It is astonishing to witness the lack of concern among academic institutions and their advocates regarding the relentless increase in college costs, which has consistently exceeded the rate of inflation. Without being held accountable to operate within reasonable financial constraints, institutions have no incentive to curb their expenses. Consequently, forgiving existing student loans will merely offer a temporary reprieve, as new loans will lead us back to the same predicament within a few years.
The argument that ‘no one pays the sticker price’ is misleading. Unless a school lowers the tuition before financial aid is awarded or allocates scholarship funds from its own resources, external sources must cover the sticker price in some form. To address this issue, schools should be required to limit annual tuition and fee increases to no more than the rate of inflation if they wish to receive federally backed student loans.
There is precedent for such an approach. Similar to how the federal government links annual Social Security increases to changes in the cost of living, a system can be established to evaluate schools based on their adherence to cost-of-education criteria, considering annual increases in sticker prices. Only schools meeting these requirements would be authorized to offer financial aid packages that include federally backed loans.
