Notes

To make college more accessible, we need to make greater public investments — at both the state and federal levels — in higher education. But those investments will not need to be so large if more people are able to get a good job without attending college. The fewer students who are forced to seek a degree, the less all those degrees will cost us. In the long run, the only way to make college more affordable, ironically, may be to make it less important.
n the end, shifting the cost of college back to taxpayers —as we do with K-12 education — is probably the only way to make college both accessible and affordable. But it would provoke ongoing battles over funding at both the state and federal levels. A recent survey conducted by the think tank New America found that while most Americans agree that the government should make higher education more affordable, they're sharply divided over who should foot the bill. Among Democrats, 78% say the government should bear more of the burden. Among Republicans, 64% say students should cover more of the cost
In a survey commissioned by Insider and conducted by YouGov, Americans of every generation agreed that going to college today is "not worth the financial cost."
Fifty-seven percent responded that college isn't worth the cost. Gen Z, by contrast, is the most positive about the price — but 46% of Gen Zers still say the cost outweighs the benefits.


If we want to end the mounting crisis of student debt, we must figure out how to make college more affordable for a majority of students. But most of the solutions currently being considered, from freezing tuition to doubling federal aid, don't address the underlying cause of the crisis. To bring down costs at both public and private schools, we must first understand why college got so expensive in the first place — and consider a more dramatic overhaul of the role that higher education plays in today's job market.