The Elderberries by Corey Pandolph and Phil Frank and Joe Troise for August 29, 2014

I was lucky. I got a full tuition for one semester at the junior college I went to. That 50 bucks really helped.

The average college graduate pays about $5800 more a year in federal taxes than the average high school graduate. Over 30 years, that totals about $172,000. If that’s divided by the 4 years it takes to get a college education, the government would break even if it paid every student $42,000 a year to attend school.This doesn’t even consider that with the degree, the person is less likely to ever need unemployment or welfare, that more students would complete high school if they could see a clear way to a really good job, and that they would be enriching the Social Security and Medicare funds. They would also be paying a larger amount in all other types of taxes. And they would be buying more products which would boost the economy, and put more people to work at jobs that require all different levels of education.The best investment we could make to keep America strong is to not just forgive all student loans but to make all higher education, as long as the student is making decent grades, totally free, and increase the number of schools and teachers to make room for all who can profit from the education.We don’t, even at a time of high unemployment, have so much a lack of jobs as we have a lack of people who have the skills to perform the jobs that are available- in other words, a lack of education.

Not to worry. Republicans have blocked efforts to reduce the interest (and therefore the debt load) paid on student loans.