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This new take on paying for college really caught my eye when I came across it. As student debt increases across the country, higher education institutions are faced with a growing problem. But the state of Oregon is taking on a new approach: Free tuition at public universities in exchange for 3 percent of earnings for the first 25 years after graduation.
So someone making who makes $1 million during the first 25 years after college (avg. of $40,000/yr) would only pay $30,000 for their college degree. A pretty good deal when you look at the current cost of attendance!
The first major benefit to this plan that comes to mind is that it will incentivize institutions to provide a high quality education AND (I assume) will improve career readiness and job finding services provided to students. Otherwise 3% of zero is, well… zero.
The caveat to this plan is that it is ONLY tuition. So there are the other college costs that still have to be paid such as room, board, books, fees, etc. So that will necessitate some student loans to exist, but it will absolutely lessen the blow of the cost of college.
Whether or not it works is something that will reveal itself down the road. But I do have to give major props to Oregon for initiating a solution to the problem of the high cost of higher education. One of the most fascinating things to me about this is that it all came about from a student project in a class at Portland State University. Cool, right?
What positives and negatives do you see with this plan? Will it work?
Read the full article here: Move Over Peter Thiel, Oregon Proposes Investment Model For Student Loans
