The Department of Education’s proposal to broaden the existing borrower defense to repayment rule will give college students new grounds to sue their schools for loan forgiveness. Underemployed grads and downtrodden dropouts can claim they were misled and never got their federally loaned money’s worth. But the biggest problem with the proposal is the price tag. Indeed, the potential cost to taxpayers is virtually inestimable in its vastness: somewhere between two and 43 billion dollars, according to the Office of Management and Budget.

Back in July, when the regulation was up for public comment, THE WEEKLY STANDARD wrote: