Morning Wire - The Student Loan Scheme | 10.2.22

Episode Date: October 2, 2022

The cost of college has ballooned over the past few decades, far outpacing inflation.  In August the Biden administration announced plans to cancel student debt for more than 20 million Americans, a move many economists say will cost taxpayers more than 400 billion dollars and only compounds the problem of soaring college costs. In this episode we’ll explore how tuition prices became so outrageously high, and what some colleges are doing to reverse the trend Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The cost of college has ballooned over the past few decades far outpacing inflation. The average cost of tuition alone at a private university has risen to more than $44,000. In August, the Biden administration announced plans to cancel student debt for more than 20 million Americans. A move many economists say will cost taxpayers more than $400 billion and only compounds the problem of high college costs. We'll unpack how tuition prices became so outrageously high, and what some colleges are doing to reverse the trend. It's October 2nd, and this is your Sunday edition of Morning Wire. The American economy is still feeling the traumatic effects of a two-year pandemic and lockdown-induced

recession. Polls show that 94% of Americans are upset or concerned about the impact of rising prices. 95% believe the soaring inflation is very serious or somewhat serious. The bottom line is that impending recession has Americans worried, which is why you should take action to hedge against inflation right now and solidify at least some of your investment portfolio. with gold from Birch Gold. Text Wire to 989898-9-8-9-8, and Birch Gold will send you a free information kit on how to

diversify and protect your savings with precious metals. That's WIR to 9-9-8-98-to-claim your free no-obligation information kit on how to protect your hard-earned savings with gold. Text WIRE to 9-9-8-98 to claim your free no-obligation information kit on how to protect your hard-earned savings with gold. On Tuesday, the Pacific Legal Foundation, a nonprofit organization that defends Americans from government overreach filed a lawsuit challenging the Biden administration's authority to unilaterally cancel college loan debt. Here to help us understand the federal student loan program

and how it contributes to unaffordable tuition costs is Lindsay Burke, Director of the Center for Education Policy at the Heritage Foundation. Lindsay, thanks for joining me. Thank you so much for having me. Now, first off, how much has the cost of college increased in the past few decades? Well, the cost of college has increased significantly since 1991. Total federal aid, so all student loans and grants have increased almost 300%. And in response, colleges and university have more than doubled their tuition and fees in real terms. So you said the prices have doubled from 1991 to today. Is that adjusted for inflation?

Exactly. That's right. Inflation adjusted college tuition. So that's one reason why. why these massive federal subsidies are such a poorly designed policy. Colleges, when they increase costs, they pass those increased tuition rate along to everyone who attend. And that's something that Education Secretary Bill Bennett to identify all the way back in 1987 when he wrote his now famous op-ed, our greedy colleges, saying that the more the federal government subsidizes higher education, the more colleges will ring tuition in response.

There was a recent report from the New York Federal Reserve Bank that put some exact dollar figures on exactly how inflationary those subsidies are. They saw that for every additional dollar, can subsidize student loans that universities raise tuition over 60 cents. And so that is a pretty clear indication that universities are capturing a lot of the subsidy, and they're not passing it along to students in terms of lower tuition rates. They're instead doing things like, you know, engaging in a facility's arms race to provide fancier facilities. They're amassing more real estate. They're hiring additional personnel that are not always teaching faculty. So they are spending their money in a way that isn't necessarily the best and highest use of funds

and they're increasing tuition at the same time. Are we seeing the same effect on the full spectrum of higher education? For example, are we seeing the same degree of inflation at community colleges? and tech schools that we're seeing at elite institutions? Yeah, so across the board, we've seen increases in tuition that are pretty significant, regardless of what sector you're in. But if you look at your traditional public four-year institutions, that's where we really see those college increases.

Now, you've argued that the government subsidies are the primary driver of increased college costs, but are there other factors as well? You know, there are other reasons as well, certainly. The cost of labor increases over time as a general rule. But what is exceptional is how expensive college hence got. And you can look at subsidized industries and largely unsubsidized industries. So we can look at things like the tech sector. And as a broad rule, technology has become cheaper over time.

The price of computing has declined significantly. And can look at other areas where, the price of goods and services has reduced generally over time. And those are the sectors that are not largely subsidized by the federal taxpayer. By Converse, if you look at those highly subsidized sectors, higher education being chiefs among men, that's where we see prices increase significantly over time, well above increases in the rate of inflation. Has college become more of a luxury experience than it was in the past? For example, are students purchasing more than just in education these days?

Yeah, I think you've put it well. I think it has become more of a luxury experience in a lot of ways when, you know, you see reports of universities that are building climbing walls and lazy rivers that is part of that facility's arms race because they want to be able to attract students, students and parents to some extent, you know, they're looking for quality education, but they're also looking for that experience as well. and they're willing to pay for it in large part, because they're doing it through a highly subsidized federal student loan program.

