Daily News
March 7, 2001

A Tax Break on Tuition for College
US Senator Charles E. Schumer

As the debate over the size and scope of the proposed tax cut rages, one thing is exceedingly clear – whatever they think of the rest of the tax cut, the American people overwhelmingly support making college tuition tax deductible. A college education has become a necessity that is priced as a luxury. Nearly thirty years ago, my middle class parents were able to send my brother, my sister and me to college without government assistance. That could never happen today.

Since 1980, the cost of college tuition has quadrupled. In 1980, the cost of tuition at a typical 4-year private college – not including room and board – was $3,617. In 2000, it was $16,332. Even the cost of public education has quadrupled from tuition of $804 in 1980 to $3,510 in 2000. In the last four years alone, the debt load for students and families has increased by 50%, and since the Educational Testing Service estimates that the number of students enrolling in college will increase from 13.4 million students in 2000 to 16 million students by 2015, more and more middle and working class families will be forced to take on more and more debt.

In today's ideas-based, global economy, most students can't afford to pass up the benefits of a college education – nearly all of the personal income gains of the last eight years have gone to those with a college degree – while their families all too often can't afford to pay for it. That's why I'm sponsoring a bill called "The Make College Affordable Act" with Senators Joseph Biden (D-DE), Olympia Snowe (R-ME), Evan Bayh (D-IN) and Gordon Smith (R-OR) that would make college tuition tax deductible for millions of middle and working class families and help those saddled with debt repay student loans.

The proposal works like this: any family earning less than $109,250 will be able to deduct $12,000 from their personal income to help cover the cost of college tuition. Our bill would also provide families earning less than $100,000 with a tax credit of up to $1,500 per year for interest paid on student loans over the first five years of repayment. That means the typical family will save $3,360 in tuition costs and $1,500 in interest on student loans per college student per year. And parents will still be able to choose between Hope Scholarships and the tax deduction, based on which works best for them.

The strength of our economy relies upon having an educated, innovative work force, and this bill helps ensure our future without mortgaging it. Our bill enjoys bi-partisan support in Congress, but we're about to enter what promises to be a protracted battle on the tax cut and we need broad, vocal support to ensure that no matter what else ends up in the tax bill, making college tuition tax deductible is part of it.

Going beyond secondary education shouldn't automatically mean taking out a second mortgage. That's why we have to give our families the relief they need by making college tuition tax deductible. Our children and our future can't afford anything less.