Academia has become one of Washington’s favorite political punching bags. Colleges and universities are often accused of obsessing over race in admissions, peddling radical and anti-American ideologies and churning out too many students with impractical degrees and poor job prospects. Regardless of whether you subscribe to these criticisms, the message is loud and clear: Higher education has lost its way.
As college students, we have had front-row seats to the debates over university course requirements, academic freedom and campus protests. We’ve noticed, too, that higher education has become increasingly unaffordable.
Some of our nation’s leaders appear to have lost sight of the importance of universities and have undermined their promise. This has happened slowly and indirectly — a seeming unwillingness to appropriate adequate funds, a tax slipped discreetly into a lengthy budget document, a selective insistence on fiscal discipline over providing more help for working- and middle-class students to secure their places on American campuses.
Most Americans, however, still believe that college is worthwhile: Pew Research Center found that 60 percent of American adults believe that a four-year degree is important for securing a well-paying job. But with average annual price tags of $11,610 in tuition and fees to attend an in-state public four-year college and $43,350 for a private four-year school, college places a heavy financial burden on students and their families. A 2024 Brookings report found that even adjusted for inflation, “net prices paid by students today at public institutions across the income distribution are similar to the prices they would have paid at private institutions in the mid-1990s.”
Americans are still going to college; many are just drowning in debt as a result. The Peter G. Peterson Foundation reports that student debt is the third-highest category of household debt, after mortgages and auto loans. The average federal student loan debt balance is roughly $38,000.
What our political leaders do next, then, will determine whether our universities become accessible to more Americans or remain, for too many, out of reach. That’s why we’re calling on the new Congress to double the maximum Pell Grant.
Funding for the Pell Grant — the largest federal grant program for undergraduates and a vehicle for giving need-based financial aid to millions of students — has failed to keep up with the costs of attending college, which have outpaced inflation and wage increases.
Last spring, the Biden administration projected that the program could face a nearly $1.3 billion shortfall in 2025, potentially resulting in eligibility cuts. Today, the maximum Pell Grant covers only a fraction of the average cost of attending college. In some cases, that means students from families with the lowest incomes would need to contribute close to 150 percent of their household income to pay for college, even after grant and scholarship aid. Students find themselves working nearly impossible hours, taking out more loans and going, in some cases, without adequate food and housing.
Some schools, such as the University of Arkansas and the University of Nebraska, offer additional need-based funding for students. But many schools do not. Doubling the maximum Pell Grant, which is only $7,395 per year, is urgently needed. Congress can accomplish this by passing the Pell Grant Preservation and Expansion Act, which would also tie Pell Grant funding to inflation.
Many middle-class families have incomes that fall just above the seemingly arbitrary threshold for two-parent households of 275 percent of the poverty line and receive nothing. Resetting the criteria would reduce the number of applicants who are cut off by these so-called eligibility cliffs.
The inadequate Pell Grant program is not the only threat to college affordability. The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act’s less than 2 percent excise tax on the income of the wealthiest university endowments might seem sensible at first glance — if we tax corporations, high-income individuals and investment gains, why not endowments? But these taxes may limit the availability of funds to subsidize tuition for qualifying students. In recent years, proposals have circulated to increase the tax to as much as 10 percent.
M.I.T.’s recent announcement that families earning less than $200,000 will pay no tuition was made possible largely because of its endowment. The University of Texas System, Carnegie Mellon, St. John’s College and Brandeis have announced similar commitments, but taxes like this could discourage other institutions from following suit, threatening the ability of low-income Americans — including rural and first-generation students — to attend college.
There is a purely practical case to be made here for urgent action on college affordability: In a country where, in 2022, the median earnings for 25 to 34-year-old college graduates working full time was almost 60 percent higher than that of high school graduates of the same age, a college degree clearly sets people on a path to the American dream. Inaction will leave a sinkhole on that path.
Having a cohort of students graduate with less debt is good for the economy. A 2015 working paper published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia found that student loan debt could affect small-business owners’ ability to raise capital. A 2019 study by the financial services firm T.I.A.A. and the M.I.T. AgeLab found that student loans affect borrowers’ decisions about marriage, having children and buying a home.
Beyond pragmatic considerations, Congress should act, because what it does here speaks to the character of our country. Do we open doors for people, or will we limit those who lack financial resources?
We’ve talked to other student leaders who share our view that a greater investment in Pell Grants is critical, at schools including Villanova; University of California, Berkeley, and San Diego; University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; Michigan State; University of Colorado in Boulder; Washington University in St. Louis; Southern Methodist; Emory; Purdue; and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. We know this is a big ask, but our colleges and universities are a unique resource, and America’s college students — all of us — are worthy of a robust investment from our government.
Enoch Ellis is the president of M.I.T.’s undergraduate association, studying chemical engineering and applied mathematics. Siddhu Pachipala is an undergraduate studying political science at M.I.T.
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