Fixing Education

One of the more recent political footballs in America is student loans and attempts to alleviate excessive higher education costs and prohibitive loan payment schedules. We can't fix everything wrong with higher education, but maybe we can start chipping away.

I believe we need to define which public services are essential to the life, health and safety of Americans and subsidize loans in these fields. We could pay for these subsidies through a modest increase in either Medicare or the FICA tax wage limit.

Essential services (ES) education funding does not need to be focused on full graduate courses from a college or university. They could fund much less expensive training in accredited trade schools and community colleges. 

We first must define the ES parameters, then the rules and regulations necessary to have the education fully compensated or repaid.

In example, ES fields could Include:

• Nursing (LPN, ASN, RN and NP) in select medical fields such as primary care, OR, ICU, trauma, ER,...;

• Medical Doctor (MD) degrees in family or primary care medicine (may or may not cover pre-med bachelor's degree);

• Teaching degrees in grades K-12.

• Criminal Justice, Police and Fire Fighter standardized training and certification;

• EMT/EMS technicians and first responders standardized training and certification;

Sample restrictions, regulations and rules could include:

• For university education, the student must maintain a GPA of 3.0, or above, and graduate “on-time” (two to four years - with exceptions for health or family emergencies).  In trade schools or community colleges, they must pass a standardized test at graduation.

• If the student fails to graduate or does not adhere to the Repayment Provisions below, the actual amount paid out of the ES program will revert to a student loan and must be repaid.

• Upon graduation, the student must adhere to any required Repayment Provisions.

• Each ES curriculum will have varying bounds and rules. For instance:

• MD degree students must practice primary care and/or family medicine for eight consecutive years after residency requirements are met before moving to a specialized field, if so inclined. Primary care MD will typically spend 10 years in education & experiential training.

• Nursing graduates must actively practice nursing in any medical ES field listed for five consecutive years.  

• Teaching degree students must teach in a public school K-12 for five consecutive years.

• Standardized training students will, by and large, not need a degree. Police, Fire, EMT, and the like, must actively practice their chosen profession for five consecutive years after graduation/certification.

Repayment Provisions might include:

• Failure to meet regs or rules will result in the balance of the principal owed being converted to a student loan at prevailing interest rates.

• In essence, the federal government would be paying the principal & interest on a loan amount for the duration of the regulation period (4 years of education plus 5-8 years of practice in the field).  If in default, the principal portion remaining would revert to a student loan.

• Dropouts would owe the full accumulated principal to the date of dropout. Exceptions would be made for hardships and circumstances beyond the control of the student.

One of the focus areas of this type of program will be medical school. Today, 16% of students drop out of pre-med and another 16-18% drop out of medical school. The primary reason? Cost. Further attrition results from the excessive student loan balances that need to be repaid during medical residency - when income is at a bare minimum. 

This is not an exhaustive list of ES careers or the regulations around funding or repayment. But it could give rise to some thought on how we can fix several major social problems with one sweeping solution.  

Our shortage of medical professionals in family medicine, qualified public teachers in our schools, and police or first responders with higher levels of education in their chosen fields, can be addressed by alleviating the burden of student debt needed for the average American to pursue a career in Essential Services.

Just thinkin’ out loud here….