Praise: OWS call for Student Loan Forgiveness

For years I have told my students that college is worth it.  I would point to old data that showed that earning a B.A. or a B.S. would nearly double their lifetime earnings.  That old data might still be true, but the cost of attaining a tertiary degree has been climbing too high.  A science cartoon, Calamities of Nature, brought this into stark focus this morning.

In response, students and former students involved in Occupy Wall Street are calling for student loan forgiveness.  That may sound extreme, but compare the support students received from Pell Grants starting in 1975 to just the year 2000.

Over the ensuing twenty-five years, the Pell Grant program did not keep pace with the rise in college costs. By fiscal year 2000 the maximum Pell Grant provided only 40 percent of the cost of attendance at a public four-year institution. While total Pell Grant spending had grown 691 percent over the preceding twenty-five years, federal loan volume had increased 2000 percent over the same period, thus shifting the foundation of the Title IV programs from grants to loans.

So, the cost of higher education is increasing dramatically and the funds to attend college have shifted from grants to loans that, with interest, sometime climb to more than $100,000.

This is happening as some Republicans are calling for the opposite of assisting students will college.  Former Texas Congressman Dick Armey spoke a year ago on CNN

The federal government has the military academies and it’s an important thing they should continue to do that. But the education of our young people oughta be under the jurisdiction and auspices of the state governments. The state of Texas has a great university system that has not been made any better by federal money involvement.

What we need to rejuvenate the United States is not austerity.  We need investment.  The history of federal assistance to universities and unviersity students should be a guide.  Historian Stephen Ambrose spoke of the GI Bill on the PBS Newshour a decade ago.

Listen, that GI Bill was the best piece of legislation ever passed by the U.S. Congress, and it made modern America. The educational establishment boomed and then boomed and them boomed. The suburbs, starting with Levittown and others, were paid by GIs borrowing on their GI Bill at a very low interest rate. Thousands and thousands of small businesses were started in this country and are still there thanks to the loans from the GI Bill. It transformed our country.

Historian Michael Beschloss continued later in the same discussion.

At the time that the bill was debated in Congress it passed only by a very slim margin, and, in fact, a lot of -- particularly Republicans -- said let's not pass this thing because a big part of the GI Bill was to give returning vets $20 a week for 52 weeks. They felt that would encourage sloth; that people would not try to get jobs. They thought that this would extend the welfare state, rather than do the opposite. But the other thing I think really endures as a part of America's philosophy is this linked the idea of service to education. You serve the country; the government pays you back by allowing you educational opportunities you otherwise wouldn't have had, and that in turn helps to approve this society. That's something that goes al the way back to the time of he Revolution, and I think it's one reason why we think of it so fondly.

This sounds a lot like the current crop of Republicans.  Using this history as a guide, it is clear to me that it is time to invest in American education.