If the government really wants to get involved in this (which I really wish they didn't) they should build and operate more schools. Make them either at-cost, heavily subsidized, or (my preference) entirely free for anyone to attend. Forget income requirements, residency requirements, or anything else. Just make it entirely free to anyone that wants to show up and learn.
This would force the private sector to actually compete against something meaningful and that would lead to lower prices. The current system of the government handing out loans to anybody for anything is what leads to $100K 4-year tuitions.
We've already got a decent baseline of community colleges throughout the USA. If they closed off the student loan spigot and poured that same money into there we'd all be much better off. If someone wants to go to $EXPENSIVE_SCHOOL then fine, let them figure it out on their own or get the school to use their $N-billionaire dollar endowment to subsidize it.
Not sure how you'd manage class sizes while still maintaining quality (assuming increased enrollment). I guess would this end up turning into a "grade 13-16" thing where you have the same problems you have funding schools and paying teachers a good salary.
Yeah, but you'd lose a football team, an expensive stadium for which the bond payments are still due, and a lot of nice offices for staff.
Government loans should only apply to state schools, the schools should be funded better, and there should be more oversight and price controls, sure (public schools waste millions of dollars just like private ones on sports, administrator salaries, fancy buildings and landscaping that aren't necessary, etc).
This is exactly the reason Clinton/Sanders proposed a plan to include free tuition for /public/ universities for people meeting an income threshold. No free rides to Sarah Lawrence.
And I'm saying we should have more (assuming we want the government to have any hand in this).
> Government loans should only apply to state schools, the schools should be funded better, and there should be more oversight and price controls, sure (public schools waste millions of dollars just like private ones on sports, administrator salaries, fancy buildings and landscaping that aren't necessary, etc).
Screw loans. Just let people go to school for free.
> This is exactly the reason Clinton/Sanders proposed a plan to include free tuition for /public/ universities for people meeting an income threshold.
Screw income thresholds too. I don't care if your a prince or a pauper, it should be free regardless.
Income thresholds are a pain in the ass to implement and verify. Plus they have the insanely stupid consequence of causing people not to save money as it's only going to be used against you.
For every millionaire's son that's going to get a free ride under by "everybody's included" plan, you'll get plenty more people that were on the cusp of whatever income threshold you've chosen. I can live with that (hell I think it's more fair than discriminating based on the success of your parents).
> No free rides to Sarah Lawrence.
That'll still exist but it'll have to be the student's uncle instead of Uncle Sam.
By financing loans, aren't they already trying to do this? Building and operating more schools just adds more cost.
IMO, when you have a functioning government, this is what makes a single payer system (like is often seen in healthcare) so great. If schools can't come to a reasonable price/agreement with the single payer, they don't get paid. And it also leverages a central tenant of Capitalism... there's always someone out there willing to work for less.
I know people see this as a bad word, but if we leveraged the best of both Socialism and Capitalism in situations like these we would be better off.
No providing loans increases the demand side of things (more people capable of paying) without controlling costs or increasing supply.
Building and operating more schools increases supply which would have a downward pressure on costs as private institutions would then be competing for students against (more) government run schools.
> IMO, when you have a functioning government, this is what makes a single payer system (like is often seen in healthcare) so great. The single if schools can't come to a reasonable price/agreement with the single payer, they don't get paid. And it leverages a central tenant of Capitalism... there's always someone out there willing to work for less.
Ha! This is first time I've heard someone try to explain single-payer healthcare as an example of capitalism.
Well single payer isn't Capitalism, it's Socialism. I wasn't trying to represent it as Capitalism. In (this form) Capitalism, if one buyer and one seller can't agree (where the supply and demand meet), then that's ok because there are (most likely, given a supply/demand graph) other buyers and other sellers.
In (this form) Socialism, if the sellers cannot agree with the single payer (or the payer that represents an overwhelming number of the potential buyers) then they don't get paid for services (or are relegated to the much smaller market segment).
>> I know people see this as a bad word, but if we leveraged the best of both Socialism and Capitalism in situations like these we would be better off.
Not to imply that you were being disingenuous/malicious, but leaving out this part of my post misrepresents what I was trying to say.
You could say they are doing this but in a super inefficient way. With plentiful student loans you end up a lot of actors that capture the money that should be going to eduction (the goal). This includes schools (and their growing administrative departments, lenders, expensive sub-standard housing).
You know when college was the most affordable in the US? It's when the states contributed the biggest part. http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/fancy-dorms-arent-the-ma...
I'm personally in favor providing an option at decent post HS education to almost everybody for a modest cost (so people do take it seriously). This shouldn't be just college or generic 4 year university but also vocational training (HVAC, nursing, electrical). If you want to go to a private institution or non public-private partnership, that will always be an option.
I also think there's a lot of room for redesigning the 4 year university. I did enjoy some (but not all) of my required electives courses like History of Theater, Early American Literature, History of Africa (you could pick an area), but I don't think it's ethical to shove down a year of classes that may or may not be helpful to people in their life and saddle them with additional debt for that so smugly we can claim they will be more rounded.
You can also look at this from a selfish long term angle where we equip people with the tools for the future so they are more self reliant (less reliance on government programs) also offset with higher tax recipes in the long term.
I never said that they couldn't. I said that when the government pays for student loans they should enforce price controls and underwriting of the loans.
http://studentaid.psu.edu/types-of-aid/loans/federal-direct/...
Gives you about 31k as an undergrad, and 138k as a grad student.
So combined you could be 160k in debt, which adds up especially if you don't do payments for a few years.
Then there is a whole other product of "private loans" where a bank gives you a loan, but the government agrees to back against loss to some degree (unsure of exact rules). Seems like this limit varies by lender, but is in the 70-120k range
https://www.edvisors.com/college-loans/terms/loan-limits/
So all said, you can end up with a LOT of debt.
When the government subsidizes student loans (which I think they should in order to promote an educated/skilled society) there must be cost controls on the school (no NE private school art majors costing 100k+) and underwriting on the part of both the school and the student (the student doesn't successfully complete a degree, the government gets money back), in combination with monitoring.