Calls On Congress To Approve Presidential Proposal
Assemblyman Rory Lancman spoke at his alma mater Queens College in Flushing last Thursday, Feb. 16, to call on Congress to pass college affordability measures in President Obama’s proposed budget.
Every year since 1983, according to Lancman, increases in the cost of education have outpaced the growth of medical costs and the general cost of living. The average debt load upon graduation has skyrocketed and the average cost for a private non-profit college education has topped $114,000.
All of this comes at a time when having a college degree is more important than ever, the assemblyman noted, as the starting salary for high school graduates is $30,000 while the starting salary for college graduates is $52,000.
“Students are graduating with the equivalent of a mortgage’s worth of debt, with no house to show for it,” said Lancman. “Our students deserve better, and Congress needs to stop being part of the problem and start being part of the solution.”
As part of his budget, President Obama has proposed a number of initiatives that are designed to improve college affordability and encourage colleges and universities to keep costs down, including:
– holding colleges accountable for tuition price gouging by linking a schools receipt of federal aid to keeping tuition costs down (source);
– increasing Pell Grant funding by $14 billion over the next three years, providing an additional $900 per year per student (source);
– preserving low interest rates on student loans for an additional year, saving 7.4 million students from seeing their loan rates double from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent (source);
– investing in college reporting data, such as ensuring that students can access post-graduation employment data about colleges online, so that students can be informed consumers when deciding where to attend college).
“Obtaining a college degree has become harder and harder for working families at a time when a college degree has become more and more necessary to achieve the American dream,” Lancman said. “These solutions are innovative ways for us to lift students up while keeping costs down.”
Lancman said that New York State has distinguished itself as a model for controlling the costs of higher education. Last year, New York State passed a rational tuition policy reducing the increase in average annual tuition rates to CUNY and SUNY schools to well below the national average growth rate of 8.3 percent.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s proposed budget for this year includes a $28 million dollar increase in TAP funding and a three percent total increase in NYS Higher Education Services Corporation funding, ensuring assistance to low-income students seeking a college education.
