Student-Loan Shenanigans

Besides the fact that almost anything with the word "shenanigans" in the title is a good, the editorial "Student-Loan Shenanigans" addresses the curious part of the Health Care Reform bill that changes the rules on student loans. I am going to repeat that with some emphasis on the ideas I find important; the editorial "Student-Loan Shenanigans" addresses the curious part of the Heath Care Reform bill that changes the rules on student loans. Not only does it change the rules, but it seems to skew the playing field in favor of ALL Student Loans a company from California. Who sponsored this idea? Representative George Miller from the state of...wait for it...California. It is funny how that happens?

However the bigger issue I want to address is the mistaken notion that making student loans more available makes college cheaper or more affordable to people. Let us examine it from two perspectives, one of relatively poor student named Joe Bushy and the other of the college Mr. Bushy is going to attend Generic University. Joe Bushy is able to attend college because of the availability of Federally sponsored loans. Joe thinks this is a wonderful thing; if it was not for this program he would not have such a great opportunity to attend Generic U. Well Jane Doe thinks it is awesome too; she got the same sort of Federal sponsored loans to go to Generic University. Repeating this scenario over and over again one ends up with thousands of people who can now afford to go Generic University. Many people find this to be a wonderful out come; more people can now get a degree in something and increase their earning power.

Conversely let us now sit in the seat of a college administrator at Generic University. As an administrator you now see an increase of applications and qualified applicants to the school. The school can not take them all due to the simple limits of dorms, class sizes, faculty, etc. With such a limited supply and an increase in demand it would is in the best interest of the University to do one thing. The laws of supply and demand would dictate that the University should increase the tuition payments in the short term. It takes a long time to build dorms, expand faculty, and all other things associated with increasing the quantity supplied of a college. Until it can create the ability to satisfy the new demand in the market the University will raise the cost of attending it.

These ideas are theoretical or "arm chair"....I mean "half couch," but let me provide you a front line experience of what actually happens. I am currently a senior at a university, I will not reveal which, and the way it works in reality has a couple nuances. When I say it takes a long time to create larger supply I am assuming a perfectly working system. Universities and colleges work a tad bit more efficiently than there government counterparts. What I mean by that is what would take the government 20 years, takes colleges and universities 15. Whereas the true private sector something will take less than 2 years because competition is fierce. Government and education have sort of a captive audience. Anyways I digress; in my experience my university expanded the number of people in each class, but did not add any new facilities or allow for more liberal off campus housing options. Hense last year we were over crowded. So much so they changed the rules for off campus housing to make it easier to obtain it and added a floor onto the quad. Of course this was a problem every student sort of saw coming, but the monolith that is the university administration does not react quickly enough as usual.

Would the refusal to issue government sponsored loans solve this problem? Not entirely, but does it make school more affordable? In my experience and thought, no.

(HAD TO CUT THIS SHORT, FRIENDS WANT TO GO OUT, MORE EDITS TO COME LATER)