A political antidote

From the very first blog, we have discussed the main causes of skyrocketing tuition, some plausible solutions to it, and actual implementations of those solutions in numerous countries across the globe.

For today's blog, I want to take a look some presidential candidates who have already mentioned their "political" solutions to this noteworthy socioeconomic phenomenon.

Before we divide into the world of politics, it might be beneficial to succinctly examine how different the American education policy is from that of European nations.

If one were to look at the education system in Europe, as one can observe, most of European countries offer post-secondary education as either free or significantly less than that of America.


(Let's go study in Europe)  Click this to see all the list of European nations and their educational policies towards citizens. For instance, in Norway, there are no tuition fees at public universities and colleges. Even in Spain, students are only paying 12.50 EUR per credit, $14 USD per credit. I would simply quell my appetite  for a couple of large pizzas from Canyon for once and add another 3 credit-course on my schedule.

The reason is that most of European countries have different political structure than that of America.
They have socialist economy while the United States have

Most of these countries offer students to attend colleges tantamount to a day worth of college in the United States, if you excuse my exaggeration.. it is needed. Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland are the countries that are firmly based on Socialism, where everyone gets an equal share and ranked as one of the happiest countries. However, most importantly, one mustn't be beguiled by the benefits of Scandinavian countries offer. All of those were possible because they are A) homogenous B) People are paying 40% 60% of their pay.


There are two circumstances that America don't hold: it is absolutely diverse and massive country and has much lower income tax rates.

So, even if we want "tuition colleges", it will never ever happen.


Luckily, the federal reserve finds a correlation between federal aid and high tuition fees.


Since there is no way that America will instantly put "free-education policy" in practice, one is highly encouraged to scrutinize the issue of high tuition fees in respect to binary perspectives, democrats and republicans.

As the presidential election of 2016 is flowing successfully, one could see that the Democratic presidential candidates often, and clearly mention the high cost of a college education as part of the debate along the 2016 election.

To begin with, Hillary Clinton recently announced her proposal that guarantees $350 government expenditure over a decade in order to subside states which would agreed to increase their college spending. By doing so, her proposal can prevent countless college students from taking loans to cover their tuition.

Along with Clinton's government spending to levitate burden on students' shoulders, her "New College Compact (Hillaryclinton.com)

* These are two main reforms that she is proposing: Student should never have to borrow to pay for tuition, book, and fees to attend a 4-year public college in their state under the New College Compact. The additional support they receive will reduce all costs, including living expenses, by thousands of dollars. Student at community college will receive free tuition. Students will have to do their party by contributing their earnings from working 10 hours a week.

* If you have student debt, you will be able to refinance your loans at current rates, with an estimated 25 million borrowers receiving debt relief. Typical borrowers could save $2,000 over the life of their loans.

Here, one can hope that with some buttress of a particular political regime, skyrocketing tuition seems resolvable.

Another contender, Bernie Sanders who values the wealth of today as 100 and that of tomorrow as 0
proposed his act called, "College for All Act". This will eliminate tuition at all four-year public colleges and universities. And the federal government would pay "two-thirds" of the tuition costs.
Therefore, states would be responsible for 1/3.

Significance of his bill is that 1) it would forbid the use of money to pay administrator salaries, merit-based financial aid , and the construction of luxuries, non-academic buildings.
2) It would lower student loan rates and allow borrowers to refinance. (Sanders Act).


Two political reformation would be much practical and affective and trying to change a good chunk of the current education system, such as eradicating certain unpopular departments and replacing them into online courses or getting rid of disdainful notion/norm towards technical/vocational schools.


However, the rising problem would be taxation. It is the problem in both Clinton's act and that of Sanders.

They are both focusing on the use of "government spending", when the amount of debt of this nation possesses is absurd.

Who is responsible and willing to pay more tax when it is painful enough?

As the debt of America has surpasses 18 trillion a good month ago, it would certainly jeopardize our nation's economy, even aggregate it.

For Republican candidates, their primary focuses are foreign policy, abortion and anti-terrorism rather than spending time proposing "Education Act". But they clearly hold identical views that both Clinton and Sanders' proposals will result an economical catastrophe.

Sen. Marco Rubio's approach to this topic was to help working-class people in order to create alternatives to traditional four-year college programs with flexibility (NYT).

Bush once quoted that it is needed to change the incentives for colleges with fresh policies that would yield in more individualization, improved value of a college degree, driving down overall costs.


Once again, free college and high tuition fees are never-ending socioeconomic phenomenon that we have to carry on and hopefully minimize their toxicity by the time when our kids become college students.


Your thoughtful opinions and feedback are much appreciated!