The Oregon Legislature is debating
a plan to link tuition at state universities to students' future salary. Students would have the option of paying 3% of their wages for 20 years after graduation instead of paying tuition up front.
It's an interesting idea that would help reduce student debt to a manageable level. At 3% of wages, there won't be any issues with unemployable student crushed with crippling debt. However this could leave the university in the lurch as more people take programs with lower income potential or work less. The housewife with a $10k student loan would still have to pay under the old system but the university would be out money under the new one.
Honestly my main concern with the article is that the author has no notion of how interest rates and the time-value of money work. He claims that students would pay out $7k more on average than what tuition is now, but that actually works out to a fantastic interest rate when compared with most student loans
