haven't crunched the numbers, but I like the big picture.

[etherealtruth]

2. A very good idea!

A very progressive idea!

[randome]

3. Wow. Inventive and practical.

[hr]
[font color="blue"][center]I'm always right. When I'm wrong I admit it.
So then I'm right about being wrong.[/center][/font]
[hr]

[PoliticAverse]

4. The 3% seems to low to actually pay for the program. n/t

[galileoreloaded]

21. not with a collapsing dollar. time value of money. nt

[lumberjack_jeff]

5. On friday afternoon, I wish I had more art history education.

But that's it.

When I donate a percentage of my meager pay (derived from the kinds of employment I can get without a college degree) it is far more likely to be earmarked for actual unmet need. A half-million Oregonians don't have enough to eat.

An economically justifiable major is one thing. If someone wants a degree in philosophy they'll have to find their own economic justification.

It's a bad idea developed by liberal arts majors, and here's just one purely economic reason why: Those going to school for marketable skills (i.e. engineering) will be more likely to opt for a student loan than the literature majors who spend the next 25 years working at kinkos. Thus, the income stream will be smaller than expected. My nickel bet is that it won't be enough to repay the cost of their own education, let alone any future students.

How's this? Strictly regulate student visas, and then the engineering and medical schools will have to compete for American students. Increasingly, american students are taking the degrees that foreigners don't want.

[WilliamPitt]

6. "literature majors who spend the next 25 years working at kinkos"

Me = English Literature major. Haven't set foot in a Kinkos since the Clinton administration. Didn't even know they still existed.

Your broad brush is dripping.

[lumberjack_jeff]

8. Wherefore art thou an english major?

Career success as an english major requires a broad enough career search that the degree doesn't confer any practical advantage over the candidate who calls himself a lumberjack.

I've actually held about half of the jobs in this list. My lack of liberal arts education hasn't provided a significant functional barrier in any of them.

It's an education that is only useful on a resume.

[WilliamPitt]

9. "It's an education that is only useful on a resume."

Last edited Thu Jul 4, 2013, 01:12 PM - Edit history (1)

Yeah, because literature, poetry, analytical skills, reading skills, context, depth, history, art, philosophy, and a genuine wonder for the astonishing capacity of the human mind has no purchase anywhere in life.



Don't know you, bro, but I feel sorry for you. A liberal arts education enriches the mind, and gives depth and context not only to every moment of life itself, but to whatever endeavor one chooses to pursue. If you find that useless, well, that sucks a lot for you.

Sorry, man. How I feel.

[mopinko]

14. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

[lumberjack_jeff]

18. The traction an education yields in life is reflected by how society rewards it.

Libraries enrich the mind. Colleges enrich football coaches.

You feel sorry for me? I feel sorry for you? Doesn't matter, really. My degree of pity for those who chose an economically valueless degree major isn't so great that I feel much obligation to give the state money to promote it to people who can't find analytic and reading skill without paying $890 per credit hour.

Much like religious people think that morals and ethics only come from church, liberal arts people think that intellect can be purchased at the college book store.

The same degree of enrichment can be derived from choosing a college experience that yields some prospect of recouping the investment. Only these students will have the future resources to pay it forward.

Better to spend that 3% on food stamps or something else that has tangible and broad benefit.

[WilliamPitt]

20. God, so wrong.

You really think the only measurable benefit of an education is the societal reward (i.e. money, I assume) it gains one?

Really?

P.S. Using a fantasy character from a movie doesn't really buttress you point. Like, at all. Show me a real person who can do a Will Hunting without an education and you'll have something. Might as well post a video of Superman leaping tall buildings with a single bound.

[lumberjack_jeff]

27. My best friend's son recently graduated from UW. He's 27.

Last edited Thu Jul 4, 2013, 04:54 PM - Edit history (1)

His 9 years invested in a 4 year college degree is now being applied telling the web developers working for the bank whether their websites suck. He has no practical web dev, IS nor IT background.

I'm no Will Hunting, nor am I Superman, yet I KNOW that I (as well as millions of others) could do it just as well... but the resume scanning machine wouldn't let us in the door.

