The federal government should help families save for their children’s futures while also stepping back to allow the higher education revolution to unfold.
A Higher Education Revolution
By Heritage Foundation Mike Brownfield——Bio and Archives--January 31, 2012
Speaking on Friday at the University of Michigan, President Obama declared, “I want this to be a big, bold, generous country where everybody gets a fair shot, everybody is doing their fair share, everybody is playing by the same set of rules. That’s the America I know. That’s the American I want to keep. That’s the future within our reach.” How did the President propose to achieve his goal? The wrong kind of federal intervention into higher education with the goal of bringing down the cost of attending college.
The President is right to highlight the rising cost of higher education. Tuition and fees continue to shoot through the roof, now exceeding $17,000 per year, rising on average 8.3 percent at public universities this year. That means medium-income Americans are struggling to send their kids to college, and graduates are leaving school with monstrous debt. Last year in America, total student loan debt surpassed credit card debt. The total bill is expected to exceed $1 trillion this next year, and in 2009, 55 percent of graduating bachelor’s degree students at public colleges were in debt, with an average indebtedness of $19,800 ($26,100 for private college graduates, 65 percent of whom were in debt.)
One of the President’s solutions to the problem? Conditioning the amount of federal campus-based aid to colleges to slow down tuition. What the President ignores is that college costs have increased 439 since 1985, despite a 475 percent increase in federal subsidies such as Pell Grants. In other words, more federal funding hasn’t decreased the cost of attending college.
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