Pay It Forward, Pay It Back
Samm Sack
Staff Writer
For the last two months, the majority of my free time was spent creating lists of every school activity I ever participated in (even if that career lasted two weeks my freshman year), typing up 500 word essays and drinking lots of coffee all to submit as many scholarships for my first year of college as possible.
It doesn’t matter whether or not my family can afford putting me through college, because they’re teaching me responsibility, there’s no way I’m getting a penny from either parent.
I’m exactly the kind of student that lawmakers were looking at when they proposed the “Pay it Forward, Pay it Back” plan. It’s basically like a reverse Social Security for school; college students would go to a public university with absolutely no up-front tuition but would sacrifice a percentage of their income for the next, say, 25 years to pay it back.
The plan is promising, to say the least. Even students who grow to be successful are burdened with debt right out of college because they are forced to take out an average of $25,000 in loans. Plus, bright teenagers coming from a financially unstable family shouldn’t have to give up an auspicious future because their background were riddled with debt. Instead, their success should be plotted after they get the necessary education. Then and only then can they prosper or fail, as the American system would have it.
If students aren’t able to afford to college in the first place, they don’t experience all of the opportunities the American dream holds.
A cure for cancer could be locked behind the mind of someone who can’t afford education--lawmakers agree--which is exactly why the proposed legislation is rolling out all over the country. Different states are taking different approaches to the system, especially recently in Ohio and New Jersey.
Nebraska’s public colleges have yet to join in on the rave so I won’t be able to benefit from the system if I stay in-state. I desperately hope that the arrangement flourishes elsewhere and catches the eye of the state’s lawmakers.
