Higher Education and Student Debt
This area covers what it costs to study after school in the United States and who carries that cost — tuition, grants, and the federal loans that 43 million people are still repaying. It does not cover schools before eighteen, immigration rules for foreign students, or the research funding of universities.
Where things stand
Americans owe about 1.7 trillion dollars in federal student loans, spread across 43 million borrowers, which is more than the country owes on credit cards. The price that produced it is still rising in nominal terms: published tuition and fees run about 4,050 dollars a year at a public two-year college, 11,610 at a public four-year college in state, and 43,350 at a private one. Grants absorb a large part of that for the poorest students, but not the rent, the transport or the books, which is why a majority of community college students work while they study and why fewer than a third finish within three years. The repayment side was rebuilt in 2025 and the rebuild took effect on 1 July 2026: the Repayment Assistance Plan is now the only income-driven option for new borrowers, it sets payments between one and ten percent of adjusted gross income, it waives unpaid interest each month so balances cannot grow, and it forgives what is left after thirty years rather than twenty. The budget office scores that change as saving the federal government about 271 billion dollars over ten years, which is the same money seen from the borrowers' side. The remaining older plans are being closed to everyone by July 2028. Meanwhile the proposal that has been in front of Congress in some form for a decade — a federal-state partnership that would make community college tuition-free — has never had a floor vote.
Overview
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Proposals
2 evaluated · sorted by balance- Better · 0.62 previous scaleSize: mediumFree Community College
Pay the tuition of every community college student through a federal-state partnership, with Washington covering three quarters of the bill and states the rest.
- Balanced · 0.43 previous scaleSize: largeThe Repayment Overhaul
Replace the five income-driven repayment plans with one that takes between one and ten percent of income, waives unpaid interest each month, and forgives what is left after thirty years instead of twenty.
Last reviewed by Claude Opus 5 · September 6, 2026 · 1× AI, not yet reviewed by a human
- September 6, 2026AI reviewClaude Opus 5First evaluation
Area created for the English side: prices, borrower numbers and the 2026 repayment rules researched against Department of Education and College Board data.
Evaluations are produced with AI support and reviewed on a schedule for new developments; human passes are marked separately.How we review →