If you took government out of the student loan business, the price of college would drop.
The College Fix reports:
Libertarian policy expert wants to slash aid to drive down college costsA libertarian higher education expert proposed bold measures to improve the system, including rethinking accreditation requirements and ultimately phasing out all aid programs because they inflate tuition.The Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, released a new book “Empowering the New American Worker” on Dec. 15. The book advocates pro-market solutions to economic problems, and policy analyst Neal McCluskey wrote the chapter called “Higher Education.”McCluskey (pictured) holds a doctorate in public policy and serves as director for Cato’s Center for Academic Freedom, according to his bio.He made the case that the United States’ current higher education policy is “counterproductive for many American workers, producing ballooning college prices, leading employers to demand credentials they don’t need, and failing to provide commensurate increases in knowledge or skills.”‘The system forces people to get credentials for positions that probably don’t need them’McCluskey puts some of the blame on unnecessary degrees.“The system forces people to get credentials for positions that probably don’t need them,” he said in a telephone interview Jan. 10 with The College Fix. “If you are reasonably certain that you could go to college and study something that is in demand and finish, you should go. But we should not have a system where you need jump through hoops to get those jobs.”He also emphasized the dangers of accreditation, entrenched in our system because the government requires it to grant student aid.“We have to decouple federal funding for students from accreditation,” he said.He advised that accreditation should guide students’ college choices through giving them valuable information rather than simply making some colleges financially off-limits.While government loans are not advisable, “if [government agencies] are going to be the lenders, they should assess somebody’s ability to enroll in a program and succeed instead of giving out…loans regardless of whether they are going to succeed,” he said.
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