Education is viewed as a necessity for an admirable career — or even a comfortable life. In the 21st century, however, education seems to come with a hefty price.
The amount of student debt in the U.S. is over $1.2 trillion. In the midst of the presidential primaries, millennials are eager for a candidate looking to combat this issue to assure a more stable and debt-free future. Democratic Presidential Candidate Bernie Sanders seems to be this candidate. He advocates for equal political and social rights, he is the first-ever presidential candidate to be an outright socialist and he is pushing for free tuition for all public community colleges and universities. Considering the current $1.2 trillion student debt, voting for a candidate advocating for free education seems to be intuitive.
Canadian universities cause students to have substantial amounts of debt, but the $15 million student debt in Canada is only a fraction of that in the United States. Considering how close in proximity the two countries are, how are the lives of their students so vastly different? The sheer cost of education in the U.S. is staggering. An in-state student’s tuition averages about $10,000. This is double the $5,000 tuition of an average Canadian in-province student. Out-of-state tuition for an American student nears $23,000, which is a remarkable six times more expensive than an out-of-province student in Canada. If $5,000 tuition is considered a luxury in Canada — which had an 86.51 percent debt to GDP ratio in 2014, even with Canadian Student Financial Debt Acts — how is it plausible to finance a generation of “free education” and combat the outstanding debt in America? Currently the debt to GDP ratio in the U.S. is over 100 percent.
During a town hall meeting on the campaign trail, a student from Columbia Law School expressed her concerns for the future of students and how to confront student debt. She told Democratic Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton that she was $75,000 in debt and only in her second year of law school. This student was lucky enough to have no debt from her undergraduate degree, but $75,000 will most likely be more than she would make in a year of work as a lawyer, and does not even include the debt she has yet to accumulate during her final year of education. Stories of students ignoring their loans until age 40 and then going bankrupt are a bit too common.
Student debt in the United States is becoming an epidemic. How can we begin to confront the remarkable amount of debt and loans in the U.S. economy? Sanders has proposed a “Robin-Hood Act.” This act would impose a 0.5 percent speculation fee on investment houses, hedge funds and other stock trades, as well as a 0.1 percent fee on bonds and a 0.005 percent fee on derivatives. These very small taxes on the financial sector would completely cover the cost of providing free higher education to all students who are willing and able to attend college or university. Could this be the solution to the overwhelming student debt?
This proposal sounds ideal as a student, but viewing it as an economics student who is well versed in the political views of the different parties in the U.S, this bill has little chance of passing. Unfortunately, this proposal seems to be a pipe dream, but as a student, one may dream of the day where an education without accumulating mass amounts of debt is a reality.