Purdue’s tuition freeze at year 10: Most students graduate debt-free
President Joe Biden is expected to decide this month whether there will be mass student debt cancellation. And while Americans are at loggerheads over that, they are in almost full agreement about fixing the root cause: the high cost of a college education.
Asked to choose between the government forgiving student debt or making college more affordable for current and future students, an astounding 82% of respondents in a recent NPR/Ipsos poll opt for the latter. Even among those with outstanding loans, long-term affordability wins out.
Getting there is not easy. But at Purdue University, an ambitious price freeze with tuition at just under $10,000 a year has held for a decade, offering innovative – if not always flawless or popular – cost-cutting models for holding the line on student bills.
Students taking a break in the cool, wood-paneled spaces of Purdue Memorial Union on a recent scorching summer day will pay no more than Boilermakers did 10 years ago – and many will likely get their bachelor's debt-free, as some 60% did in May.
“If an institution prioritizes affordability, you’d be surprised – been surprised – by how much progress can be made,” says Mitch Daniels, the former Indiana governor who announced the tuition freeze in the spring of 2013, just months
