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Make Colleges Back Up Their Student Loans
National Review ^ | May 2, 2016 | PAUL KUPIEC & RYAN NABIL

Posted on 05/02/2016 8:48:35 AM PDT by reaganaut1

...

The key to controlling costs and student-debt burdens is to require colleges themselves to have “skin in the game” so they have strong incentives not only to provide a good education, but also to safeguard the financial solvency of their graduates.

Colleges should be required to offer all students the first tranche of their funding. The funding could be an ISA or a student loan, but in either case, the student’s future payments on these obligations must be subordinate to all outside student-loan obligations. In other words, federal student loans must be paid before loans or ISA reimbursements are paid back to colleges. Students need not accept the college’s funding offer, but those who do would be limited by the college as to the amount of outside student loans they can borrow. As lenders, colleges would be required to abide by all appropriate consumer financial-protection regulations.

With “skin in the game,” colleges will face pressure to control unnecessary costs and limit student indebtedness. Colleges will redouble their efforts to ensure that students graduate with the skills necessary to succeed in the job market. Resources will no longer be freely available for unnecessary non-educational university spending.

To achieve these goals, the share of university-provided student funding must be large enough to give colleges the requisite incentives. The optimal college financing share is open to debate, but once the program is fully phased in, we recommend that every student be offered at least 20 percent of his funding from the institution he attends.

(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: college; education; studentdebt; studentloans
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To: reaganaut1

Why does college cost so much?
Because they can.

Why can they charge so much?
Because the US provides loans available for anyone with a pulse.

Kill the loans, we kill the flawed process. It will all work out.


41 posted on 05/02/2016 10:37:29 AM PDT by hadaclueonce (This time it is serious.)
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To: glorgau
Hmmm, given that graph, state appropriations appear to be dropping. I’d bet that in constant dollars they are rising, just not as fast as total costs.

That's why I posted two graphs. The first graph shows that the total cost to educate an undergraduate at Michigan State University has gone up $65 from the 2001-2002 school year to the 2012-2013 school year, but the state appropriation per student has gone down by half. And MSU's total enrollment has gone up 10$% in the same time period.

42 posted on 05/02/2016 10:40:50 AM PDT by Yo-Yo (Is the /sarc tag really necessary?)
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To: MeanWestTexan
Colleges will crater and become reasonably-priced again.

You're half right. Colleges will crater. The reason tuition at public universities used to be reasonable is because of state subsidies, which have been declining nationwide, leaving the students (and student loans) to make up the difference.


43 posted on 05/02/2016 10:45:57 AM PDT by Yo-Yo (Is the /sarc tag really necessary?)
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To: b4its2late

There are obscene prof. salaries, but overall, I don’t think the majority of them are out of line. I think the staff / admin salaries are the real problem.


44 posted on 05/02/2016 10:59:59 AM PDT by Patriotic1 (Dic mihi solum facta, domina - Just the facts, ma'am)
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To: b4its2late

There are obscene prof. salaries, but overall, I don’t think the majority of them are out of line. I think the staff / admin salaries are the real problem.


45 posted on 05/02/2016 10:59:59 AM PDT by Patriotic1 (Dic mihi solum facta, domina - Just the facts, ma'am)
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To: PapaBear3625
PapaBear, you're wanting a big government solution where only private ones should exist. That is, you want the government to save people from themselves. You want a government solution, rather than personal responsibility.

No one is demanding that these students go to college; no one is forcing them to select their fields of study, or finance their education via means of student loans. There are simply too many variables of which the college or university has no control over; e.g, the number of times a student changes degree programs, the amount of "waste" in how a borrower may use their student loans, the student's willingness or ability to enroll in a degree program with a better employment outlook, etc. It might even come down to something like "relocatability" -- is the student willing to relocate to a different geographic area upon graduation, if it meant better job opportunities?

You threaten to employ a pretty heavy hand for a situation that could work itself out in a more private, free-market solution. Accreditation is suppose to speak to academic standards set by a university, not the financial aptitude of its students.

46 posted on 05/02/2016 11:11:31 AM PDT by Lou L (Health "insurance" is NOT the same as health "care")
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To: Lou L
OK, here's a purely free-market solution: have government get out of the student loan business entirely, and make student loans once again be dischargable in bankruptcy.

The student loan providers would then demand the same things I talked about, as a pre-condition for granting loans to students of that institution. Colleges who had too many defaulting students would be "red-lined" from having their students be eligible for loans.

Or the college could issue student loans themselves, out of their endowments.

47 posted on 05/02/2016 11:23:02 AM PDT by PapaBear3625 (Big government is attractive to those who think that THEY will be in control of it.)
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To: reaganaut1; All
Thank you for referencing that article reaganaut1. Please bear in mind that the following critique is directed at the article and not at you.

There is a major constitutional problem with vote-winning federal student loans imo. The states have never delegated to the feds, expressly via the Constitution, the specific power to regulate, tax and spend for INTRAstate schooling purposes.

in fact, Thomas Jefferson had indicated that the states would need to amend the Constituton to give the feds the express power to tax and spend for intrastate schooling purposes, again, something that the states have never done.

