5 days ago
Trying to Pay for College? Your Options Just Got Worse
The message from the Trump administration to working-class Americans who want to go to college is: You're on your own. It is part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act's broad effort to scale back spending on the poor and middle class in order to finance tax breaks for the rich. It's also a dramatic reversal in the American compact with higher education that enshrines into law a flawed policy that will discourage college enrollment among a generation of lower-income Americans.
For a century, the US has improved its global competitiveness by cultivating a higher education system that creates a talented and skilled workforce. As vast as the US higher education system is, however, it has fallen short. Costs are soaring, public trust is declining, and universities aren't meeting the needs of high-impact professions like engineering, which must recruit talent from other countries because the US is not producing enough graduates. On top of these concerns, the prospect of rising college costs — and a shrinking earnings premium for degree-holders — has many high school students rejecting the traditional four-year pathways and increasingly turning to trade schools for their future careers.
