The American social compact may be under siege, with conservatives deriding the idea of underwriting other people’s healthcare and insisting that government spending be cut. But a proposal that graduates pay for the university education of students who come after them is gaining unexpected traction.
The idea, Pay It Forward, was formulated by a Seattle thinktank and may soon be tested in the nearby state of Oregon. Legislation to follow suit is under consideration in at least 10 of the other 50 US states. The idea would make public universities tuition-free for students who agree to pay a portion of their incomes post-graduation into a fund that would support the education of successive generations.
Detractors say the numbers don’t add up and that Pay It Forward is really just another tax or loan — two of the most vilified terms in a nation deeply divided over how much tax should be paid and by whom, and where total student loan debt has surpassed the seemingly implausible $1 trillion (Rs.6,130,000 crore) mark.
Advocates say that while the idea is modelled on the income-based repayment systems in the UK and Australia, Pay It Forward is not a loan, because graduates are not required to repay a predetermined amount. Rather, they would pay a specified percentage of their earnings over a given number of years.
The argument is that this is a fair way to reimburse the state for a service that enhances recipients’ net worth. And it seems to be making inroads with those looking for an alternative to skyrocketing tuition costs and falling public support for higher education.
“Anything that we can do to work on the issue of access and affordability is important,” says Sam Dotters-Katz, president of the student government at the University of Oregon. In Oregon, legislators have approved a study of the idea and are considering a pilot programme to begin in 2015. Similar legislation has been proposed or is under deliberation in at least 10 other states: Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Vermont and Washington. The approach is also being discussed in California and Texas. And one US senator has urged that federal money be allocated to get things started.
“They realise that the current system is broken and this is an interesting out-of-the-box paradigm shift in terms of higher education access,” says John Burbank, executive director of the Seattle-based Economic Opportunity Institute, the liberal think tank which formulated the idea.
Under the scheme, graduates would pay 0.75 percent of their post-tax income into the fund for every year they were at university over a set period of time. A student who received a degree in four years, for example, would pay 3 percent of her earnings for 24 years after graduation.
The proposal’s backers say that this prospect would not necessarily compel students in high-income majors to go elsewhere. They argue that the lure of free education is stronger than concern about future obligations, especially for young adults about to enter university. “When you’re 18, you have no idea how much money you’re going to be making 10 years into the future. You do know how much tuition is going to be next year. And if the choice is between zero or $12,000, zero looks pretty good,” Burbank says, in a reference to the approximate annual cost of tuition at public universities in the state of Washington.
Moocs efficacy controversy
The president of one of the best-known massive open online course (Mooc) platforms has reiterated his belief that Moocs have a bright future. Anant Agarwal, president of the edX Mooc platform founded last year by academics from Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, says there’s “huge demand” for free online higher education, and dismisses concerns about the relatively small number of students who complete such courses.
His view contrasts with recent assertions of Sebastian Thrun, chief executive and co-founder of Udacity, another major Mooc provider. Prof. Thrun told business magazine Fast Company that low completion rates among students signed up for courses on Udacity’s platform mean that they are a “lousy product”.
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Thrun also announced Udacity’s move away from the academic massive open online course model towards more vocational, industry-specific programmes, which he describes as “the biggest shift in the history of the company”. “Although courseware for these new Udacity courses will be free, charges will be levied for assistance and certification of completion,” says Thrun.
“I really disagree with Sebastian’s stance. We see huge demand for our courses… and we see universities and students benefiting,” insists Agarwal, who says about 7 percent of edX students earned a verified certificate of course completion, which he believes is “a good number”. “We don’t think that’s a failure,” he says, adding that many students sign up for a Mooc not to complete the course, but to take as much or as little information from it as they wish.
Agarwal is also enthused by the launch of Edraak, a partnership between edX and the Queen Rania Foundation for Education and Development, which was established by the Queen Consort of Jordan to improve education for the Jordanian population. Described as the first Mooc portal of the Arab world, it will offer a number of existing edX courses, translated into Arabic. Edraak will also develop its own courses with “leading Arab faculty members as well as world-renowned Arab professionals”.
The Edraak platform is created using edX’s open source software, which is free to access. However, any existing edX course translated into Arabic and offered on the platform will incur a “licence fee” that Agarwal estimates will be close to $100,000 (Rs.61 lakh).
Haifa Dia Al-Attia, chief executive of the Queen Rania Foundation, told Times Higher Education she hopes that Edraak will help “bridge the gap” between the impact that Moocs are having in the English-speaking world, and their use among Arabic speakers. “Around 80 percent of the Arab world is monolingual, so having Mooc platforms in English leaves behind 80 percent of the Arab world’s population,” she says.
Two other global Mooc websites — XuetangX in China and France Universite Numerique in France — also use edX’s open source software and both were launched earlier this year.
(Excerpted and adapted from Times Higher Education)