Outrageous SC college tuition fees are a disservice to us all. Let’s break it down

Do South Carolina leaders want kids to go to college?

The question arose after Christian Stegmaier, a lawyer and Lexington County Republican State House candidate in the June primary, tweeted the cost of sending his daughter to Clemson University for one year — around $30,000. That included about $12,000 a year for housing and meals.

The cost of college in the Palmetto State is absurd and needs to be clawed back by the same leaders who let it get out of control.

According to the state’s higher education commission, for in-state students, the basic tuition and fees to go to Clemson is more than $15,000 a year. The cost is about the same for Winthrop. The University of South Carolina in Columbia and College of Charleston are a bit cheaper at about $13,000 a year.

The average tuition and fees of the 10 most attended South Carolina public colleges is almost $13,000 a year. Many students will require housing in college, and feeding them along with other costs can easily add $10,000 or more annually.

The median household income in South Carolina was about $55,000 as of the 2020 Census, and the cost of living has gone up since then, taking from that income. In Columbia, the median income is even less — $47,000.

A single mom living in Columbia likely making less than that income can’t give what could easily be half or more of her income to college costs. Parents in Dillion County, where the media household income is about $36,000, can’t pay nearly $30,000 a year to send their kid to Clemson.

The South Carolina leaders who let the cost of college become such a ridiculous portion of the median household income should be smacked. State lawmakers shoulder a lot of the blame for the costs. In response to the recession that hit in 2008 and decreasing state revenue, they cut funding to colleges, forcing up tuition.

All the major public universities in North Carolina cost less than $9,000 a year for in-state tuition and fees, prices from the University of North Carolina System show. The average in-state cost for 10 of the most attended Georgia public schools is about $7,000 per year, as calculated from prices listed by G.A.’s college governing agency. The figures from both states don’t include meals and housing.

The median household income in North Carolina and Georgia is between $61,000 and $65,000, the 2020 Census shows. So not only is college cheaper in those states, it hurts less to pay for it.

Here’s a crazy idea, South Carolina. Maybe if we made college more affordable, more residents could attend, and they would start making more money. It seems to have worked in North Carolina and Georgia.

People out there will scream, “A kid who can’t afford a university can go to tech school,” or “Get loans.”

Crushing kids’ dreams of going to the school they want is not what we should be doing, and the student loan debt crisis embroiling the country proves borrowing is not the answer.

Some will say that kids can get state scholarships. The amount those scholarships provide, between $2,800 and $7,500 yearly, hasn’t changed since they were created 20 years ago while college costs have increased. Receiving those scholarships require students to obtain certain test scores and grades, but those don’t fully assess a kid’s potential in college.

Forget income. Forget grades. Forget test scores. A person’s ability to go to college should be based on one thing — do they want to go to college. If the answer is yes, then South Carolina has to find a way for those kids and their parents to afford college. Lowering tuition is a good start.

To the credit of lawmakers and colleges, tuition over the last couple years has been frozen because schools have gotten injections of state funds. Freezing tuition isn’t enough. South Carolina leaders need to lower college costs as inflation strips income.

Having household income based tuition is one idea to lower costs. The state could legalize marijuana and give all the tax money to colleges with the stipulation that they lower tuition.

South Carolina leaders need to come up with some big ideas to lower college costs. Otherwise, we’re dooming this state to be lesser than North Carolina, Georgia and a whole lot of other places.

David Travis Bland is The State’s interim editorial editor.