The culture of debt and irresponsibility that is higher academia:
[T]he federal government has now become the co-signer on nearly every student loan, even paying the loan's interest while the student is in school, and guaranteeing to lenders at least 98% of their principal should the student default. The government also guarantees private banks that they will turn a profit on student loans no matter how low interest rates fall. Under President Clinton, Uncle Sam even started lending to students directly.
This year the federal government will make more than $70 billion in financial aid available by guaranteeing loans, lending money directly to students, or handing out grants. Pell Grants alone will cost more than $13.4 billion next year as 5.4 million students will receive direct government funding (a million more than when President Bush took office in 2000). Moreover, the pressure to keep upping the ante is unrelenting from Democrats and Republicans alike, who never tire as posing as the protectors of children against the scourge of rapacious tuition increases.
Unfortunately, by footing these bills and turning higher education into an entitlement, Congress itself is primarily responsible for isolating academia from normal consumer pressure by shielding most students (and their parents) from the true cost of higher education. That's why schools can keep ratcheting up tuitions beyond what any middle class family can reasonably afford to pay--because they know taxpayers stand ready to take up the slack.
The article goes on to discuss a few congressmen's plan to reign in this beast a little. We're not optimistic, and neither is the writer:
Congress is a long way from recognizing its own gigantic role in distorting the tuition market and driving prices out of sight. Mr. Boehner's struggles demonstrate just how difficult it is to bring even a small amount of commonsense reform to the great, unrecognized middle-class entitlement that the federal student loan programs have become.