Luckily for him, his six-figure education was paid for by his 5-figure engineer father, who also gets the call whenever the son's car is "not working. It's making a kind of a clicky noise."

The lack of a straight line connection between college and "mind enrichment" is best exemplified by GW Bush.

The relationship between money and education will only be severed when colleges begin accepting other forms of "measurable benefit" as tuition.

At least I won't be unoriginal.

[LWolf]

36. +1,000,000 nt

[WinkyDink]

24. Except that is why we know it's accurately: "It's an education that is useful ONLY on a resume." :-)

[lumberjack_jeff]

28. That's the kind of semantic nonsense, up with which, I will not put. n/t

[WinkyDink]

32. Ah, see, no. Adverbs modify the closest adverb or adjective. They, in fact, alter meanings

when misplaced. In oral communication, maybe not so much of a problem. In written, heh---ask a lawyer how much "semantics" can mean.

And yes, I know the allusion.

[lumberjack_jeff]

38. Fair enough. I accept full responsibility for your complete inability to find the point of the post.

Notice the proper adverb use.

Pedantry, it's what's for dinner.

[a la izquierda]

33. Uh, no.

I have a PhD in history. I am one of the very fortunate who navigated the academic market and landed a great job. However, in my panic at potential unemployment, I spoke with several employers in other fields my father works for a large international bank. His boss was ready to hire me because historians are analytical in a way that the MBAs who caused the financial collapse are not. We are also trained researches, and know how to look at the big picture.

And we generally have half a clue about writing. My uncle, who worked for a large insurance firm, spent much of his time re-writing memos of his Harvard educated MBA employees.

[JCMach1]

30. There is a world glut of Engineers and Engineering students

Millions upon millions churned out every year in China, India, and the MENA region. Something which engineers will find out soon enough.

Meanwhile, my English major kept me employed, so many a year until I have now opened my own business...

We need more, not less liberal arts in this country.

[lumberjack_jeff]

31. There's a glut of every kind of students

The education industry supplies far more bona-fide educated folks than there are jobs which actually require the skills the pedigree ostensibly guarantees.

Credentialism is running amok, and Starbucks employs thousands of college educated baristas.

I have no doubt that a degree of any sort can keep people employed. It's the only way to get past the resume scanning software for state and local government jobs. The question is if that employment requires the skills that the degree was intended to impart.

I have about as much regard for college admissions departments as I do for late night TV get-rich-quick-with-real-estate charlatans.

They at least the charlatans have the benefit of costing less.

[JCMach1]

34. Yep, don't believe that core study BS, the 'we're desparate for math and science BS'

the politicos and business types are spewing... If you translate it, it means:

"Churn huge amounts of these people out so we can pay them as little as possible...."

[madokie]

7. I wasn't a college student in my day

and doubt I will be in the future but I would gladly start paying that three percent to be taken out of my SS benefits.
Education is the answer to all of mans problems.
As a child I had fully intended in becoming a scientist but war and then drug research got in the way

[Recursion]

10. I think Brigham Young does this too?

I'm a big fan of using equity rather than debt to finance college. But people keep calling it "indentured servitude" whenever it's suggested.

[WilliamPitt]

11. As if deep debt isn't.

*sigh*

[Recursion]

12. Thank you

Totally agree there.

[colsohlibgal]

13. Anything To Give Everyone The Same Shot

Getting educated should not depend on your parent's bank account, on loan sharks, or the ability to dunk a basketball.

[Robb]

15. I've been pondering this one.

I would think it would encourage more people to study what they wanted to, rather than what they believe would make them the most money -- since they would know they'd not be saddled with crippling debt for years after. I knew so few people who studied for the sake of learning, rather than were in a particular major as prerequisite for a specific career.

I wonder if this would produce fewer petroleum engineers and more philosophy majors, so to speak -- not a bad thing, necessarily, unless you were counting on the philosophy majors' incomes to support the next wave of incoming freshmen.

[WilliamPitt]

16. See posts 5, 6, 8 and 9

Apparently, philosophy majors have no place in the Brave New World.

