According to the United States Census, there are 336 million people in the United States. Best Colleges says that around 43 million of them quickly fall victim to mounting college debt. The Senate and House of Representatives should make college free for some and financial aid more accessible and reliable for all by passing bills that support affordable college tuition and student loan forgiveness.
Fear about student debt doesn’t just loom over graduates or high schoolers. It looms over middle schoolers just like me! Many people have asked me, “What do you plan to do when you go to college? Or, “What college are you planning to attend?” And the truth is, I don’t know, because the worry of falling into skyrocketing debt honestly scares me! College tuition needs to be lowered so that students won’t need to take out big loans that they may regret later.
According to Issues.org, “from 1979-80 to 2009-10, the average cost of a public, four-year institution increased from $738 to $7,020, a multiple of three times after accounting for inflation.” USA Today says, “As of the first quarter of 2023, student loan debt in the U.S. stands at a total of over $1.77 trillion.” As you can see, this is no way to live.
In order to solve this problem, The Senate and House of Representatives should make college free for some and financial aid more accessible and reliable for others by passing bills that support affordable college tuition and student loan forgiveness. For example, a solution proposed by Senator Elizabeth Warren is a $1.25 trillion project that aims to eliminate student debt and provide free college for all Americans (CNBC.) But an even bigger program with millions of American’s support is the college loan forgiveness plan that President Biden is initiating. He plans to forgive millions of dollars on loans. According to the U.S. Department of Education, the Biden-Harris Administration “approved the 1.2 billion plan that will automatically discharge $1.2 billion in loans for nearly 153,000 borrowers who are eligible for the shortened time to forgiveness benefit under President Biden’s Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) Plan.” This is a huge step towards making college affordable.
Even though all of these are amazing steps toward affordable college and life without student loans, there is still much work to be done. Each person deserves the right to education!
