Free College Movement – Nonprofit News | Daily News Byte

President Joe Biden’s recent decision to cancel up to $20,000 in student debt for certain borrowers marked an important first step in acknowledging and repairing the United States’ broken higher education infrastructure.

Of course, Biden’s executive order is currently stalled in court. But let’s assume that the Biden administration ultimately prevails. Even if Biden’s debt relief plan goes as planned, this action alone will not solve the problems stemming from America’s higher education system’s reliance on individual debt financing.

Student debt cancellation advocates like the Debt Collective know this. Debt cancellation, they rightly point out, is just one step on the road to tuition-free college. Now is the time to take the next step. Advocates must build on the momentum gained from the fight for debt justice by advocating for free college to replace the existing student-funded funding model that limits college access, exacerbates racial wealth disparities, and absolves the government of responsibility for higher education.

Understanding the student debt crisis as a policy failure that harmed millions of Americans and required remediation to prevent further harm was key to the success of the campaign to end student debt. But while cancellation is an important acknowledgment and righting of past mistakes, it does not increase access to higher education in the future. Americans believe that a college education is essential to achieving prosperity, but it is not clear whether they think the federal government can reduce the cost of college. The free college movement may change that.

This is not the time to retreat with political patches. We need to rethink the financial basis of the higher education system more broadly and demand free public college. Americans should have the right to free higher education. It is the government’s responsibility to ensure this.

Wrong model

The failures of American higher education stem from the adoption of a funding model that mixed state funding with federal student aid, mostly in the form of loans. Instead of providing free public higher education (as has long been the standard for K-12 education), the federal government has attempted to encourage access to higher education through public financing options for individuals. As a result, we are mired in an unfair market system of higher education, where income and wealth determine access to college education, and household debt is expected to offset decades of economic exclusion.

We are mired in an unfair market system of higher education, where income and wealth determine access to college education, and household debt is expected to compensate for decades of economic exclusion.

These trends have been exacerbated by decades of severe cuts in public funding of higher education, particularly by state governments. As states redeployed revenue-free budgets to other uses, higher education institutions sought tuition fees — supported by generous federal student loans — to make up the difference. Tuition at four-year public colleges increased by 82 percent between 2000 and 2020 and by 159 percent between 1990 and 2020, even after adjusting for inflation. Higher tuition has led to $1.7 trillion in student debt held by more than 43 million Americans.

Tuition growth as the primary source of college funding unfairly hurts students and the institutions that serve them. With costs shifted to individual students, borrowing rates rose astronomically, with black and brown students taking on the most debt. Due to systemic racism, black college graduates tend to be paid less than their white counterparts when they enter the workforce, making their debt more long-term. Research shows that 12 years after entering college, the average black borrower still owes more than he borrowed. On the other hand, the median white student has repaid about 40 percent of their loan. At the same time, schools that served disproportionately large numbers of low-income students, first-generation students, and students of color were more likely to experience severe funding cuts as a result of reduced state budgets, often resulting in larger class sizes and fewer faculty.

Financial aid failures

But what about financial aid or other affordability measures? It’s true that current college affordability measures are only pushing around the edges — by capping the cost of tuition, for example, or expanding Pell grants. These measures fall far short of what is needed to address the larger structural problems arising from the national market system of higher education. Moreover, simply calling on higher education institutions to reduce tuition without addressing the problem of underinvestment could lead to institutions further reducing funding for faculty and staff.

The exercise of public power is the only way to address the flaws of America’s broken higher education system. The federal government has historically invested in higher education by providing financial support to students, but outside of research grants, it has yet to significantly fund universities themselves. Nonetheless, it has the capacity to implement a new funding model for public universities that offers sustainable, direct federal funding to colleges and universities in exchange for free universal access and improved quality of education. This idea is not new. Since President Barack Obama’s 2015 State of the Union, some form of federally supported free higher education has been a feature of countless policy proposals, appearing in most of the 2020 Democratic primary candidates’ platforms.

A federal plan for free college must begin with the understanding that the federal government invests in higher education not because Americans are consumers in the higher education market, but because they should have the right to access such education. The College for All Act of 2021 does just that. Introduced by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-VA) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), the bill would represent a direct federal investment in that right by covering 75 percent of the cost of tuition waivers at public institutions, and states would pick up the slack. There are many other models that could be applied.

A significant increase in federal funding should create opportunities for other reforms. Institutions that receive direct federal funding should meet labor, educational, and equity standards and offer more transparency about their operations. Stable employers and drivers of economic development, universities have historically anchored communities. Federal investment in the free college model should be designed to help restore this role for higher education.

The Road to Free Public Higher Education: Lessons from Student Debt Organizers

After a proposal to guarantee free, two-year community college was dropped from the Build Back Better bill a year ago, free college has largely fallen out of the public discourse, but we should recognize debt cancellation for what it is: a recognition that a larger education system is broken.

Clearly, student debt is going to start rising again – unless free college is introduced. Of course, this effort will be met with resistance, but the achievements of the student debt relief campaign have provided both lessons and an organizational infrastructure on which advocates can build to lead a new movement for universal free public higher education.

Free college could serve as the kitchen table that revives public confidence and trust in our nation’s institutions.

The story of student debt cancellation has raised awareness of the failures of our higher education system. President Biden and others have repeatedly said that a college education should be the ticket to a middle-class life, but that college debt is a lifelong burden that prevents many people from attending college in the first place. Further, advocates pointed out that student debt is an issue of racial justice. Most people understand that higher education can provide economic mobility, but that student debt can block that potential. This understanding, in the context of the pandemic and the racial reckoning of 2020, provided momentum for student debt cancellation.

But such cancellations have not permanently resolved any of the issues that have created unsustainable levels of student debt. Higher education is still expensive, and the costs continue to fall particularly hard on black and brown students. Meanwhile, Americans are, if anything, only more price sensitive in our current inflationary moment. With 77 percent of Americans today struggling to afford a college education, free college could serve as the kitchen table that revives public confidence and trust in our nation’s institutions.

Ultimately, making college affordable requires a more comprehensive response than affordability measures like expanded financial aid. Fortunately, student debt cancellation has shown that action to address higher education access and funding is popular because a majority of Americans (66 percent) believe that student debt is a significant financial burden.

Free public higher education is also popular. A year ago, the Pew Research Center asked Americans whether public higher education should be free – 63 percent of respondents said yes.

It is the job of advocates and policymakers to explain that student debt cancellation was an important first step toward creating a progressive system of higher education, one that builds on the tradition of free public education established by Horace Mann and expands this tradition to include higher education so that meet the educational needs of today’s society.