- cross-posted to:
- academia@mander.xyz
The GOP package, called the “Lowering Education Costs and Debt Act,” consists of five bills that the senators say will address the root causes of the student debt issue such as the increasing price of college and students taking out loans they can’t afford.
Lowering people’s ability to borrow doesn’t really address the other problems which underlie high tuition costs - such as newer facilities costs, more administrative staff (both of which, IMO, heavily relate to the competition between schools to provide the most services to their students and court new student admissions), and decreases in federal and state funding coming from tax revenue which has led to much of the financial burden being passed onto individual students.
Plus, as @misguidedfunk mentioned, we already tell students their upfront cost of attendance - multiple times even before they decide to enroll or start classes - and they have to acknowledge it as part of receiving aid.
Malcolm Gladwell podcast discussing this very thing: https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/revisionist-history/food-fight