The Oregon Legislature voted in support for a plan last week that would allow students to go to college for free.

It is, of course, a little more complicated than that: This plan isn’t a reincarnation of New York City’s Cooper Union, which, up until recently, didn’t charge tuition. Rather, if Oregon’s plan goes into effect, students there would pay their tuition bills down the road as a percentage of the salary they make after graduation.

The jury is still out on whether it will actually go into effect. But at the very least, it bends the college-debt debate toward potential solutions.

Each year, more and more Americans choose to pursue higher education. It is increasingly seen as a necessity for individuals looking to find careers across the professional spectrum. But the high cost of a four-year degree – especially at a school like GW, which has the nation’s fourth highest tuition, according the Department of Education – has many students and parents wondering if the returns on their education are worth it.

And the problem is only compounded by the failure in Congress to pass reform on student-loan interest rates, which doubled earlier this month.

If the Oregon plan is implemented across the nation, it would mean that the amount you pay to your college would be connected to what you earn. Teachers, who made an average of slightly under $36,000 a year, would pay a lot less than oncologists, who made an average of $285,000 a year.

That sounds far more equitable than the current system, and could even encourage more graduates to pursue public-service jobs rather than take higher-paying but less-rewarding jobs to pay off debt.

Granted, there’s no telling how this program might affect a university’s bottom line in the long run. Financial aid programs are already in place to attempt to help students who can’t afford to pay sticker price, but they dig deeply into universities’ budgets.

But even though GW gives some form of aid to 60 percent of the student body here, we’ve all heard the horror stories of students who have to drop out halfway because they just can’t justify the cost.

The current tuition system looks backward, asking students to fill out a financial aid form based on what their parents earn and what their socioeconomic status growing up has been like. But if college is an investment – one that oftentimes plagues students for years after their graduation day – we should look forward.

As tuition costs rise at an unsustainable rate,the Oregon plan initiates much-warranted conversation. We  need to change the system so that college investments in our teens early 20s will not cripple us in our 30s and 40s.

The writer, a junior majoring in political communication, is The Hatchet’s opinions editor.