In other words, the devastating burden of high student debt not only causes enormous financial problems for individuals and families, it also destroys dreams. It often drives people into jobs they would prefer not to be doing - but that they are forced to do in order to earn the higher salaries they need to pay off their debts.
The current situation regarding the financing of higher education is not only unfair to the working families of our country, but is incredibly stupid when we look at the long-term needs of the American economy. Everyone knows that in a highly competitive global economy, our middle class and our nation will not succeed unless we have the best-educated workforce in the world. Our economy will not grow and prosper unless we have the workforce to perform the jobs of the future.
Fifty years ago, if you had a high school degree, odds were that you could get a decent-job and make it into the middle class. The education and job skills you had allowed you to get some of the best jobs available. But an exploding technology has changed that world. While not all middle-class jobs in today's economy require post-secondary education, an increasing number do. By 2020, it is estimated that two-thirds of all jobs in the United States will require some education beyond high school.
And these jobs, of course, tend to pay better. Nationally, a worker with an associate's degree will earn about $360,000 more over their career than a worker with a high school diploma. And a worker with a bachelor's degree will earn almost $1 million more. Bottom line: it is increasingly difficult to make it into the middle class without some higher education, because that's where the good paying jobs are.
Now, let me give you some news that's really scary, and does not bode well for the future. Not so many years ago we led the world in college graduation rates. We had a higher percentage of college graduates between the ages of 25 and 34 than any other country. We were the best-educated nation on earth and not surprisingly, we had the strongest economy. Today, in terms of the percentage of our young people graduating college, we have fallen to 11th place, behind such countries as Japan, South Korea, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, and Switzerland.
Eleventh place is not the place for a great nation like the United States. Eleventh place is not the place to be if we want to be a prosperous nation.
In my view, the time is long overdue to change that dynamic. It's time to make public colleges and universities tuition free for the working families of our country. It is time for every school child in the country to understand that if they study hard and take their schoolwork seriously they will be able to get a higher education regardless of the income of their family.
It's time to reduce the outrageously heavy burden of student debt that is weighing down the lives of millions of college graduates.
And let me be very clear. I am not just talking about 4-year universities and colleges. I am talking about community colleges. I am talking about vocational schools. I am talking about apprenticeships. We desperately need highly trained and highly skilled electricians, welders, plumbers, mechanics, pipefitters and health care workers of every kind.
Each and every American must be able to get the education they need to match their skills and fulfill their dreams.
In the richest country in the history of the world, everyone who has the desire and the ability should be able to get a college education regardless of their background and ability to pay. That's why I introduced the College for All Act that would make public colleges and universities in America tuition free for families earning $125,000 per year or less--86 percent of our population.
This is not a radical idea. A number of nations around the world are doing just that, investing in their young people so that they will have an educated workforce that isn't burdened with enormous student debt. In Germany, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden public colleges and universities are tuition free. In Germany, public colleges are free not only for Germans, but also for international students, including some 11,000 from the United States of America.
And let us also understand that it wasn't that long ago that our own government understood the value of investing heavily in higher education, and treating it as a public good. In 1944, just before the end of World War II, Congress passed the GI Bill providing a free college education to millions of World War II veterans. It has been widely acknowledged that this was one of the most successful pieces of legislation in modern history, laying the groundwork for the extraordinary post-war economic boom, and paying for itself many times over.
But it was not just the federal government that acted in the past. In 1965, average tuition at a four-year state public university was just $256, and many of the best colleges -- such as the City University of New York -- did not charge any tuition. The University of California system, considered by many to be the crown jewel of public higher education in this country, did not charge tuition until the 1980s. In other words, making public colleges and universities tuition free is not a new idea. We've been there and done that. And it's a policy that works.
The good news is that in the last couple of years governors, state legislators and local officials around the country now understand the current crisis and are doing the right thing by moving forward to make public colleges and universities tuition free. This year, the City College of San Francisco began offering tuition-free college, and their enrollments for residents of that city are up by 51 percent compared to the prior year. In New York State this year, tens of thousands will go to the city's public colleges and universities without paying tuition. Similar programs have popped up in Tennessee, in Oregon, Detroit and Chicago.
Now some people will say, "Well, you know, it's a good idea making public colleges and universities tuition-free, but it's expensive, it costs a lot of money. How are you going to pay for it?"
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