{"id":52602,"date":"2020-06-05T15:35:59","date_gmt":"2020-06-05T22:35:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/world.edu\/?p=52602"},"modified":"2020-06-05T15:37:59","modified_gmt":"2020-06-05T22:37:59","slug":"the-only-way-to-save-higher-education-is-to-make-it-free","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/world.edu\/the-only-way-to-save-higher-education-is-to-make-it-free\/","title":{"rendered":"The only way to save Higher Education is to make it free"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/em><\/p>\n

College was already a financial house of cards. Then coronavirus hit.<\/em><\/p>\n

In January 2020, while I was in New Hampshire canvassing for Elizabeth Warren, a campaign organizer urged me to tell voters why I supported her. For me, that was easy. \u201cAs a college teacher,\u201d I said when someone answered the door, \u201cI believe that higher education is a house of cards because Americans won\u2019t tax ourselves to support it.\u201d<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t know how right I was, or how quickly my words would bear out.<\/p>\n

Two months later, Covid-19 closed American colleges and universities, and the cards came tumbling down. Millions of dollars in refunded housing and dining fees created yawning budget gaps. And the crisis isn\u2019t over, especially if students don\u2019t return in the fall. In the United States,\u00a0tuition payments represent<\/a>, on average, about a quarter of a public college\u2019s budget, and about 35 percent of a private college\u2019s. For many, it is far more.<\/p>\n

The crisis highlights the unjust, unsustainable fact that higher education is surviving on ever higher tuition payments \u2014 and, going forward, will most likely lean even harder on students and their families to make ends meet. The frank conversation that Bernie Sanders and Senator Warren started during the primary season has now become a crisis. We urgently need to change how we pay for college, and that starts with removing the burden of tuition from working families.<\/p>\n

Will college be free under a Democratic president? Probably not. But we can reduce the bill significantly if we imagine that education as part of an economic New Deal. That means more than just making college free or inexpensive for most students. It means re-evaluating the place that higher education occupies in our society.<\/p>\n

Financing tuition through taxes works for other countries. In 2014, Germany\u00a0abolished tuition<\/a>\u00a0for all students from the European Union. Ireland, France, Norway, Sweden and Denmark charge no tuition for all European Union students, and provide low-interest loans to cover other college expenses: in Sweden, at a rate of\u00a0just 0.13 percent<\/a>. In\u00a0Australia and Britain<\/a>, public tuition is half what Americans pay, and in Israel, a 10th. In Australia, students repay loans as a percentage of income when they reach a livable income threshold.<\/p>\n