Thread by @bopinion

College has the ability to:

📚Provide opportunity to all regardless of race or class
💰Boost the economy’s productive capacity
✍️Make people better citizens

On all these counts, the U.S.’s system of postsecondary education is falling short bloom.bg/31DQAhB

How has America's college system fallen into disrepair?

For one, it's become too expensive. The price of a college education has outpaced both incomes and federal grants bloom.bg/31DQAhB

For the lowest-income quarter of students, the average annual cost of attendance (including living expenses, net of grants) reached about $11,600 in 2016.

That’s about 80% of average family income for this group bloom.bg/31DQAhB

Cost matters a lot. When people can’t afford the full cost of attendance — including tuition, books, food and rent — they struggle.

💵A $1,000 increase in price reduces enrollment by about 4% bloom.bg/31DQAhB

Those who enroll in the federal government's crazy quilt of loan options emerge with increasing debts. That means graduates are often unable to:

❌Start families
❌Buy houses
❌Save for retirement bloom.bg/31DQAhB

As of June, total student debt stood at an estimated $1.48 trillion, or about 36% of disposable income.

📈That’s up from $250 billion, or 12%, in 2003 bloom.bg/31DQAhB

At an individual level, schools do provide value for money: The median income of people with a bachelor’s degree is about twice that of their high-school-educated counterparts.

College grads are also happier and less likely to die of heart attacks bloom.bg/31DQAhB

Sadly, the benefits have little to do with what people actually learn. Four years of college only has a limited effect on critical thinking.

In one study, just 31% of college graduates could correctly explain and compare opposing newspaper editorials bloom.bg/31DQAhB

Black Americans often go deep into debt for nothing.

They disproportionately end up with diplomas of dubious value from for-profit schools — thanks in part to aggressive marketing bloom.bg/31DQAhB

There’s no quick fix.

Proposals to make higher education free for all or forgive student debt would primarily benefit the wealthy. Removing public support would cut off access to additional millions bloom.bg/31DQAhB

Policy makers can improve the system by addressing these three areas:

1. Access
2. Cost control
3. Quality bloom.bg/31DQAhB

🚪Access: The government's approach to student lending leaves too many people with unbearable debt.

It should replace its tangle of subsidies with a single grant program focused on poorer students. Repayment of all new loans should be tied to income bloom.bg/31DQAhB

💸Cost control: The current system rewards colleges for raising prices.

The government should provide money only to those schools that agree to charge no more than what the FAFSA says students can afford bloom.bg/31DQAhB

🧐Quality: Government aid programs reward bad actors for engaging in aggressive marketing.

To improve standards, Congress should gather data to provide a complete picture of the expected return of different schools bloom.bg/31DQAhB

Meeting the needs of the poorest students could cost the federal government $40 billion a year, and states $20 billion.

If this investment would help restore the role that higher education once played in the U.S., the price would be well worth it bloom.bg/31DQAhB