I don't think this is as unpopular as you suggest. I'm not inherently against college being cheaper (I'm more of an independent however with all sorts of weird mindsets that don't fall underneath either right or left).

I think where the roadblock is is where you say "Every American" and proceed to say "higher taxes". Only about half of Americans are currently paying federal tax, so this tends to hit hardest for those who don't want to further support people they feel already receive enough help (whether this is right or wrong).

But 33.4% of people actually complete a bachelor's degree, which is quite conveniently the exact same as the 1/3 from above. A lot of people go to college for 1-2 years then dropout and do something else instead. Or, they are only doing a 2 year program (which has astronomically lower costs to begin with).

We'll throw away this getting credits as a high schooler though (as it is being widely viewed as a dream program), and look at just a normal 4 year situation. You still have $2,000 - $4,000 in grants and scholarships (do keep in mind I'm being extremely conservative with this number being $500-$1,000 per year). You will get the tax credit (American opportunity credit) 4 times, and also the Lifetime Learning Credit your final spring (this credit isn't quite as substantial, and will likely result in about $1,000 back. This adds up to $8k in tax credits.

Thus your total 4 year cost is still "just" $29-30k, which is still less than the average.

Face it, the average is substantially higher because people choose to go to private schools, choose to go on vacations during spring break (or even very expensive travel abroad trips), I also very frequently saw my friends maxing out the absolute most they possibly could in student loans (even though this far exceeded their school credit cost) specifically to find their lifestyle throughout college without having to work. I'd argue this is an entirely different problem (in that student loans should be capped at school tuition cost and maybe $500-$1,000 for books and supplies and that is it), but I don't believe it means we should just wipe these amounts. And IF we do wipe these amounts, I'm more inclined to make it an option (similar to bankruptcy) that needs to be approved by a court, and once again, still appropriately tells this person they have to pay for their mistakes. As it currently stands, I don't believe student loans qualify for bankruptcy. I think we would find out rather quickly that many people aren't to the point of needing bankruptcy, and they actually CAN afford their student loans, it's just restricting other areas of their lifestyle (as loans of all kinds frequently do).

I'm not arguing here that school costs aren't spiraling out of control. They absolutely are, but people who attend college are VERY aware of their per credit cost while attending as it currently stands.

I also want to bring up what would have happened if I had student loans. I would have been able to pay off $37k (the average college debt) in approximately 3 years with a starting accounting salary of $50k. This is how long on this salary it took me to save up for a down payment on a house (I'm sure I'll be told it's some dream again, but somehow I'm able to do all of these things). So if I would have had college debt instead, I would have been buying a house in 2019 (age 27) instead of 2026 (age 24). I don't think that is completely life changing. Are all starting salaries this high? No, they absolutely aren't, but many are over $40,000, and will be making $50 within 3-4 years. If a specific one isn't this high, perhaps it isn't a sound financial decision to get tons of debt for that degree.

One other thing I haven't mentioned...these numbers are all based on near worst case scenarios that are available to many. This is ignoring the rich kid that has parents who pay for their school. The people who get full ride scholarships for their grades. The person who has a job after college who agrees to pay their student loans off as a benefit (or a military person who is having their school paid for already).

It is absolutely INSANE all of the different avenues already available to help. So why again should taxes have to go up to help these people that weren't smart with their money for 4 years (and yes I believe all candidates pushing for this have a related tax increase to pay for it)?

The cost of on campus living is also a substantial problem (and was at my school as well).

It was substantially more expensive to live in a dorm on campus than it was to rent an off campus house with 3 friends. I'm talking thousands of dollars per year more. How exactly is it so expensive when the dorm room was much...crappier and smaller???

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-says-north-koreas-kim-wants-to-meet-11561862697
Trump had a quick meeting with Kim in North Korea and they agreed to reopen talks about nuclear weapons.

I don't support the proposed policy of eliminating student loans. You're basically having the majority of Americans who don't have a bachelor's pay for those privileged enough to attend and graduate college. We should freeze interest that can accumulate but we shouldn't eliminate the debt.
People who take out loans and graduate are benefitting by having a degree compared to those that didn't even attend college and it just feels kinda wrong to eliminate their debt since they knew what they were getting into.

For one thing, why are you not accounting for the cost of housing?

Because you should be working a job to pay your bills (housing, vehicle, food, etc). These are basic things that one needs to pay for regardless of whether or not they are attending college. And being that college generally includes about 15 hours of actual classes in any given week, there is more than enough time to complete homework as well as work 30-40 hours a week. Despite me doing all of these things, I STILL had time to party on weekends and quite frankly, play more video games than I'm proud of (I was easily playing 20-30 hours a week)

Again, you are applying your particular situation to everyone (which doesn't make sense).

Beyond that, it doesn't really make sense to assume that school only takes up 15 hours per week. With my scheduling in college, I frequently had 1-3 hour breaks between my classes. With most jobs, you can't really go to work in 1 hour chunks, so instead it was often more accurate to say that my classes took up over 40 hours per week of my time. It wasn't uncommon for my first class to start at 8 and my last class to end at 6. While I did work when I could, I also had to account for my own mental health to some degree in order to make sure that I could actually keep my grades up and not have a mental breakdown.

Overall, if you start to factor in housing costs to your above estimate of $30k in loans, you suddenly jump up to around $90k in loans depending on dorm costs. That may be paid off to some extent by work, but  if you start actually taking into account all the costs of college, it jumps up very quickly making those initial estimates of yours pretty ridiculous.

I agree. My personal experience is not all that matters, but you were doing 70-80 hours a week of homework? I find that...awfully hard to believe. There are 168 hours in a week, it's reasonable to give any same person an average of 12 hours a day for sleeping, eating, and just living. This still leaves 84 hours a week for class/homework (not to mention an entire summer).

You are acting like I just didn't have homework. I absolutely did. My first three years of school, I was going to be an Actuary, and had high level mathematics courses that absolutely gave boatloads of homework.

I still had time to work. Other people still do too. Once again, nothing ever applies to 100% of all scenarios, but the brunt majority of people around me in college (while I was in both majors as I switched) had more than enough time to work to pay their normal bills. Regarding not being done til 6 many days, that is generally when my shifts started during the week. Sam's club was more than willing to work with my schedule. I worked on other homework between classes. The majority of my work 16-20 hours a week, however, was on weekends. Donating plasma made me about $5-6k in school, and can be scheduled any day of the week whenever you have time.

Many people even go a more non traditional route where they take 12 credits instead of 15 so they have more time for life outside of school. Obviously it extends schooling to 5 years instead of 4, but it makes it much more realistic for some people's scenarios.

What about the concept of working during high school (and actually saving this money). We haven't even discussed how this can result in an extra grand or two (or substantially more) that can ALSO pay towards college.

You appear to be falling into a similar boat of myself, where you are applying your situation to everybody, and saying my situation therefore isn't valid.

My application is based on all of the people in my classes that I hung out with, all of my current friends, every person I've ever dated, literally every single one of my cousins. I can keep going on, but the "not having time to work" didn't apply to a single one of them.

Was it fun working a ton in college? Nope. I have so much more time (and money) now it's amazing, I feel like I can really enjoy what life offers me.

There will always be one-off cases, but the vast majority of people absolutely have the capacity to work during college. It's easier than ever with all of the online type jobs (tutoring, ubering etc etc) you can have nowadays too. That wasn't an option when I went to school.