It's another reason why we should be extremely cautious about so-called loan forgiveness. And remember, there's no such thing as loan forgiveness. It's simply a debt transfer onto all working Americans. But we should be cautious about loan forgiveness because, you know, that's part of what you're paying off. That is the sort of non-academic residential experience of student life that has almost become an expectation. And that is a big part of what is driving up costs. But universities are able to do that in large part because of the ubiquity in federal subsidies because they know how easy it is for a student to get a significant federal loan with no credit check, no consideration of their creditworthiness, their future ability to repay what they might be studying, how well they did it.

In high school, Washington cannot, nor shouldn't, quite frankly, take all of those factors into its held. But as a result, students receive this easy money, which universities then captured plow into this facilities in a many arms race. Now, is there any way for students to opt out of the luxury price tag education? For example, are there any schools that are advertising a more pared down or more austere education option for a lower price point? or has that just not proven to be marketable in today's social environment? There are schools that are doing a lot in terms of how they innovate in pricing. You need to look at schools like Hillsdale College that have really focused on the academics, getting that classical education. You've to look at other colleges like Patrick Henry College that have done the same.

Colleges that do not participate in the federal student loan program. Wyoming Catholic College, which was run by the current president of the hair, narratives found these in was another one that said we're not going to participate in this federal subsidy in these federal student loan programs. And then you can look at other colleges like Purdue, the university where Mitch Daniels there, President Daniels, has said, you know, we're going to try some innovative financing options like income share agreements where we are going to bank on you as a student and we will ask for payment until you are employed. And that's a really innovative setup because it requires the university, which has effectively become the lender, to really have a

solid understanding of the lightly rich burden on investment. So there is a lot of innovation that is percolating. I think we tender that innovation significantly when we continue to increase the federal subsidies and the perks that have come along with things like the student loan forgiveness this scheme. So can college graduates today still expect to earn a higher lifetime income compared to not college graduates, or is that just not a guarantee anymore? Yes. As a matter of course, they can in general expect to earn more than their non-college-going counterparts. And in some cases, this is hundreds of thousands of dollars more over the course of your working lifetime. And of course, when we then took about graduate students and professional degree holders,

doctors and lawyers, we're talking about millions more in annual lifetime earnings over the course of your working career relative to a high school graduate. And so it's certainly key self as a general matter. However, it does not pay off for everyone. So when asked, is college worth it? I think the answer is always it depends. It depends on what your life's goals are, what you want to say. study the amount of debt you may or may not have to get into you to go. What I think is unfortunate

today, though, is that we have sold this false narrative to high school kids and younger in particular that says your only path to climbing the ladder of upward economic mobility in America runs through a four-year brick-and-water college. And that's just not the case. And it pushes people who may have been better served going an alternative route, doing trade school, or starting a business on their own, it pushes them into a higher education model that's a bad sit for them and could end up actually saddling them with significant debt.

But unless we can move away from this idea that everybody has to go to college to be successful, we're going to see a lot of that in the future. And that's going to require not only a public policy response, but it's also going to require industry, business leaders, to step up and say, we're not going to require college degrees for jobs that don't actually need them as a signal that you're going to do a good job in a given career. So it does require the private sector to step up as

well and move away from the bachelor's degree being a proxy for employability. Now, broadly speaking, which degree types are still high earners and which ones are putting students in long-term debt? There are a lot of lists that show exactly that. And, And if you look at the list, they have a consistent finding, which is that engineers end up being some of the most stable courses of study that you should choose if you go to college. Engineering of all types. That is always the top slot. Near the bottom tend to be things like social work, education, communications, degrees. Those tend to have a poor return on investment.

And if you look at the work done by Preston Cooper, who has done a lot of excellent. analysis of ROI for college, he has found that in many, many cases, master's degrees have a negative return on investment. So I think that's one red flag that people should be aware of, is that generally speaking, master's degree don't turn to pay off. Now, what about the administrative portion of schools? How much has that grown over the past few decades and what portion of college funds are going toward administration? Yeah, so that's a huge issue. And I'm, Glad you brought that up. The big driver of increases in college costs, that ratio of administrators to faculty continues to grow, as in we continue to see a number of administrators increase relative

to the number of faculty. A big portion of that administrative staff now are these diversity, equity, and inclusion staff. Most universities employ diversity, equity, and inclusion staff. that in many cases at universities, there are far more DEI staffed and there are history professors, for instance. There are far more DGI staff than there are staffs who are charged with compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, which is something that universities have to do under federal law, yet they have far more DBI officials. And one really, I think, wearing an example of this is the University of Michigan has on staffed 163, paid individuals dedicated it to diversity, equity, and inclusion. And so I think it does show you the extent of administrative bloats that we're seeing in Higher Education's Day that is not

contributing to overall academic excellence. All right. Well, Lindsay, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. Until next time, this has been a Sunday edition of Morning Wire.