At home in Florida in November of 2024, Junior Kayleigh Hernandez was brought to tears discussing her future. Months earlier, she had been evicted from her WashU housing and was unable to continue taking her classes.

Over the summer of 2024, then-rising-junior Kayleigh Hernandez was confronted with a notification that shocked her: She had an outstanding balance of $50,000 owed to WashU. As a first-generation, low-income (FGLI) student, Hernandez normally paid a greatly reduced tuition that ranged in the hundreds of dollars.

“WU/FUSED deserves the majority of the credit, along with a few former key administrators, for getting the momentum [for socioeconomic diversity] going,” Scotty Jacobs, WashU alumni and former Student Representative to the Board of Trustees, said. 

Over the last few weeks, I’ve had the opportunity to get out of Washington and talk with folks across the country about how we can create jobs and get our economy growing faster. This is a tough time for a lot of Americans—especially young people. You’ve come of age at a time of profound change.

“When you give a teenager a credit card with no supervision, they max the debt,” economics professor Costas Azariadis said. “That’s what Greece did.” Azariadis believes that Greece is in a terrible financial position and needs to make large changes to overcome its economic woes.

Owning at least one credit card has become the norm on college campuses. Nevertheless, credit card ignorance continues to exist at universities throughout the nation.

Most people would say that the Democrats are taking America down a better road, but they should realize that much of the economic change occurred due to individual transformations. The […]