The Web is replete with infor­ma­tion on how to finance a col­lege edu­ca­tion, but it doesn't change the fact that it's expen­sive and–who are we kidding?–complicated. If you browse pre­vi­ous BG arti­cles and keep an eye out for future ones, you're bound to find some sea­soned insights maneu­ver­ing this aspect of the game. But for now, let's take a glance at how the U.S. gov­ern­ment has responded to the increas­ing finan­cial dis­par­ity between a col­lege degree and the country's bur­geon­ing col­lege fresh­men class.

I came across a neat and tidy PDF: the Col­lege Afford­abil­ity Fact Sheet, pub­lished by the Obama Administration.

In it, the fol­low­ing facts are noted:

Col­lege costs have grown nearly 40 per­cent in the past five years.

60% of all col­lege grad­u­ates leave col­lege with debt.

The aver­age col­lege grad­u­ate ends up with over $19,000 in debt.

Between 2001 and 2010, 2 mil­lion academically-qualified stu­dents will not attend col­lege because they can­not afford it.

Only 12% of Lati­nos and 16% of African Amer­i­cans even­tu­ally earn a bachelor’s degree, com­pared with 33% of White stu­dents. The ris­ing cost of col­lege is a fac­tor in this disparity.

The price of col­lege has risen 40%, and our recent econ­omy has been likened to the Great Depres­sion? Yikes.

But wait, the point of these sta­tis­tics isn't to lament and complain-monger. Rather, they serve to bol­ster sup­port for sev­eral ini­tia­tives under­way to tackle these grow­ing prob­lems. Pres­i­dent Barack Obama and Vice Pres­i­dent Joe Biden have teamed up to present a pack­age of forward-moving plans, detailed here in a much cheerier list:

(Note: These and the above items have been para­phrased, BG-style. Please view the PDF for full cita­tion and more information.)

1. Amer­i­can Oppor­tu­nity Tax Credit: What's a tax credit? It's a refund from the gov­ern­ment after hav­ing paid your taxes for the year. What's this one for? A check (a CHECK, I say!) for the first $4,000 of your col­lege edu­ca­tion. The idea is that, save for the Ivy Leagues and com­pa­ra­bles, this will cover two-thirds of tuition at the aver­age col­lege. What'll it cost you? Other than good grades, 100 hours of pub­lic ser­vice. If you get involved with clubs, orga­ni­za­tions and other extra-curriculars on your cam­pus, you're likely to rack up HUNDREDS of hour with­out even real­iz­ing it. (Trust. I can rack up 100 hours in a few week­ends judg­ing for col­lege speech tournaments.)
2. Sim­plify the Appli­ca­tion Process for Finan­cial Aid: Who are we kid­ding? FAFSA is con­fus­ing. This ini­tia­tive can­didly admits that a ton of stu­dents don't even apply for finan­cial aid, like Pell Grants and Life­time Learn­ing tax credit pro­grams, because they're super com­pli­cated and dif­fi­cult to nav­i­gate. By using tax infor­ma­tion that stu­dents already file, the 5-page, 127-question FAFSA behe­moth may dis­ap­pear. (FAFSA = Free Appli­ca­tion for Fed­eral Stu­dent Aid)
3. Help Stu­dents Become Aware of Col­lege Readi­ness: Hey, that's what we do! This plan pledges to pro­vide $25 mil­lion annu­ally to match funds for states to develop Early Assess­ment Pro­grams, col­lege prepa­ra­tion pro­grams just like Bet­ter­Grads. Cit­ing under-preparedness as a prime rea­son for high school seniors miss­ing the col­lege appli­ca­tion boat (<— read that one more time), this is a great reaf­fir­ma­tion to the team here at BG. We're on board, Obama. You, too, Biden.

The Col­lege Afford­abil­ity Fact Sheet lists sev­eral other ini­tia­tives, and I sug­gest you visit the link to learn more about the details. This whole plan is under the umbrella of the recent focus on edu­ca­tion our gov­ern­ment has for­tu­nately taken. Check out my recent arti­cle on STEM edu­ca­tion ini­tia­tives, under the same men­tal­ity as the Col­lege Afford­abil­ity plan. (STEM = Sci­ence, Tech­nol­ogy, Engi­neer­ing and Mathematics)

Com­ments? Con­cerns? Ideas? Type away.