DeKALB| According to USA Today, the average debt for college graduates is $21,700. Some students finish a four year education with loans exceeding $40,000, and if graduate school is decided upon, the cost will increase.

According to State Representative Robert Pritchard, the government’s latest task has been deciding whether it has been showing more accountability in making higher education more affordable. President Barack Obama signed a piece of legislation in March 2010 that provides reforms and critical investments to the higher education system. The goal of the reforms is to target the minority institutions, strengthen the Pell Grant program and help students manage loan debt better.

It has been a slow process and as a result attention from smaller legislature groups and commissions has taken action.

The Higher Education Finance Commission has been working to develop recommendations for Illinois and has used other states practices as a resource.

“Education isn’t affordable and institutions raise fees every year, which makes it so lots of families can’t afford school,” Pritchard said. Pritchard is also one of four legislatures serving on the Higher Education Finance Commission in DeKalb. The commission’s plan is to come up with ways to make education more affordable, increase the number of degrees earned and overall make the workforce more globally competitive.

“Creating jobs, starting the economy over through technology and knowledge is the basis for handling this issue,” Pritchard said.

Pritchard said the commission members believe Illinois is not doing enough to make college more affordable.

As a team, the commission has been meeting monthly to draft reports on ways to take action and change what has become a big issue.

“In Germany they go to school for free,” said Sue Halbrader, Foundation of Education lecturer. “Our workforce is not competing with Germany and they get benefits with vacation and pay nothing for education, economics is the problem not education.”

The Higher Education Finance Commission has looked at financial aid and ways the state can implement it better.

“Financial aid helps, just until you have to pay it back,” Halbrader said. “It’s servitude to bank systems that are already corrupt.”

Pritchard said many students are shying away from going to school, which is another problem surfacing within the affordable education project.

“Because money wasn’t allocated until April it forced many students to wait, and it forced minorities to go to school later which had them at a disadvantage with the grant so they probably ended up not going to school when they wanted,” Pritchard said.

Kyle Camp, peer advisor at the Financial Aid Office, said higher education forces some students to either rely on little government assistance or not go at all.

“The grants help more than loans,” Camp said. “Loans are hurting students because of the debt that has to be repaid, but I’m sure there’s more that can be done.”

For some students the competition seems to be almost too much with no grants, little financial aid and a heap of debt from college loans.

“Tuition is too expensive, and to succeed nowadays you need a degree or Master’s degree and the government should help out,” said Margaret Oldham, junior elementary education major.