While UCLA is leading the pack as a number two seed in the NCAA tournament, it is not faring nearly as well when it comes to tuition increases. Tuition at UCLA has increased from $3,683 in 2000-2001 to $6,522 this school year, close to doubling in just six years. That’s well above the sizeable 41 percent average increase in tuition at public colleges nationwide since 2001. How do those numbers affect the odds that hardworking students will earn college degrees and succeed in the competitive global economy? 

The answer is not heartening. According to the Department of Education, each year more than 400,000 qualified students do not go on to college because they cannot afford it. That’s hundreds of thousands of potential teachers, pharmacists, engineers, doctors and other professionals that this country lets slip though the cracks. Talk about a lost opportunity.

Students who are able to put together a patchwork of student and parent loans, campus jobs, and credit card debt to fund their education take home an enormous debt load with their college diploma. Nearly two-thirds of all four-year college graduates now have student loans, and the National Center for Education Statistics reports that the average graduate owes $23,600.

While a college diploma opens doors to a world of opportunities, students graduating mired in debt too often must change their career and family plans in order to pay back mounting loans. Studies show that startling numbers of graduates must abandon public service careers like teaching and social work for high paying jobs, and end up delaying marriage, purchasing a home and having children. 

The new Congress has begun to reverse the damage. Within the first 100 hours of the legislative session, the House passed phased-in interest rate cuts on subsidized student loans. According to a report by the Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) Higher Education Project, this move will save the average student starting at UCLA in 2007 $2,500 in loan interest payments, and a student starting in 2011 will save almost double that. It’s a good first step, but there’s so much more to be done to make college affordable.

Currently Congress is working on reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, which provides financial assistance to students in higher education. Congress should seize the opportunity to make student loans more affordable by lowering interest rates, limiting the percentage of income students spend repaying loans, encouraging colleges to use the cost-saving direct loan program, expanding loan forgiveness programs for critical public service careers and reinstating the refinancing of existing loans. Congress should also increase need-based grant aid by raising the maximum Pell Grant award, currently worth less than it was worth 30 years ago, to $5,100.

These are the demands of the Campaign for College Affordability, a mobilization that unites Campaign for America’s Future and dozens of other groups working to eliminate the financial barriers which keep too many qualified students out of college on the basis of their economic status. Our federal government must be willing to spend more on education so that we can make real investments in our future.

Over the next few weeks, we will witness the magic of the nation’s next generation. These young men and women will wow us with their talent, hard work and motivation on the basketball court. What if over the next three weeks Congress matched their drive and determination and worked to pass a Higher Education Act that ensured that every student with the skills and determination to obtain a college education could do so? Now that would be real March Madness.

Anne Thompson is a communications associate at the  Campaign For America's Future.

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