Now more than ever, our progressive movement needs real leaders who are equipped with the skills, fortitude, and vision to meet the political and economic challenges we face as a nation. For nearly four decades, the United States Student Association (USSA) has fostered this leadership.
The editorial makes the case that we have more of a nuisance than a crisis on our hands. It misunderstands the entire point behind the push for debt-free public college.
We’ve created our own bracket here, matching up colleges not by the number of McDonald’s High School All-Americans on their roster, but by whether or not they provide access to an affordable education and whether they are engines of upward mobility for working-class students.
With so many eventual graduates starting at community colleges, we should take a hard look at institutional aid policies, which reward incoming freshmen much more than transfer students.
New York became the first state in the country to return to a guarantee of tuition-free college for students at state public colleges and universities.
It's time to recognize that in a world where most students must borrow for a credential, borrowers should receive the same failsafe protections on these loans as they do on any other consumer loan.
The top three economic issues for young people are debt-free public college, paid family and medical leave and a higher minimum wage (followed closely by affordable childcare).
To summarize, the House Republican tax plan would get rid of several incentives—from the ability to deduct student loan interest as well as tuition, to the Lifetime Learning tax credit—which provide middle-class students and borrowers with some relief at tax time.
While some fairly valuable tax breaks for students have been kept from the chopping block, the Senate GOP’s tax bill could go a long way toward decimating funding for public colleges and universities, and community colleges in particular.
Rather than excluding students, progressive states like New Jersey have an opportunity to lead and expand the universe of the possible on issues like free college.
Put simply, how do we square that “college is worth it” from the increasing body of evidence that student debt is not necessarily good debt? The unsatisfying answer, of course, is that it depends.
The media shouldn't be scaring students away from going to college, because the alternative of not going is worse. Unfortunately, our move to a debt-for-diploma system is doing a good enough job of that itself.