The only way I was going to college was to figure out how I was going to pay for it.
That was over 20 years ago, when tuition at the University of Hawaii Manoa wasn’t nearly as high as it is now. Luckily, I earned academic tuition waivers every semester, so I never went into debt for my undergraduate degree.
Now a mom — and one sending her son to private school — I’m already stressing out about the cost of college, which, on average, can add up to anywhere from $29,920 to attend UH Manoa in-state to $77,339 at Harvey Mudd in California, the nation’s most expensive college in 2022, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
That’s higher than the median wage for U.S. workers, which was $54,132 in 2022, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And it will undoubtedly be much higher when my son starts applying to college 13 years from now if things stay on the same track.
Who can afford college anymore?
So when the Biden administration announced on Wednesday that the federal government would cancel up to $20,000 worth of federal student loans for millions of people, I wondered if that was enough.
It’s a start, yes. It will help millions of people, yes.
But something has to be done about college affordability and equitable access to quality education.
Under Biden’s plan, borrowers who hold loans with the Department of Education and make less than $125,000 a year are eligible for up to $20,000 in student loan forgiveness if they received Pell Grants, which are given to students from low- to middle-income families.
Individuals who make less than $125,000 a year but did not receive Pell Grants are eligible for $10,000 in loan forgiveness. The typical undergraduate student with loans now graduates with nearly $25,000 in debt, according to the DOE, so this will help.
But this is a one-time fix. The amount of outstanding debt — $1.6 trillion and rising, according to the White House — is estimated to return to the same level in just four years after the $10,000 per borrower was canceled. So what happens then? We may have a new president, new lawmakers, new agendas — but this problem will remain.
This debt forgiveness plan takes care of what has already happened — and I support that — but we need to find solutions to address the issue of college affordability now. Racking up debt in the hopes of a high-paying salary after graduation or hoping the government will wipe out that debt later is a gamble, one that I lost myself.
I got a bachelor’s degree in English — cue the English major jokes — with plans to go into teaching. Instead, I wound up at Northwestern University, taking out a $35,000 loan to pay for a master’s degree in journalism. (Now it’s over $70,000 a year.)
At the time — and still today — it was ranked as one of the top journalism schools in the country. I thought, “I’m getting a degree from Northwestern. I’ll get a job and pay back that loan, no problem.”
It took me more than a decade to pay back that loan. I lucked out with a locked-in low-interest rate, and I only paid the minimum amount every month, but it was still a painful check to write.
Some critics of Biden’s plan complain that this is unfair to all of the people — like me — who have struggled to pay off their loans without help or found other ways, like military service, to finance their education. I get it, but I don’t care.
Yes, I struggled somewhat, but I was fortunate enough to land a reporting job after graduate school back home in Hawaii. That’s a win already — and my student loan debt didn’t deter me from pursuing my career goals.
I realize we all handle debt differently, and our situations are vastly individual. However, I feel nothing but gratitude that there’s a focus now on the astronomically high cost of education — and hopeful more will be done to ensure everyone, regardless of identity, gender or economics, will have access to education, period.
We need an educated public. We need people to vote, to create, to explore. We need to create a community that cares about each other. And education can help us get there.
We just all need access to it.
