On Friday, the Millennial Advocacy Council hosted a policy conference at the White House to discuss the need for higher education reform. The panel featured Rep. Tom Garrett, R-Va.; Republican state Sen. Eric Brakey of Maine; and Young Americans for Liberty President Cliff Maloney Jr. The three leaders discussed student loan concerns, autonomy in education, and free speech.
As a local leader in the education community in Kentucky, I am elated to hear that a variety of conservative leaders are genuinely seeking reform. There are three key takeaways from the panel discussion at the White House last week. First, the more vested you are in a decision, the more likely you are to care about the issue. Second, we must protect freedom of speech in learning environments and beyond. And third, unprecedented levels of debt are crippling the economy and leaving the next generation in a vicious cycle of fiscal stagnation.
Political decisions are made at the local, state, and federal level. The difference does not only lie in the exact location of the building, but also in just how invested the decision makers are in the outcome. Local educators, parents, and state policymakers are inherently more vested in the outcomes of the educational attainment of their own students than those at the federal level. Restoring decision making to the most local level possible empowers everyone involved to make the best and most economical choices.
Coinciding with the retention of this power is the necessity for freedom of speech. We must protect and foster environments where people are comfortable expressing their viewpoints and ideas, even if they may be, at the time, a lone dissenting voice.
Free speech allows us to demur the prevailing viewpoint while advocating for another. For example, the position that not everyone needs to go to college in the traditional sense.
As a country, we are producing more college graduates than ever before, while concurrently leaving them woefully unprepared for the jobs that are available. This regrettable circumstance is saddling our rising generations with unprecedented levels of debt, while leaving them increasingly unemployable and unproductive in the economy.
Further compounding this problem is the malinvestment of available resources. Instead of spending what little money one earns on a first home, vehicles, durable consumer goods, or savings, millennials are forced to shell out burdensome levels of money to repay student loans. Loans taken out for an education that — regardless any emotional chagrin — is not valued by today’s economy at a level previously lead to believe.
U.S. student debt is at an unprecedented $1.4 trillion. Recent studies show that approximately 70 percent of graduates leave school with a student loan debt averaging around $38,000. Repaying these loans is diverting the earnings of these young graduates from the broader economy, consequently hindering economic growth, not to mention the strain placed upon the older generations still working to support these students as they search for more fruitful employment.
In my home state, the Kentucky Higher Education Assistance Authority and the Education & Workforce Development Cabinet are actively working to address these concerns. One of the several initiatives we have undertaken is the Work Ready Kentucky Scholarship, which helps Kentuckians who have not yet earned an associate’s degree afford an industry-recognized certificate or diploma. This scholarship applies to programs that provide readily employable skills in advanced manufacturing, transportation and logistics, healthcare, construction, and business and IT. We are taking a proactive approach to the problem and our commonwealth and future generations will be better for it.
Without the freedom to discuss and implement local solutions to a problem faced not only here in Kentucky, but around the nation, we find ourselves constrained and ineffectual in ameliorating the issues. The solution begins with recognizing the problem and having the concurrent ability and fortitude to speak up and change the narrative that has for too long hindered our nation’s youth.
Michael Keck is the vice president of Five Talents Financial Group, a midmarket investment banking firm that advises clients on the acquisition or sale of privately held companies. He is is a gubernatorial appointee to the Board of Directors of the Kentucky Higher Education Assistance Authority and the Kentucky Higher Education Student Loan Corporation and currently serves as the treasurer-secretary of the board. Michael is also a YAL media ambassador.
