The GOP's Higher Education Opportunity

Daily Caller

School is back in session on campuses across America, but the once carefree college experience marked by self-exploration and independence is coming with an increasingly burdensome price tag. Whether you are a senior facing grim job prospects and mounting student loan debt, or a freshman bracing for four more years of increasing tuition and textbook costs, higher education has placed a particular strain on the Millennial generation.

Since 1978, tuition at U.S. colleges has increased over 900 percent, which is 650 points higher than inflation. To put that number in perspective, the housing market (an asset bubble whose collapse played a significant role in the recent recession) only increased by 50 percent in the same time period. And it’s not as if things are getting better. The College Board reported that the average overall cost to attend an in-state public college for the 2012-2013 academic year rose 3.8 percent to a record $22,261.

As costs for higher education have spiraled out of control, our generation has been forced to rely on student loans to meet rising tuition and living expenses. In fact, total student loan debt has grown by more than 56 percent in the last five years. In 2005, the average debt was $17,233, but by 2012 it increased to $27,253. It’s a sad indictment of the economy under President Obama that about four in 10 borrowers with federal loans are actively in repayment, while more than a fifth of borrowers are in default or forbearance. This isn’t an eating-Ramen-noodles-for-the-next-four-years kind of reality; this is the prospect of eating them for the rest of your life.

While difficulties certainly lie ahead for Millennials, we also have that same uniquely American capacity to hope and take risks as the generations that have come before us. In the College Republican National Committee’s recent research report about the youth vote, “Grand Old Party for a Brand New Generation,” we found that our peers respond best to a positive dialogue in which candidates and leaders present themselves as ‘problem-solvers,’ eager and willing to take on broken institutions. With skyrocketing costs fueled by an unconscionable reliance on student loan financing, higher education may be safely counted among those in need of repair.

Republicans who embrace innovative solutions can fill this void. Governor Rick Perry (R-TX), for example, has proposed that public colleges and universities in Texas should adopt plans for a $10,000 bachelor’s degree. Governors Bobby Jindal (R-LA) and Scott Walker (R-WI) have also led the way in proposing that funding for public education be based on other performance standards like graduation and employment rates, rather than simply by enrollment. Most recently, House Republicans took the lead in passing the “Bipartisan Student Loan Certainty Act of 2013,” which prevented interest rates on student loan borrowers from doubling and also extricated politics from the process by tying future interest rates to the market.

 

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