Katrina Vanden Heuvel has a great piece in The Washington Post this morning on the future of higher education and the trillion-dollar mountain of student debt weighing down millions of America's working families. 

She writes in a Debt-Free College Education :

For millions of students, America’s university system is not a pathway to success but a debt trap. As of 2011, nearly half the students enrolled in four-year programs—and more than 70 percent of students in two-year programs— failed to earn their degrees within that time , with many dropping out because of the cost. They leave school far worse than they arrived: saddled with debt, but with no degree to help them land a job and pay it off.

This scenario is highly personal to young workers and for many in my generation. The anxiety felt by many college seniors to find a job in time to start paying off loans is crushing. The anxiety felt by the millions of college dropouts is far worse. While Income-Based Repayment plans provide many graduates with a measure of solace, so would Oregon’s “Pay It Forward, Pay It Back.” For a good background on Oregon’s proposal and of the important need to re-examine the structure of higher education, Vanden Huevel’s op-ed is a must-read.