Giving Compass' Take:

• Mary Clare Amselem argues that income share agreements - schools forgoing tuition payments in favor of a percentage of their graduate's earnings after graduation - might be a solution to the student loan crisis. 

• Is this a viable solution? Is their potential for exploitation of graduates in this scheme? 

• Learn how companies are helping employees pay off student loans. 

Students who graduated college in 2017 held an average of $39,400 in outstanding student loan debt. This marks an uptick from 2016 graduates, who held an average of $37,173 in student loan debt.

Recent college graduates also pushed total outstanding federal student loan debt to $1.5 trillion held by more than 44 million borrowers; 4.7 million of those borrowers hold loans in default.

While unemployment for recent college graduates has fallen in recent years, underemployment remains extremely high: 43 percent of recent college graduates are underemployed, meaning that they are in fields that underutilize their skills, such as a Starbucks barista with a bachelor's degree, according to a recent study by Burning Glass and the Strada Institute.

Fortunately, some universities are looking for innovative ways to put their money where their mouth is and ensure that their students have success after graduation.

Purdue University, for example, has started its "Back a Boiler" initiative, in which the school finances the tuition for students who wish to participate in exchange for a percentage of a student's future earnings. This arrangement, also known as an income share agreement (ISA), incentivizes a school to graduate their students with the best possible skills to compete in the job market and secure a well-paying job. Purdue University has also been able to finance this program without raising tuition for the past seven years.

Read the full article about income share agreements by Mary Clare Amselem at The Heritage Foundation.