For the near future, Albert Einstein College of Medicine will be tuition-free after a $1 billion donation by Ruth Gottessman, a member of the college’s board of trustees. The donation and media attention Gottessman has garnered sheds light on college tuition and student loan debt.
Universities should advocate for affordable education and implement means to make it happen, especially since a degree is required for most jobs.
According to the Associated Press, this is said to be the largest donation anyone has ever left for a medical school. The school, now tuition-free, previously cost $59,458 per year to attend. The Education Data Initiative stated the average medical school debt in the U.S. is $202,453, excluding undergraduate debt.
This opens up the conversation about college tuition and how life-changing it is for students to not have to worry about going into debt.
It is crazy to me how student loan debt is normalized and as a society, we brush it off. I can’t even count on both of my hands the amount of times my friends and I have called ourselves “broke college students” as a joke. What seems like a joke is now our reality.
Why is a college degree expected for most jobs, but college itself is not accessible to all people?
Yes, there are grants and scholarships, but often, that is not enough. Students are struggling to pay tuition and many people cannot afford to go to their first choice of school, even with external financial support. For college to be such a normalized, and often, required experience, it should be more accessible to those who want to attend.
The cost of living does not stop at just tuition payments. Once you pay tuition, you still need to pay for housing, food, access codes, books and if you have a car, a parking pass and car payments. There are a laundry list of costs that go into college.
It is even more of a struggle to consider that many “entry level” positions are looking for years of experience. It is impossible to be a recent college graduate trying to find a job that allows you to pay back student loans, due to low salaries and the cost of living. In some cases, students will still be in debt later in life because of how much college costs.
I’m not saying that every single college needs to be tuition-free, although I would not complain if that was the case. However, colleges need to take into consideration the cost of tuition and that for the average person, education is by no means financially affordable. Gottesman made the donation to Albert Einstein College of Medicine to ensure that tuition is free, which will change students’ lives in the future because they won’t have to worry about paying off their medical school education.
