President Barack Obama, Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey and the Kardashian family – you have 24 hours to pay struggling students' college tuition.

Seeing how the power of social media caused the ALS #IceBucketChallenge to spread like wildfire, college students last week began asking politicians, celebrities and big businesses to pay their college tuition, using the hashtag #PayMyTuitionChallenge on Twitter. But what started out as a facetious way to spotlight a genuine concern of millions of Americans actually caught the attention of a few organizations that are providing opportunities for students to win scholarships.

Seeing hundreds of students tweeting their concerns, education technology company Blackboard responded Friday afternoon, saying it had accepted the challenge and that it will be holding a scholarship competition. The company is asking students to answer the question, "How will you use your education to make the world a better place?"





The Twitter campaign, Blackboard said on its website, "is a fun and creative idea that addresses a serious topic."

National Financial Advisor Week – a week-long series of events organized by AdviceIQ – also is taking part in the tuition challenge. One student will be selected from a lottery for a financial counseling session and an "all-expenses paid education at the college of their choice."

While it's a long shot to expect the rich and famous to chip in for tuition payments for thousands of students, the campaign sheds light on how the rising cost of college can prevent some from a higher education, and how college debt can stay with individuals long after they graduate.



I challenge myself to the #PayMyTuitionChallenge. Oh wait, I already did that. — Ethan Pollitt (@ethanpollitt) August 25, 2014

Done w/college but still owe tuition so I nominate #CarmeloAnthony. He got good $ from NY Knicks so he can afford it #PayMyTuitionChallenge — Isabel (@MissIsabelC) August 24, 2014



Trend data on tuition prices from the College Board shows the published tuition and fees at four-year public colleges increased by nearly 51 percent between the 2003-04 and 2013-14 school years. Likewise, tuition at four-year private, nonprofit schools increased by 25 percent, and tuition at two-year public colleges rose 35 percent during the same time.

Most students, however, don't pay published tuition prices. After grants and scholarships are taken into account, the remaining amount that students owe – the net price – has also grown, but at a slower pace. The net price of tuition and fees, as well as room and board, has increased by 34.3 percent at four-year public colleges and by 2.9 percent at four-year private colleges. It has actually decreased by 12.2 percent at two-year public colleges, according to the College Board data.



The purchasing value of Pell Grants hasn't kept pace with tuition growth. The College Board

Still, students are feeling the pinch as many grant programs haven't kept pace with tuition growth. The maximum Pell Grant award covered 87 percent of the average tuition at a four-year public college in 2003-04, but covered just 63 percent of the cost in 2013-14. A large influx of federal spending on grant programs kept net prices low during the height of the Great Recession, but that cash has now plateaued and led to an increase during the last few years.

To fill the gap, students often resort to federal loans. During the 2011-12 school year, just more than 50 percent of all college students took out student loans, with an average loan amount of $6,765, according to data from the Department of Education. Ten years earlier, nearly 41 percent of college students took out loans, with an average amount of $5,154 when adjusted for inflation.

Some have argued the solution isn't to keep pumping money into federal aid programs, and that doing so could actually exacerbate the problem. Andrew Kelly, director of the Center on Higher Education Reform at the American Enterprise Institute, has argued the real problem isn't the price of college, but rather the cost of delivering a college education.