The challenge of college affordability: University of Alaska is a bargain in shaping the future.

• Author: Roy, Ashok K.
• Position: EDUCATION

The opinions expressed herein are those of the author alone and not of the University of Alaska.

A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.

--Chinese proverb

The canvas is epic. Over the last decade, student debt in America has skyrocketed to more than $1 trillion (per the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau) which will lead to a total lifetime wealth loss of $4 trillion for indebted households without accounting for the impact of defaults. The average student debt is approximately $26,600 (the average University of Alaska student debt is approximately $24,000). Roughly $864 billion is outstanding in federal student loan debt while the remaining $150 billion is in private student loan debt. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, of the approximately 20 million Americans who attend college each year, almost 60 percent borrow annually to help cover costs; and there are around 37 million student loan borrowers with outstanding student loans today.

The cost of a college education is increasing two to three times the overall rate of inflation per the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. The average cost of a baccalaureate degree at a public university went up 46 percent in real dollars from 2000 to 2010. In 2012, the national average for state appropriation per student was $5,906, and the share of revenues that comes from tuition at public institutions was 47 percent. The Center for the Study of Education Policy estimates that in 2012-13 the average tuition and fees at four-year public universities was $8,655, and that states spent $71.9 billion on higher education. Of the US population, 27.6 percent have a college or advanced degree.

Lifetime Earning Power

That begs the question: Is a college education worth it? The answer is an unequivocal "yes."

Apart from the quest for knowledge, a force for enormous social good, and producing more informed citizens, the reason is more mundane or pedestrian: according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, college graduates earn 74 percent more over their lifetimes than high school graduates, and two-thirds of all new jobs now require some type of postsecondary degree. Another compelling statistic is provided by a recent Brookings Institution study that estimated the investment return on a four-year college degree at 15.2 percent a year, which is double the average stock market return. So, the challenge is that as a college degree becomes more important for a student, the cost...