According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, student loan debt in the U.S. lies between $902 billion and $1 trillion, this leaves each student with an average of $28,000 in debt. In order to resolve this ongoing debt crisis for American students that do decide to further their education in order to gain higher-income, Obama unveiled a new proposal to make the first two years of community college free for responsible students across the United States. States would be required to commit 25 percent of the necessary funding for the proposal. If they followed the government’s requirements which include improving students’ outcomes in school and providing occupational training, then the federal government would pay the remaining 75 percent of funding for tuition and fees. This proposal can possibly be a solution to a continuous debt crisis in the United States because students would now have their first 2 years of college paid for, therefore lowering their college debt. However, there have been recent studies and research that tell us how offering free college might cause new problems for students, and taxpayers. Critics may argue that …show more content…
This proposal will not be cheap which will lead the government to turn to taxpayers. Obama’s plan to grant students with free tuition for the first 2 years of community college would cost an estimated $350 billion over the next ten years (Smith 1). This is an estimate using the statistics of the amount of students that have enrolled into community college from the school years 2013-2014, which is unlikely to remain the same. Free college will create a public option for many students across America to go to college, which will increase enrolment. This increase in enrolment would then result in an upsurge in taxes to keep up with paying tuition expenses, which will introduce a new problem to