So Donald Trump will officially become the U.S. President this upcoming January. A lot of people are very excited about this. And a lot of people are very concerned. But I think that one thing we can all agree on is that our country has some problems that we need to work on. And one very big issue for a lot of young people today is college affordability. In a recent survey of Generation Z (ages 5-20) 66% of respondents reported that drowning in college debt was their #1 concern. So some of you might be wondering what, if anything, President-elect Trump wants to do about this issue. Well, let’s take a look at two presidential moves Trump has floated out there to address college affordability.





Lowering Tuition Costs

Now, Trump definitely doesn’t want to do as much to make college more affordable as say, some of his democratic opponents such as Hilary Clinton or Bernie Sanders. Having said that, there are actually a few changes he’d like to do to help young people pay for college. For instance, if you look on his website, it says he would like to work with Congress to try to get some reforms to make sure universities are trying to cut the cost of college and student debt. And the idea is that the universities would do this in exchange for federal tax breaks and tax dollars.

And I could potentially see this working. I know it’s not very detailed. And this isn’t something Trump has really talked about much. But there is somewhat of an explanation for how it could be done. Giving universities these tax breaks could possibly be a good incentive to get them to lower tuition costs. And it could also save them money so they wouldn’t need to charge students as much. So this might work, assuming it becomes something that Trump pushes more for in the future.



Different Higher-Education Options

Another possible remedy that Trump has proposed is to make it easier to access, pay for and finish the college of your choice. This would include two-year schools, four-year schools, trade schools and technical schools. I suppose he’d like to make it easier for more people to pursue these alternative kinds of higher education options.

And while this sounds nice and all, the website doesn’t really offer any explanation of how he’ll go about doing this. And once again, Trump doesn’t really seem to be talking about this much. So it’s hard to say what he will do about it, if anything. So this position isn’t really as impressive. It comes off as something that’s he’s saying simply because it sounds good, without having any sort of plan on how to go about it. But at least it’s something. And I’m personally willing to be open-minded about what he’d like to do with this issue.