"The External Research Funding"

Kehm also mentions how the institutions are underfunded and do seek other sources of financial aid, such as “external research funding” and that the academic staff experiences competition to seek out these additional funds. However, Lehm also writes that at least 80 percent of each institution’s budgetary needs are met by funding received from their respective state, so any pressure on the staff to obtain additional funding appears to only be for a small fraction of the overall budget. Support for the United States to find a way to bring free higher education has seemed to have received more support in recent years.

A major supporter of a plan to eliminate tuition fees was Hillary Clinton. According to the Hillary Clinton campaign website for her 2016 presidential bid, she supported a plan to eliminate tuition fees by 2021 for families with an income up to $125,000 (‘Making college debt-free and taking on student debt’). The plan also mentions that students with a family income of less than $85,000 would have seen an immediate elimination of tuition had her plan been implemented.

Some other major points mentioned in her plan are:

•  Debt forgiveness after 20 years
• Students will never pay more than 10 percent of their income
• • Debt relief will come to 25 million people
• • Delinquent and in default borrowers will get help to repair their credit

Lastly, Hillary Clinton planned to fund her initiative by “limiting certain tax expenditures for high-incomed taxpayers” (‘Making college debt-free and taking on student debt’). While this specific plan is unlikely to be enacted since Hillary did not win the presidential election, it does give some insight to how a similar plan might be enacted in the future if the United States continues to move towards supporting a plan to eliminate higher education tuition.

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Overall, there does not appear to be any perfect plan to eliminate the cost of higher education in the United States. Germany and other countries have managed to successfully implement and sustain free higher education for their citizens. While there may be imperfections an negatives to any plan, Germany appears to be handling the financial support necessary in order to keep tuition free.

The United States also has a clear student debt issue to address. Empowering students to seek and obtain higher education without the fear of lifelong debt is necessary if we want to see a rise in higher education graduates. The plan laid out by Hillary Clinton also seems more sudden then the Germany plan, and it may be difficult to gain the support needed from those who would prefer to keep tuition fees in place. So far, Germany appears to have a successful approach for free tuition for higher education students. Their slow implementation seems to be a beneficial approach that the United States should consider. With the negatives to student loan debt and the long-term impact that this has on students, a plan towards free higher education would be ideal for United States citizens. A thoughtful, well executed plan would ideally bring us the desired debt relief. The United States federal government should implement a similar plan to the German model to eliminate higher education tuition.

Works Cited

1. Amadeo, Kimberly. “Gross Domestic Product: Understanding What a Country Produces.” The Balance Small Business, The Balance, 26 Nov. 2018, www.thebalance.com/what-is-gdp-definition-of-gross-domestic-product-3306038.
2. Gillen, Andrew. “Rising US Tuition Costs Are Not Driven by Cuts to State Funding.” Times Higher Education (THE), Times Higher Education, 6 June 2017, www.timeshighereducation.com/blog/rising-us-tuition-costs-are-not-driven-cuts-state-funding#survey-answer.
3. “How Germany Made Higher Education Free.” Affordable Schools, 2 July 2017, affordableschools.net/germany-free-education/.
4. Kehm, Barbara, et al. “How Germany Managed to Abolish University Tuition Fees.” The Conversation, The Conversation, 13 Oct. 2014, theconversation.com/how-germany-managed-to-abolish-university-tuition-fees-32529.
5. “Making College Debt-Free and Taking on Student Debt.” The Office of Hillary Rodham Clinton, www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/college/.
6. Ma, Jennifer, Sandy Baum, Matea Pender, and Meredith Welch (2017), Trends in College Pricing 2017, New York: The College Board. © 2017 The College Board. https://trends.collegeboard.org/sites/default/files/2017-trends-in-college-pricing_0.pdf
7. OECD (2011), Education at a Glance 2011: Highlights, OECD Publishing. http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/eag_highlights-2011-en