Federal financial aid for higher education was supposed to grow the market, bring down costs and help families afford this critical step to financial security.<\/p>\n
But a recent report finds the effort to provide educational assistance to students has turned into decades of unaccountable federal spending on higher education.<\/p>\n
According to the report from the Center for College Affordability and Productivity, the federal student aid system \u201ccontributes to skyrocketing costs, finances a wasteful academic arms race, weakens academic standards, lowers educational opportunity, and worsens the underemployment\/overinvestment problem.\u201d<\/p>\n
As authors Richard Vedder, Christopher Denhart, and Joseph Hartge explain:<\/p>\n
\u201cThe most striking thing to observe is that, not only have tuition fees risen after adjusting for inflation, but the rate of increase is rising since 1978. Federal involvement in providing student financial assistance is also growing over time\u2026 Before 1978, increases in tuition fees after adjusting for overall inflation were roughly 1 percent a year. In the era of substantial federal student aid after 1978, inflation-adjusted tuition fee increases have ratcheted up to 3-4 percent a year.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not just students who feel this burden. Taxpayers currently shoulder nearly $90 billion of the $1 trillion dollars of student loan debt now in default. The CCAP report also details shortcomings on the part of the federal government to account for risk in making federal student loans:<\/p>\n
\u201cThe federal student loan programs are fundamentally unique because any consideration of risk is largely ignored when deciding whether to make a loan\u2026 During the past 11 years, the number of seriously delinquent student loans has grown by about 15.41 percent per year on average, outpacing those loans that are merely delinquent (fewer than 90 days past due on payments) which averaged 13.54 percent annually. In other words, student loan debt is growing at an unsustainable pace.\u201d<\/p>\n
Moreover, the federal government\u2019s current accounting practices largely fail to account for market risk, which means the costs to taxpayers of student loans probably are higher than estimated. Federal student loan programs fail to take into account students\u2019 credit worthiness, major or whether the student has a co-signer, which means federal student loans probably cost the government money, rather than turn a profit as is often claimed. Fair-value accounting, which takes into account market risk, would be a far more accurate reflection of the cost of federal student loans.<\/p>\n