BY PAM LOBLEY

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

NOW THAT'S FUNNY

Hey kids!  Would you be interested in free tuition at a college in New Jersey in exchange for paying a percentage of your future salary for 20 years?   It’s an idea that may be studied by Trenton as a possible solution to the high cost of attending college.

As reported in The Star Ledger, legislation will be introduced in the state senate to establish a study to examine how the idea “Pay Forward, Pay Back”, would work and if it is something the state wants to try.

We already have the “Pay All The Time” rule for property taxes.

It would work like this:  universities or colleges would waive the tuition for students, who would then agree to pay a portion of their salaries to the state once they are working.  The idea is to cut back on the amount of student loans that are burdening young workers.

Um … isn’t this still a loan?  You GET a free education and then you OWE money to the state.  You would still be paying money out of your salary.  Did the people who thought of this go to college?  It sounds to me like whoever dreamed this up would barely make it out of tenth grade math.

Oregon is studying a similar plan in which students would pay 3% of their salary for 24 years, in exchange for the free tuition.   Here’s the math on that:  if your tuition was worth $40,000 ($10,000 per year), and your average salary after graduation was $50,000, you would pay back $36,000 after 24 years.   That doesn’t cover the cost, and it certainly doesn’t figure in for inflation or interest.  If the payback percentage was increased to 6%, you would pay back your tuition in about 13 years.  That’s about $250 a month.   But it’s not a loan.

Here are some other problems:

What if the student stops working after a few years to stay home with the kids?
What if the student can’t get a job?
What if the student is freelance and doesn’t have regular paychecks?
What if the student leaves the state and is hard to track down?
What if idiots ran the legislature and thought up stupid programs that cost the taxpayers a ton of money?

Assemblywoman Celeste Riley (D-Cumberland) suggests that students would probably take about 15-20 years to pay off their tuition debt.  FIFTEEN YEARS for a student loan?  Wow, I can see how this program will really reduce the burden of student debt.  Not.

Furthermore, how are you going to run colleges for the next 10 years while all these kids are going to school for free but no one is repaying their loans yet?

State President Stephen Sweeney (D-Gloucester), who is a co-sponsor of the bill, agrees that there are many unanswered questions right now, but declares the idea a possibility.  He says “It’s absolutely worthy of study.”

No, it’s not!  Do something else with your time.  Pave a road.

Pam Lobley writes the “Now That’s Funny” column.  Check out her blog:  Better Living Through Chaos! Follow her on twitter @plobley.