Together, the federal and state governments should make a new commitment to improving access to college and reducing the often prohibitive burdens debt places on so many students and families.
There may be no better investment that we can make in the future of the American dream — and the promise of equal opportunity for all.
At the moment, zero incentivizes colleges to reduce costs. If they can get a student in the door, the federal government will ensure that student loans are available and that the college gets paid no matter what happens to the student. Regulators, in the meantime, work hard to ensure that colleges and especially universities face little competition.
So we get an array of problems: we are all, in a way, paying for the party: https://jakeseliger.com/2014/04/27/paying-for-the-party-eliz.... Already prestigious schools like Hopkins compete primarily to raise their own prestige, rather than improve access. Why do most such schools admit fewer students per capita than they did in 1950? Why are they so interested in discriminatory children-of-alumni admissions?
While I don't want to look a gift horse in the mouth, I've been involved in post-secondary education for too long, and read too many books on it (Tyler Cowen's The Great Stagnation is recommended, as is his book The Complacent Class), to think that "more money, same system" is the answer. We need comprehensive, systemic reform, starting with the accreditation bodies, before we pour more money in.