Congressional lawmakers seem to agree on two things: College student loan debt is out of control and something should be done about it.
Where they disagree is how to solve the problem. Currently they are looking at one piece of this puzzle: how to keep a lower interest rate on federally subsidized undergraduate student loans for low- and middle-income students which is set to double to 6.8 percent this June.
Isaiah Toney, a senior at George Washington University in Washington, said he is “extraordinarily happy” this issue is being raised, but he thinks the discussion has been too narrow.
I think the root problem is two fold, the cost of some universities is insane, and the income generated after the ‘degree’ is not commensurate with the cost of the degree. Who in the world would borrow a hundred thousand dollars to get a BA in social science? Or elementary education? Or philosophy? Come on, these are supposedly intelligent college students. Yes they are still ‘kids’ but this should not be that difficult to understand. I do agree that someone needs to actually bring this up, and it is probably the high school counselor (do they still have those?).
Many of these universities have huge endowments, and are paying fabulous sums of money to their administrators. As long as they are tax exempt, not required to spend their endowments, or have any accountability for their expenses they will continue to be over priced.
You left out one important item in the college cost list; government loans. We have set up yet another 3rd party payer system so that the actual consumer doesn’t much care what the costs are. Until they take that newly minted social science degree out into the real world and find out its true value in the market place.
Thus, colleges have NO incentive to control costs. Quite the opposite; every body they can get in through the door comes prepaid thanks to Uncle Sam. So the race is on to load up goodies that bring in more bodies. No one cares what it costs. Can’t get a job, don’t call your alma mater,,,,,,they’re busy luring more suckers.