“The great mass of the articles on which impost is paid is foreign luxuries, purchased by those only who are rich enough to afford themselves the use of them. Their patriotism would certainly prefer its continuance and application to the great purposes of the public education, roads, rivers, canals, and such other objects of public improvement as it may be thought proper to add to the constitutional enumeration of federal powers [emphasis added].” —Thomas Jefferson: 6th Annual Message, 1806.

Also note that a previous generation of state sovereignty-respecting justices had clarified that Congress is prohibited from appropriating taxes in the name of state power issues, basically any issue that Congress cannot justify under its constitutinal Article I, Section 8-limited powers, appropriating taxes for intrastate schools not listed under those powers as Jefferson had indirectly indicated.

“Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States.” —Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.

So the states need to wise up to the idea that the corrupt, post-17th Amendment ratification feds are stealing state revenues in the form of unconstitutional federal taxes, revenues that the states could be using to back up state student loans.

Remember in November !

When patriots elect Trump, Cruz, or whatever conservative they elect, they need to also elect a new, state sovereignty-respecting Congress that will not only work within its constitutional Article I, Section 8-limited powers to support the new president, but also protect the states from unconstitutional federal government overreach, putting a stop to unconstitutional federal taxes for example.

Also, consider that such a Congress would probably be willing to fire state sovereignty-ignoring activist justices.

48 posted on 05/02/2016 11:23:50 AM PDT by Amendment10
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To: PapaBear3625
OK, here's a purely free-market solution: have government get out of the student loan business entirely

Now you're talking...

Were the government to get out of student loans altogether, banks and other financial lenders would look much harder at potential borrowers; hopefully, the same scrutiny and concern would be shown by the borrowers (students), before taking on such loans.

Such a model would most certainly let the air from the sails of the perennial inflation we see in college costs, but I think it would achieve many of our objectives.

Of course, many would cry that poor students would now NEVER have a chance. Perhaps then, colleges could take a look at funding those students through their endowments.

49 posted on 05/02/2016 11:57:49 AM PDT by Lou L (Health "insurance" is NOT the same as health "care")
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To: Lou L
One big thing would be that loan companies would need to be immunized from lawsuits if a disproportionate number of students denied loans, on the grounds that their profile (SAT scores, high school GPA, prospective major) did not make them good risks.

I would be in favor of the feds making "disparate impact" no longer grounds to assume discrimination, but that would take more political courage to pass than Congress currently has.

50 posted on 05/02/2016 12:05:31 PM PDT by PapaBear3625 (Big government is attractive to those who think that THEY will be in control of it.)
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To: knarf

I like your idea about the teacher pension concept, except for the x-factor of teachers not being able to control the administrative aspect of the given school corporation. An administration not willing to back up teachers in matters of disciplinary issues will not serve to be a good venue through which one can accomplish much in terms of producing the best results.


51 posted on 05/02/2016 12:32:02 PM PDT by EnigmaticAnomaly ("With the demonrats in charge, we find ourselves living in an ineptocracy.")
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To: 17th Miss Regt
Just get the government out of the student loan business and let private entities run the market.

Bingo. We shouldn't add on another set of laws/regulations/mandates. Instead, we should eliminate the programs that created the "crisis" in the first place.

52 posted on 05/02/2016 12:55:35 PM PDT by Tax-chick ("We like us the way we are. That makes us real, true friends." ~ The Undead Thread)
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To: PapaBear3625
I will say this...I was a non-traditional student. I flunked out the first time or two on my parent's dime, then joined the military. After six years, I returned to college with my meager savings and with student loans. (I didn't have the GI Bill, as I never signed up for it.) If I had to rely solely on my SAT or ACT, or my high school GPA, I would be hard-pressed to get into a small trade school, much less a four-year university. The whole government-student loan practice is supposed to be mutually beneficial. The country "invests" in promising young students, who in turn graduate and become productive members of society and contribute back to that country's resources.

Sadly, there's too much graft, and too many leeches in the system.

53 posted on 05/02/2016 1:28:08 PM PDT by Lou L (Health "insurance" is NOT the same as health "care")
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To: EnigmaticAnomaly
It would have to be a privately held account (I'm no financial wizard, so I may be using the wrong terminology)

It's an idea I've kicked around in my head and as far as teacherrs having control of kids .... have you seen what the union is doing for them as far as getting taxpayer dollars are concerned ?

If the union can hold US up ... why couldn't it do due diligence FOR it's members

I'm biding my time, but I am SO wanting President Trump make some kind of statement and effort to kill PC

54 posted on 05/02/2016 4:01:58 PM PDT by knarf (S)
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To: econjack

+1

“....check out the rate of change in teaching salaries, both total and average, and compare it to admin salaries.”

Yep...yep.

Admin. (meetings, meetings, and more meetings) salaries are easily into the six figures while the lowly (in the trenches) teacher is fortunate to see 50k before nearing retirement.

Too many chiefs and not enough Indians.


55 posted on 05/02/2016 9:30:34 PM PDT by LastDayz (Few men desire liberty, most men wish only for a just master. Sallust)
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To: knarf

There are areas where the culture is turned to welfare. The kids will not work, and after three or more generations of it they can not.

No teacher will teach those kids then. Heck, you will see vast areas with no schools because the risk is to high.


56 posted on 05/03/2016 7:57:23 PM PDT by redgolum
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To: b4its2late

no, tuition and housing are out of control because student loans are out of control.


57 posted on 05/04/2016 12:54:30 PM PDT by babble-on
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