Pay It Forward debt-free degree plan makes national debut as Oregon lawmakers tackle student debt cr

[eridani]

http://washingtonpolicywatch.org/2013/07/08/pay-it-forward-debt-free-degree-plan-makes-national-debut-as-oregon-lawmakers-tackle-student-debt-crisis/

Last Monday, the Oregon legislature unanimously passed HB 3472, directing Oregon’s Higher Education Coordinating Committee to examine and propose a “Pay It Forward” pilot program designed to provide access to a debt-free degree for all students and full funding for public higher education.

Here’s how Pay It Forward works: there are no upfront tuition fees to attend college – the primary driver of student debt. Instead, students pay a small percentage of their income for 20 to 25 years after graduation: around 1.5% for a two-year degree or about 4% for a four-year degree. (Specifics will vary depending on the finances of the state or institution implementing the plan.

Pay It Forward offers students and their families a pathway to a college degree without the burden of student debt; instead, the payments contribute to a trust fund that eventually becomes self-funding, covering tuition costs for future students. Oregon’s proposal has vaulted that state into national headlines, with articles in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Associated Press, (among many others).

[liberal N proud]

1. 4% of nothing is still nothing

With so many students graduating without jobs, it makes this a fantastic deal.

It is still student debt, although much less and not going to line some rich fuckers pockets. Hope it works and spreads across the nation.

[Nay]

2. This plan actually makes sense, because it pays back tuition in such a way that students

will be paying back EXACTLY what the degree is worth. IOW, if you can't get a decent job out of your degree, your job will be paying back 4% of, say, $20,000 per year, not 4% of $60,000 per year. No more ripping off the student.

[Lee-Lee]

3. I agree to a point

It doesn't account for those who willingly drop out of the work force, or willingly give up on a career for another- like the doctor who decides he doesn't want to practice medicine anymore, drops everything, and becomes a fundamental southern baptist minister instead (a real life example I know).

To better account for those cases, it should be X percent of income until the cost is repayed, instead of X percent for X years.

[Safetykitten]

4. Me too...need more details on this. It could lead to never-ending tution increases.

[Nay]

5. Yes, I see your point. But I think most cases like this would be involuntary; most people

want to make the best economic decisions so they and their families can have a better life AND a fulfilling work situation.

The problem with this system for Oregon will be that it becomes very obvious, very quickly, which degrees aren't worth a dime in this very narrow and stratified work environment. That is to say, most degrees will be shown to be pretty worthless because 1) the workplace no longer wants to pay for educated employees -- if it could, it wouldn't pay for employees at all; 2) over the years, the university system has allowed its paying 'customers' (they're no longer students being rigorously trained and vetted) to come out of university barely literate. I could go on and on about this second point, but it's been done elsewhere. When the university became a customer-oriented institution bent on sucking up every student loan dollar, it ceased to be an institution that could be trusted to turn out educated people.

[LWolf]

6. Actually, the ultimate plan

would be to provide a fully free public education, K-university, to every person, regardless, because we know it makes a difference. In a just society, we wouldn't separate haves and have-nots according to those who can pay for their education and those who can't.

This is a huge improvement over what is currently happening, since I don't expect the U.S. will become economically just in the next generation.