Close to 70% of students with a 4-year degree have student debt. The average student of a 4-year degree is 25,000 dollars. Imagine on top of that going to a graduate or professional degree which a record number of people are doing. Personally, I will have well into six-figures of debt by the time I graduate. Thank God the government is there to support us with access to cheap cash. They really make college affordable for the middle and lower class people.
As Lee Corso would say "No so fast!"
While I am thankful government is willing to basically cosign my loans with me up until this point and is now willing to directly lend me the money, I have to take a step back and think that maybe they caused this mess. Notice that cheap and easy access to loans have dramatically increased the cost of an education. The schools, knowing that the average student now has easier access to money than before raises rates in order to get more money... sound familiar? To make matters worse, universities popped up that provided a poor education experience but cost a lot of money because the consumer (the students in this example) had almost no incentive to check out if the school was good or not because the government was guaranteeing them a free (for now) education.
Whenever the government gets involved in influencing our personal decisions, no matter how wonderful their intentions, we end up getting hurt. If the government had not provided free access to guaranteed loans tuition would be far cheaper. Would less people have access to higher education? Maybe, but not definitely. Private charities could have taken over and even with the government support we see schools starting to match student and family means with tuition. That trend could have happened earlier. We will never know because the government got involved...
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