College these days! It’s already difficult to get in, and once accepted how will the average American pay for it? In recent years there’s been a lot of talk about the cost of tuition in the United States. Many lawmakers believe that by lowering the cost of post-secondary education, the American workforce will be more well-rounded and prepared for highly specialized occupations. This begs the question, what have American lawmakers been doing to make collegiate education more accessible for the average American? While some politicians are lobbying for some universities to run tuition-free, others believe that this idea may cause more harm than benefit when put into effect. In the past sixty-five years, need-based federal scholarships haven't …show more content…
In the past few years politicians have been bringing up the idea of free public universities, which may seem like a good idea, but many New York lawmakers beg to differ. According to Long Island Business News in 2017, a plan was introduced in New York that, “would provide free tuition - not room and board, or books - to full-time students whose families earn less than $125,000 a year,” (Genn). While this would eliminate the financial bias previously mentioned on university admissions board, helping many American students, it could also hurt many private universities, who are having a “‘tough time’," according to Senator John Flanagan. “And if the state helps… community colleges, it "exacerbates the problem" for private colleges. At risk, for instance, is funding for private schools that increase tuition beyond certain thresholds each year” (Genn). Another plan may be less extreme, according to Registered Rep, “reducing government subsidies to private student loan providers. But, at the same time, the bill would cut interest rates that the government collects (for Stafford loans) in half (from 6.8 percent to 3.4 percent over five years); and, the bill increases the maximum Pell Grant by 2012 from $4,310 to $5,400” (Mucciolo). While this would help students immensely while they are in school, the economic repercussion that they would face as soon as they graduated into the real world wouldn't be worth the