I've never been rich.

I didn't grow up that way.

My dad was an accountant at City Hall. Mom was a transcript clerk at the Board of Education.

My freshman year of high school, dad had a massive stroke and never worked again.

But I grew up at a time when the state of Kentucky believed in higher education. It made it easy for a kid like me to go to school, get a degree and ultimately do what he wanted to do in life.

That meant a kid like me, with a grant and a fast-food job, could go to a state school and not pile up a load of debt. Not a cent of it, in fact.

That’s why when Sen. Bernie Sanders talks about wiping out student loan debt, I don’t have a problem with doing that or capping student loan interest rates or finding something, anything, to help those who came behind me and piled up tens of thousands of dollars in debt and can’t seem to pay it down now.

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At some point, we lost our way. We stopped investing in our young people, and they are paying the price now with ridiculous tuition, sky-high student loans and interest rates that are nearly double what you would pay when buying a home.

Part of the problem is the state has scaled back its funding of colleges and universities year after year as it dealt with budget problems beginning in the late 1990s and continuing today, even as college costs increased because of on-campus construction and efforts to hire and keep distinguished professors.

After dad’s stroke, we got by on his disability checks and mom's small salary that I think topped out at around $17,000 a year when she retired in the early 1990s.

In high school, I worked in the library to help pay my tuition at St. X. I vacuumed floors, checked audio-visual equipment back into storage and reshelved books.

When it came time for college, I picked the University of Louisville because it was inexpensive and near home.

With a part-time, minimum-wage job slinging birds at a Kentucky Fried Chicken (and later working as a slightly higher paid clerk at the Courier Journal), and with a need-based grant, I was able to graduate without a penny of debt.

Most of my friends had low-wage jobs as well, and most of them graduated — sometimes like me taking a year or two more than the usual four — without owing much or anything.

Someone like me couldn't do that now.

Tuition when I started U of L in the fall of 1983 was $934 per year.

That means, with a minimum-wage job, I could pay my tuition by working just 5.4 hours per week (a couple of more hours if you deduct for taxes).

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Working a regular schedule of 20 or more hours, that left enough money in the bank account for books, frequent lunches at Check’s Café or dinners at the Cardinal Inn and all the Old Milwaukee I could drink.

This year, the tuition for a full-time student at the University of Louisville will be $12,491. Someone with a part-time job would have to work more than 33 hours (more when you deduct for taxes) just to pay tuition.

If you’re lucky enough to get on at UPS and can handle the crazy schedule of working overnight, the company will pay your tuition. But those hours aren’t for everyone. And that doesn’t help students in the far reaches of the state who attend Murray and Morehead and Western Kentucky University.

Sanders’ plan, and a less ambitious one put forward by U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, has predictably drawn opposition from those who don’t believe it’s their duty to help others pay their college tuition.

I get it. I disagree. But I get it.

But what I don’t understand is the thinking that a plan like Sanders’ or Warren’s punishes those who paid off student debt or managed to get an education without piling up debt in the beginning.

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A recent op-ed in USA TODAY by a young policy analyst at the libertarian Reason Foundation made exactly that claim. The writer also claimed the Sanders and Warren plans would benefit the rich.

I don’t buy either of those arguments.

Because someone else benefits, it doesn’t mean you or someone else is injured. And my guess is that the truly rich pay for their education as they go and don’t pile up student loans at exorbitant rates.

But what is certain is that unless we do something to get college costs under control and help young people with their student debt, the only people who will be able to attend college will be the rich.

Taxpayers helped me and people of my generation get college degrees. There’s no reason we shouldn’t help younger people do the same.

Joseph Gerth's opinion column runs on most Sundays and at various times throughout the week. He can be reached at 502-582-4702 or by email at jgerth@courierjournal.com. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: courier-journal.com/josephg.