Also, if the colleges give out a certain amount of grants to students who can't afford the artificially high tuition, they become non-profits and can bank all that cash into their endowments. That's really the why of tuition hikes. Greed. Thanks MIT who took this to the supreme court in 91 and fucked all future generations!

>It means there's pretty much no downside to banks loaning an arbitrarily large amount, because if the student doesn't pay it back, the government will.

Obama administration ended this in 2010:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Family_Education_Loan_...

The problem that remained, of course, is the federal government itself lends students a blank check as long as the check is deposited at an “accredited” university.

Fully agree. And to continue this, I think one step that would be accepted across the aisle (in lieu of total debt forgiveness) is to either severely cut or get rid of interest rates on school loans.

The compound interest working against students is a major part of the predation in these loans.

But banks need to make money? Have a one-time interest tacked onto the total loan amount that doesn’t change over time.

This incentivize banks to not loan out as much to just about anyone, and thereby forcing schools to spend less on frivolous staffing and social issues/needless expansion.

Then, slowly reduce the federal student loan amounts to some arbitrarily low amount, something enough for someone on the median salary to comfortably pay back if they went to a state school.

Blue collar jobs are in desperate need of apprenticeships. And there’s good money to be made. But it is legit hard, physical work. And work that needs to get more respect, because without it, water doesn’t run, lights don’t turn on, roads crumble, and buildings aren’t built.

Am I the only one who want government intervention on college fees?

> If people really cared about letting disadvantaged students go to college

> If you just took away the guarantee on the loans, and made them dischargable in bankruptcy, colleges would be forced to compete on price again

You'd also see many people couldn't afford college because they wouldn't be approved for the loan without the federal guarantee. I feel like the solution is universal education, we dance around it because it's not politically feasible but it's the solution. Set some rules around who can attend (grades, testing, etc). Setting reimbursement rates will control costs (like Medicare does). Force the universities to collect from the government (like hospitals do). Force 'quality control'/compliance on education standards (also expected of hospitals).

> Rant: I feel like most people haven't really thought about why colleges are so expensive now. It is because of the federally guaranteed student loans.

I've heard this thousands and thousands of times. I suspect that most people have heard it already too.

> It means there's pretty much no downside to banks loaning an arbitrarily large amount, because if the student doesn't pay it back, the government will.

This is a misunderstanding of the current student loan system, which is mostly direct loans from the federal government rather than private bank loans. That's why student loan forgiveness by the federal government is a current issue.

Upvoted, but I have a slight difference as to the best way to help the underprivileged: it’s better to just give money without any strings or designated purposes. This preserves the full competition and downward cost pressure since people can always use some or all of the money elsewhere.

If you provide funding (loans or cash) that is earmarked, then it serves as a price floor and upward cost pressure on that thing.

Let’s just give everybody $20k per year between ages 18-22, with no strings.

Yea, pretty much entirely due to the loan system. It’s also sustains worthless departments.

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