Every day, there are news stories about the college tuition crisis. But what is the crisis we are seeking to solve? Is it the staggering amount of student debt? The rapidly rising cost of higher education? The interest being collected on student loans? The high default rate on student loans? Or all of the above?
What Will It Take to Solve the Student Loan Crisis?
Reform needs to come from outside of higher ed.
September 23, 2019
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Summary.
The history, size, and complexity of the student loan crisis, combined with the interlocking, interdependent higher education networks — universities, lending institutions, and government agencies — defy simplistic reforms and have largely immunized the student loan industry from having to make significant changes. These institutions and agencies have erected a financing superstructure that meets the immediate needs of students and universities for cash, but dramatically fails the test for long-term cost effectiveness and economic sustainability. We are long overdue for genuine, transformative reform. But one thing has become increasingly clear: solutions to the high cost of higher education and the student loan crisis will not come from the higher education establishment. Our colleges and universities, their presidents, boards of trustees, state higher education systems, and the dozen or more higher education associations in Washington, D.C., have serious conflicts of interest on this issue and will not be the source of cost-cutting reforms.