Pay It Forward Tuition (credit, buy, school)

[StaticAge]

Does anyone have any information on Oregon's Pay It Forward college tuition program?

I found a link on Google explaining the program, but I am not sure if it has passed 100%, or if it is still in the planning phase.

Every other link on Google concerning the program is an opinion piece.

I'd like to finish my degree. 53 credits in. My brother is going to be attaining his masters in Germany tuition free next year. Maybe I could offer an alternative.

The PNW is beautiful.

Any informative responses are appreciated.

[bler144]

It's more or less dead in the water. The bill that ultimately passed only allowed the state to form a committee to study the issue of running a pilot program.

The conclusion was that even just a small scale pilot would run at a significant deficit, for reasons that aren't altogether surprising. While not directly connected, the failure of Measure 86 last week is another nail in the coffin - the up-front funding for Pay It Forward would likely have required a bond issuance along the lines of what Measure 86 sought to authorize.

So at this point, it's lost whatever steam it had in public opinion, there's no real way to finance it, and even a pilot project likely would have run millions into the red.

In any case, Pay It Forward would have been "free tuition" in a very different way than Germany's free tuition, and much more like Australia's system. Plus the pilot was never intended for graduate students, so...

pretty much a 'no' all around as it comes to being an option for your brother.

[bler144]

Though depending on his field, graduate funding in the U.S. (particularly the sciences) is often free as well - the hitch is that the funding comes through the school, typically in the form of a remission for working as a graduate assistant/graduate fellow.

Availability of such funding varies a lot by field, though.

[StaticAge]

That's disappointing.

Thank you for the information.

[Nell Plotts]

When we lived in WA we established Welcome to GET | GET accounts for grandchildren. Basically you buy credits at today's rates to be used when they enroll in school. Whished we had purchased more early on.