What if you could earn a college degree without paying for tuition?
The idea isn’t completely outrageous. Some lawmakers are proposing bills to facilitate it, most recently in Florida. The catch, however, is that once you receive your “free” degree, you must pay the state a small portion of your income for a certain amount of time. Florida’s proposed “Pay it Forward” plan would require college graduates to pay the state between 2 and 6 percent of their annual salary for up to 25 years, depending on the specific agreement.
In theory, it doesn’t sound like a bad deal. Most of us will spend a few decades forking over chunks of our salaries to pay off student loans anyway. Why not give our money back to the state instead of Sallie Mae and do away with interest rates and debt collectors?
It’s important to note, though, that free tuition doesn’t necessarily mean free college. Living costs such as housing and meal plans might still require loans. So, for some, the Pay it Forward system would only make paying for college more complicated.
USFSP’s website estimates an in-state student who does not live with their parents will spend $10,085 a semester. Tuition only accounts for $2,910 of that figure. So, even with a Pay it Forward tuition plan, students without financial assistance from their families or scholarships, would still have to take out more than $7,000 a semester in loans. If the premise of Pay it Forward is to eliminate student debt, it won’t be effective.
At $193.70 per credit hour, a standard 120-hour bachelor’s degree from USFSP costs $23,244. The median wage in Florida, according to WUSF, is $41,334. So, say your Pay it Forward plan requires you to pay the state 3 percent of your salary a year. That’ll come to about $31,000 # $8,244 more than USFSP’s current tuition rates would cost you. Granted, that’s not factoring in loan interest rates, which would not exist with a Pay it Forward plan.
Either way, the proposed plan would only cut the need for student loans by a small fraction and has potential to cost students more than it does to pay tuition traditionally.
Suddenly, the proposal doesn’t sound like such a nifty deal.
Fortunately, Oregon has offered itself up as the guinea pig. A pilot program is currently being drafted that would require four-year university graduates to pay the state 3 percent of their annual salaries for 20 years. However, we likely won’t get to see whether Oregon’s Pay it Forward program flops or flourishes any time soon. Even if the bill passes, it will take 20 years before the state receives its full share of its higher-educated residents’ salaries. Any state that chooses to go with a program like this will have to endure some financial hits before making its money back, and that’s only if things go as planned.
Tyler Killette is a senior majoring in mass communications and editor-in-chief. She can be reached at me@tylerkillette.com on Twitter @tylerkillette.
