I just finished paying spring 2015 college tuition for our two children.  One attends a private university, the other, a public university.  I am thankful that our children, who are not planning to work for the federal government or for a non-profit entity after graduation, will be debt free when they receive their Bachelor degrees.  My husband and I worked very hard, sometimes two or three jobs at a time, to save for our children’s college education.  By the time our children were ready for college, we had enough saved to cover their expenses for the duration of their undergraduate education. 

But our tuition paying days will not be over when our children graduate.  According to an op-ed piece published in the Wall Street Journal on Dec. 30, 2014, Your Taxpayer Tuition Bill,

“One of the slow-rolling and under-reported government debacles is the rising amount of student-loan debt that is guaranteed by taxpayers and will never be repaid. Thanks to the federal takeover of the student-loan market in 2010, the Education Department now stands behind more than $1 trillion in outstanding debt….  So-called income-based repayment programs reduce a borrower’s monthly payments and then forgive the remaining principal after a period of years.  Graduates who choose the nonprofit and government jobs favored by the President can have their loans forgiven entirely after 10 years.”

So as an American taxpayer, this means that our tuition-paying days will continue.  Our children will be paying for someone else’s college tuition.  For example, it will most likely be someone with a degree in Women and Gender Studies, who took seven years to graduate from a “prestigious” university and now works for an expensively bloated federal agency with a miserable track record of failure.  Head Start quickly comes to mind.  Instead of being forced to pay for someone’s college tab, we would much rather use our financial resources to fund charities and initiatives that we find are much more deserving.