The Right Way to Cut College Costs

National Review ^ | 11/29/2018 | Brad Polumbo

[Dilbert San Diego]

So it sounds as if, there is no incentive on the part of colleges, to rein in costs. Reason being, they can raise tuition and fees at will, and receive little pushback, because students will simply end up borrowing more to cover the increases.

[PGR88]

Gov. Daniels taking a hatchet to Purdue’s administration costs is a top-down bureaucratic solution. It probably involved a huge fight with leftist admin and unions, and took years to implement. also, its only one school, and will probably be reversed by some suck-up leftist politician trying to win favor with the massive, political industrial-education complex.

How about simply eliminating all Federal aid to higher-education, and stop subsidizing student loans instead?

Less money means this nonsense automatically stops, everywhere.

[Java4Jay]

My daughter will graduate with MSW (masters social work) with $45,000 student loan debt after 6 years of college. We’ve worked hard at keep it at the that.

[LostPassword]

Get the government out of the loan business. Let banks, investors, and financial institutions give loans. They’ll determine which majors are worth giving a loan for and how much the cost of that degree should be. So, maybe “electrical engineering” is worth $100k in loans at 5% interest while “gender studies” is worth $20k (the max a student can borrow for it) and comes with a 15% interest rate.

Universities will adjust if they can’t fill the seats/dorms with students paying what the government decided they should be able to pay for any major they want to pursue.

[trublu]

Get the Federal government out of the student loan game. Make the SCHOOLS issue the loans. Make them stand behind their (worthless) degrees. You’ll see the number of grads with Philosophy degrees and $100k in student loan debt decrease greatly.

[trublu]

You beat me! Great minds...

[BobL]

I think their support for Mitch will quickly evaporate once they get out in the REAL WORLD and have to pay the tolls on I-90...due to Mitch selling off the road to the Spanish.

[tellw]

To win financial aid, students should do freshmen year at community college with an extra incentive to go 2 years and get the associates degree.

[camle]

Pudlo’s Law of Economics: in any economic system, be it transportation, health care, education, etc... costs will rise to absorb any monies poured into it. and in any economic system, when costs rise disproportionally to other systems, there is usually an influx of government dollars driving up those costs.

[Responsibility2nd]

Cutting colleges costs and expenses is easy.

Immediately cease and desist all taxpayer funded college loans. Immediately cease and desist all taxpayer funded grants and subsidies to colleges and universities. Immediately cease and desist all taxpayer funds towards salaries and expenses for our colleges and universities.

Shut down public universities. Let the private schools prevail.

Not only will academic standards skyrocket, but costs will plummet.

Easy.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Very simple: Stop the government from trying to make it “affordable.” Watch prices plummet.

[Still Thinking]

Stop guaranteeing student loans. And allow them to be bsnkrupted, possibly with the exception of using the degree itself as collateral. Them backs wouldn’t fund stupid degrees.

[Agatsu77]

When I got out of college the first time in the 70s I owed right about 1 years salary for my new job in school bills. I paid it back in just over 8 years. For quite a while that was on average the going rate.

The $40k number in the article is still in this range if you study something aside from the social sciences (?science?), psychology or some kind art.

[Moonman62]

Colleges are there to enrich and subsidize liberals. Then comes indoctrination followed by education.

[gattaca]

bmp

[Demanwideplan]

Ol’ Bernie, who moved out of his parents house at the age of 43, saw the perfect timing in messaging the free tuition. Bernie understands very well just how indoctrinated and foolish 95% of high school graduates are!!

[Yo-Yo]

Over the past 30 years, the TOTAL COST to educate a student to a bachelor's degree at a public university hasn't risen more than the rate of inflation.

What has changed is the amount of state funding to public universities, and the resulting tuition increases to make up that shortfall in revenue.

You who went to college in the 1970s and walked away with very little to no student debt were the recipients of massive government subsidies for your tuition. Don't blame guaranteed student loans, or greedy universities, or undisciplined spending. You can either blame state legislatures or praise them for shifting more of the burden of an education away from the taxpayer and onto the student.

[Slyfox]

When I went to the University of Texas in the late 1970s, I lived at home and paid $45 per credit hour. A full load plus books was easy to handle and I left school with NO DEBT.

The gubmint getting involved in managing college loans coupled with the college's depending on the increased money it affords them is the problem.

[TheTimeOfMan]

Stop all subsidized student loans.

Require calculus for every degree.

Problem solved.

However, just for fun we could put most of the professors in dunce hats and then send them to the collective farms....

After all - it’s what they want.