They should cap tuition aid to some multiple of the average first year out income for that degree at that institution. That would solve a number of problems:
* Defund useless degrees
* Force universities to cough up the truth about the financial deal the students are getting
* Encourage students towards more sensibly priced universities
It kills me how many people take on student loan debt and don’t even get a degree. At the university that I went to (graduated in 1999), an older guy staff member that I was talking to in the hall told me that that school graduation rate is 24.6%. That means that a sold 3 out of 4 are walking away without a degree. And he told me that that’s a very typical number for a lot of universities. I learned volumes more from this dude’s hallway talk than I did in the actual freshman orientation. There were about 6 of us students gathered around this guy for an hour.
I would also suggest that each college list the statistical average with professors and non-professors. Let the kid know that there are probably nine non-professors for each professor, and then maybe the kid will ask why they need the non-professors and their hefty payroll.