[lumberjack_jeff]

19. Don't forget 18!

[Bluenorthwest]

17. My major was not philosophy but it was in the arts and one that most deem

'useless' and 3% of my first 25 years would have paid for my education and a couple of others easily.

[Hydra]

22. I like the idea because you could study what you wanted, and not need to make a bet

On what will be profitable next. I went to school for computer science, and got to watch the tech bubble pop and H1B become the way of the future.

I hope something like this works.

[WinkyDink]

23. Oh, really? Because, you know, 3% of, say, a teacher's salary is the same as 3% of a Wall Streeter's

[gulliver]

25. No payback should be required.

We think of education all wrong when we think of it as a good to be paid for by the consumer. Students who do the work and get the grades are national assets in themselves. We shouldn't be charging them a dime. We'll get the money back from the higher taxes the educated pay and the wealth they create.

[Ilsa]

26. I wonder what happens to students who leave Oregon? nt

[NoOneMan]

29. From an economics standpoint, won't this encourage people to pursue their dreams (not money)?

So basically, "The Market" influence will weaken and people may pursue careers that do not promise income (art for example). So people might get expensive degrees and then never pay a fraction of that back over 25 years. But maybe degrees shouldn't cost a lot if they do not produce income. Or maybe more people will study to become lawyers and it will be oversaturated. I don't know.

I like the concept. Might have unintended consequences. They should do something like this for the trades as well.

[Godhumor]

35. Assuming a 3% raise each year, you would pay back just over 109% of your starting salary

Over 25 years.

That is assuming 3% per year, no job changes, etc. But it works as a general measure.

[lumberjack_jeff]

39. Is 109% of a starting annual salary enough to pay for a college education?

Will it be enough to pay for someone else too?

For the 3% tax to recover the cost of the education of the person in question alone (forget about having anything left to "pay forward&quot , the starting salary would have to be $83,150 or more. The bill was apparently not written by math arithmetic majors.

(setting aside for the moment the fact that few college graduates find jobs immediately upon graduation and subsequently work 25 uninterrupted years)

[Godhumor]

40. I am trying to access everything from my cell, do admittedly I might have missed something

But I think they're using in-state tuition for the figure (tuition and associated fees only, not housing, meals, books, etc.). In that case, tuition payback happens at a starting salary of approximately 30K a year (Not accounting for time value of money, just straight payback).

[LWolf]

37. This would mean that my students,

who are at the bottom end of the state demographically, would have a chance to attend more than the local community college without incurring quality-of-life wrecking debt. I can't wait to talk to them about it. I have one former student who has just finished his first year of college locally; the community college is cheaper than the state universities, so he's doing the first 2 years there. He wants to be a child psychologist. His family can't afford to pay 4 year tuition. His sister graduates from high school this year, and then there will be 2 college educations to fund.

Education SHOULD be about the love of learning, the value of broadening, stretching, and growing our minds throughout our lives. Instead, because of the cost, it's all about preparation for a career to pay the loans.

My mom, born in the 30s, loved school. She wanted to go to college. Her family told her that girls didn't go to college; they trained to be a secretary or nurse, and worked at those things until they found a husband. So she trained to be a secretary and got married. The marriage didn't work, and she raised me by herself.

When I moved out of the house, she threw up her conventional job, and went to work as a waitress at a local steak house. She had plenty of experience, having waited tables as a second job for years raising me. She rented a cheap room from a friend and went to the local community college.

When she attended my "graduation" ceremony from that community college, with an AA in liberal arts, she said softly, "I didn't go for the diploma. I just wanted to learn." By the time she attended the ceremony for my BA she changed her mind and applied for a diploma.

She never went any further. She had a living to make.

I can't imagine what this nation would be like if it were possible for people to continue their education throughout their lives without sacrificing those lives to do so.

[duffyduff]

41. I would much prefer job creation programs rather than this nonsense

We have far too many college graduates for the jobs available to them. That's not even addressing the issue as to whether college should be seen as job training rather than education for the "whole person."

And what happens if you train in midlife or are Social Security age? What then? Three percent out of an SS check is unaffordable.