If elected president, Hillary Clinton has promised to spend $350 billion to make college "more affordable." The U.S. already has an $18 trillion debt (and growing by the day), but Clinton wants to add to it. That's not affordable.
Too many young people are graduating from universities unable to find jobs, or are underemployed. Slate.com references a 2014 study of youth joblessness by the Economic Policy Institute. It found "...roughly 8.5 percent of college graduates between the ages of 21 and 24 were unemployed. That figure is based on a 12-month average between April 2013 and March 2014, so it's not a perfect snapshot of the here and now. Still, it tells us that the post-collegiate job market, just like the rest of the labor market, certainly isn't nearly back to normal. (For comparison, the unemployment rate for all college grads over the age of 25 is 3.3 percent, which is also still higher than normal.) More worrisomely, the EPI finds that a total of 16.8 percent of new grads are 'underemployed,' meaning they're either jobless and hunting for work; working part time because they can't find a full-time job; or want a job, have looked within the past year, but have now given up on searching."
The problem isn't just at the university level; it's at the jobs level where Obamacare, higher taxes and overregulation have reduced incentives to hire people, or forced many to accept part-time work.
When I entered American University as a freshman in 1960, tuition was $450 a semester. Today you probably can't get out of the bookstore for that amount. I received no federal subsidies. My father paid for the first year and I paid for the rest by working and getting a small student loan from the bank, which I quickly repaid.
