Credit: Yes! Magazine
The promise of free college education helped propel Bernie Sanders’ 2016 bid for the Democratic nomination to national prominence. It reverberated during the confirmation hearings for Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education, and Sanders continues to push the issue.
In conversations among politicians, college administrators, educators, parents and students, college affordability seems to be seen as a purely financial issue—it’s all about money.
My research into the historical cost of college shows that the roots of the currentstudent debt crisis are neither economic nor financial in origin, but predominantly social. Tuition fees and student loans became an essential part of the equation only as Americans came to believe in an entirely different purpose for higher education.
Cost of a college degree today
For many students, graduation means debt. In 2012, more than 44 million Americans (14 percent of the population) were still paying off student loans. And the average graduate in 2016 left college with more than $37,000 in student loan debt.
Student loan debt has become the second-largest type of personal debtamong Americans. Besides leading to depression and anxiety, student loan debt […]
Harvard doe still give out scholarships. As a matter of fact our grandson Tyler just received a scholarship to Harvard. He’s only 17 now so he decided to first go to a community college for a couple of years and work to save money for the extra expenses involved with moving to the Harvard area and to pay all the extra expenses involved, like books and food and such which can be very expensive. We’re very proud of him for keeping his grades up and for having a view of the future that makes him want to succeed in life even though he is only 17. We wish him the best of luck in his endeavors; way to go Tyler!