I’m all for the federal government to completely ban student loans. You can either go to college out of pocket or with merit-based scholarships. And also place a federal ban on HR departments requiring degrees for clerical work. Such a stupid requirement is a form of discriminatory class warfare.
Inequality would fall substantially and many universities will be forced to drop prices down to around 10-20k.
15 years ago when I was still in college in the US, the new president of the school came to give a speech to some incoming freshman. In that speech he talked a lot about how colleges were businesses and that the goal was to make them appealing to new students (new gyms, updated dorms, better stadiums, etc...). I knew in that moment that higher education had been overtaken by the MBAs. I guarantee that a school that focuses on education solely will not only be cheaper, but get the type of students that actually want to learn.
I think another factor at work here is analogous to our broken system of health care billing vs. insurance companies.
Scholarships and financial aid will basically expand as necessary to meet tuition demands for students. Therefore, the colleges can name their price, as it is basically funny-money, and any given student will be on a combination of scholarship, FAFSA, mom/dad funds, loans.
In fact it is sort of a joke. When I was in community college, Phi Theta Kappa made overtures to recruit me. One of their seminars featured a few students who had earned a lot of scholarships by virtue of their membership and service. And I do mean "a lot". I think one of the figures tossed out there was $23 million in scholarships. For a community college student. And to think I was baffled how to spend an extra $500 or so kicking around.
I got really disillusioned, even with community college, after my final years there. It seemed that the tuition was the right price, and all the instructors were highly credentialed, knowledgeable, and helpful. The classes themselves were great. But the whole package was draining, and exhausting. It was like a neverending exposition of clubs, events, deals, and engagement. Every table on the mall, every student leader next to me, was simply dying to gain my loyalty, membership, and engagement in whatever they had going on. And I personally could not keep a lid on that, so I just sort of got torn to pieces. I was in 5 clubs and doing honors and all kinds of extra stuff that just wore me out.
All I had wanted to do was just Take some Classes, Earn the Credits, and get out of there. But that is not a satisfactory goal for the colleges of today.
USC is $100,000 a year? How likely is that degree to net you $400,000 of value through your career?
300k is not rich, 300k in 2025 is like 90,000 in 1982. How is the aristocracy supposed to maintain their dominance if just anyone can go to a top college? You can’t risk a middle class family sending they’re kids to a school that may qualify them for a top job in law or politics.
Surprised NIL wasn’t mentioned.
Given that non-athletics are funding the lambo’s some universities give to all their football players (and huge paychecks) … if people thought the past 10-years tuition inflation was bad, watch what the next 10-years will be like.
We've been talking about this for two decades at this point. Nothing is happening because too many people are willing to go in debt to get their degree.
It's a perverse positive feedback system.The easiest lever to pull is adjusting the student loan situation. Students need to be able to discharge their debt, which will put risk calculus back into the equation. STEM degrees, graduation rates, degree value, and student academic performance will be directly correlated with risk.
Under these changes, a student with so-so academics going to an expensive school for art history won't work anymore. STEM degrees at local community colleges will be affordable and abundant. That's what the country needs rather than a system that buys fancy academic buildings.
Our ancestors could make do with learning in decrepit old buildings. They didn't have staycation amenities. They turned that into incredible productive value and didn't go into debt. That's what we need again.
If we want to continue to provide access as a matter of policy, then we should make universities meet strict standards on budget and degree cost to offer non-dischargeable loans to students. Then universities can decide whether they want to meet those eligibility requirements or continue inflating their own costs. The market will fix itself.