A truly cruel college squeeze
Where's all the money going to come from? Raising Pell Grants to cover this year's average increases in tuition, room, and board would cost about $4.6 billion. Raising the lifetime borrowing limit of $23,000 to $30,000, with Washington paying the interest on loans to needy students when they're in school, would cost the government $20 billion over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office. In the meantime, parents are going more deeply into debt. Every year, more than a million families take out a second mortgage on their homes just to pay for education for their kids. So, just at the time when the jobs of the future will require more knowledge and technical talents, we face a situation in which getting a college degree is largely determined by the financial well-being of parents.
For a society that believes and offers equal opportunity to those people who play by the rules, this is a disgrace. We must mobilize the political will to invest in the real future of America, namely, in the education of our young.
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