How to Reform Public Education With Financial Backing- Part Two of Three
By: Julia Rose
Tags: Reform, Medical Student, Education, Education Reform, Tuition

Part Two:

To lower America’s student tuition, the government has to look to its friends and learn from successful examples of how to lower student tuition.

“In Germany… the vast majority of medical universities are tax-funded and, for this reason, free of tuition” (Zavlin). German medical students do usually pay to attend their program, only, it costs much less than an American medical student’s tuition.

The United States has become infamous for its medical program, not for the fact that it does have very excellent programs, but for the cost of its prestigious education. The cost of going to medical school in Germany can range from only “€1,500 to €3,500 per academic year” (“Study Medicine in Germany”). This, in American dollars, is roughly only 1,816- 4,239.

“In the United States, our costs range from medical school tuition 37,556 (public, in-state) to 62,194 (public, out-of-state)” (“Guide 2 Research”). Also, “The average debt among medical school graduates [in the United States] is 241,600… 76–89% of medical school students graduate with educational debt” (Hanson).

Even though this sounds merely idealistic, trying to imitate Germany’s progressive actions by lowering student tuition for medical students, it would not be as difficult as most think. Many would be in favor of the idea because after lowering student tution for students, student loan debts would drop, causing the salaries of doctors to drop. “The additional years of study (with associated tuition fees, living expenses, and earnings foregone) required prior to medical training increases the cost of entering the medical profession and reduces the supply of doctors without demonstrably improving the quality of care” (Pope).

This will, in turn, allow the healthcare industry to become more accessible to poorer families, making it easier for people to afford quality healthcare, or healthcare in general.

CNBC says simply, that this is one of the reasons for America’s health care being expensive: “Doctors get paid more” (Blumberg).

“The mean salary of a doctor in the United States is $313,000/year according to a Medscape Report”(“Complete List of Average Doctor Salaries by Specialty”).

But if America’s doctors did not have such extensive student loan debts, would they need to be paid as much?

Leading to another controversial topic in America-healthcare- if doctors were paid less, doctor visits wouldn’t cost as much.

With this plan, student loans could be reduced and healthcare costs could be reduced.

The question is: how do we lower these debts. The answer might spark arguments- higher taxes. Currently, the average American paid “$15,748 in taxes in 2018” (“How Much Does the Average American Family Pay in Taxes’’). If taxes were raised by 15.3% to German’s taxation rate for the average American, then a large portion of that money could go towards giving tax money to medical student tuition, therefore, the government would be investing in lowering student debt.

The average German person pays “9,408 euros if [they] are unmarried…For couples who are married…the threshold is 18,816 euros” (“German Income Tax”). This is roughly 11,394 American dollars for an unmarried German and roughly 22,789 American dollars for a married German (“Currency and Coinbase for Cryptocurrency”).

In fact, the average “American spends $10,489 each year in…taxes. That might sound like a lot, but it’s actually only 14% of the average survey respondent’s gross income” (Maxfield).

And even though America feels as divided as ever, a survey conducted by Bankrate states that 62% of the 1,000 people polled were in favor of making tuition at public college free (Anderson). Although this plan could not be an immediate transition, taking the first step would only be the start of this plan. The “margin of sampling error…plus or minus four points” (Anderson).

This is also a less controversial plan than making healthcare ‘free for all.’

According to my research above, if tuition rates were reduced, then healthcare bills would also be reduced. This plan would also come to more of a consensus among democrats and republicans if this plan were implemented rather than if a plan to provide free healthcare to all was presented.

According to research, “54% majority of Democrats… favor a single national government program to provide health insurance” (Jones) whereas “Among Republicans…a 66% majority says the government does not have the responsibility to make sure all Americans have health care coverage” (Jones).

Although most democrats support both of these plans, there is a 5% increase in the republicans and republican leaners who support making college tuition free.

“Democrats…overwhelmingly favor making college tuition free for all American students (83% support this)…Republicans and Republican learners…39% support this” (Hartig).

And this is just the start of lowering student loan debts. Once a model is tested and then perfected, other majors can be incorporated into this plan, and together, the United States government and the people can work together to reduce student loan debts, and therefore, stress and pressure on both the workers to repay debts and the government to fix that stress.