From Cemetery Man, a vampire movie.
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We all want to see a college education more affordable. A college degree is a benefit (personally as well as financially) not just to the individual but also to society as a whole. But basing affordability on the current system of student loans does not do the trick, because the measures currently under discussion do not deal with the core problem. In fact, they are likely to make it worse. In a few years a new generation of college students will have run up even higher loan balances as college costs continue to soar. Little brother will demand the same debt forgiveness his older sister received – only more so.
No proposal that I have seen deals with the core problem – financing an education through loans incentivizes colleges to increase costs and students to make educational and career choices based on expected “returns on investment.”
These are vampire loans: they suck the blood out of the education the student is seeking. “Forgiveness” of such loans is like a Band Aid over an infectious wound. Things may seem better for a while, but the problem is likely to get worse. That’s just one sign that the student loan system is broken and needs to be fixed.
How? By replacing loans with direct need-based grants, expanding the Pell program and instituting federally funded achievement based scholarships.
How to pay for it? As a nation we have now decided to allow colleges and universities to make profit-centers out of their athletic programs. If the Big Ten can nail down a 7 year, $7 billion deal with the media, with other institutions trying to do something similar, then the money is there to start fixing the student debt crisis.
Tax the bastards.
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We all want to see a college education more affordable. A college degree is a benefit (personally as well as financially) not just to the individual but also to society as a whole. But basing affordability on the current system of student loans does not do the trick, because the measures currently under discussion do not deal with the core problem. In fact, they are likely to make it worse. In a few years a new generation of college students will have run up even higher loan balances as college costs continue to soar. Little brother will demand the same debt forgiveness his older sister received – only more so.
No proposal that I have seen deals with the core problem – financing an education through loans incentivizes colleges to increase costs and students to make educational and career choices based on expected “returns on investment.”
These are vampire loans: they suck the blood out of the education the student is seeking. “Forgiveness” of such loans is like a Band Aid over an infectious wound. Things may seem better for a while, but the problem is likely to get worse. That’s just one sign that the student loan system is broken and needs to be fixed.
How? By replacing loans with direct need-based grants, expanding the Pell program and instituting federally funded achievement based scholarships.
How to pay for it? As a nation we have now decided to allow colleges and universities to make profit-centers out of their athletic programs. If the Big Ten can nail down a 7 year, $7 billion deal with the media, with other institutions trying to do something similar, then the money is there to start fixing the student debt crisis.
Tax the bastards.