Last Monday President Barack Obama “underscored his vision for an affordable, quality education for all Americans” by announcing a Student Aid Bill of Rights at a speech at Georgia Tech.
The President along with Secretary of Education Arnie Duncan and advisors also hosted a conference call with editors of college newspapers across the country to discuss the “bill of rights.”
During the discussion, Duncan urged the editors listening in on three separate occasions to publish positive stories about the Student Aid Bill of Rights to help publicize it, as well as to vote for candidates and policies that align with it–essentially, progressive politicians and their big-government policies.
Sorry to disappointment Mr. Duncan, but The Cornell Review is not the mouthpiece of the Obama administration, the Department of Education, or the federal government.
Anyone truly interested in the viability, longevity, and restoration of higher education in this country should firmly reject the Student Aid Bill of Rights. Rather than make higher education more accessible and affordable, it drives up the cost of education, incentives government dependence, and promotes the growth of government, tangling department with department and calling for the creation of this program and that initiative and those provisions.
Consider: in order to execute this program, the Department of Education will oversee the creation of a website, to be competed by July 2016, “to give students and borrowers a simple and straightforward way to file complaints and provide feedback about federal student loan lenders, servicers, collections agencies, and institutions of higher education.” The Department of Education will also “raise the bar” by “[r]equiring enhanced disclosures and stronger consumer protections throughout the repayment process,” “[e]stablishing a centralized point of access for all federal student loan borrowers,” and “[e]nsuring fair treatment for struggling and distressed borrowers by raising standards for student loan debt collectors to ensure that they charge borrowers reasonable fees and help them return to good standing…”
All of this to accomplish the exceedingly idealistic provisions of this executive action, which are as follows:
“I. Every student deserves access to a quality, affordable education at a college that’s cutting costs and increasing learning.
II. Every student should be able to access the resources needed to pay for college.
III. Every borrower has the right to an affordable repayment plan.
IV. And every borrower has the right to quality customer service, reliable information, and fair treatment, even if they struggle to repay their loans.”
First, where in the Constitution is any of this specified as the proper domain of the federal government? Answer: nowhere.
Second, why would anyone support measures by the federal government to expand the authorities of the IRS, especially when it is under investigation regarding the targeting of conservative groups? Additionally, can readers think of the last time the bureaucrats in Washington tried creating a great, centralized website to service a nation’s needs?
Third, Duncan’s comments about getting the government involved from “cradle to career” in an individual’s upbringing to young adulthood were downright disturbing.
Why is liberty never an option for those in Washington? Why is giving localities, families, parents, and students the opportunity to make decisions for themselves without the crushing financial burdens of an over-sized government always off the table? Don’t they believe in the tenet that a freer people are a happier people?
Sure, higher education is in a bad way, especially with regards to its financials. But it’s plainly clear why this is: government intervention into the education market.
Is there an education market? Yes. It’s something bought and sold; something produced and consumed. It’s a market. Like any market, it is governed by the laws of supply and demand, which, unlike Washington’s laws, make perfect sense and can’t be circumvented no matter how much money you throw in or idealistic dreaming you do. If the government dumps more money into the market, prices will rise. If more and more is demanded of Universities that falls outside the realm of education and research, costs will rise.
Plain and simple.