The failure of Bill Clinton’s presidency to curb college costs is doomed to be repeated by his wife and Congressional Democrats if they triumph in November.
The giant increase in federal largesse to fund higher education led to rising tuition prices and fees. To tamper down the costs, the Democratic Party has promised to … keep pumping more federal dollars into higher education.
“To open the doors of college to all Americans, the Clinton-Gore Administration enacted the largest investment in higher education since the GI Bill,” the Clinton White House bragged in the 1990s.
Those open doors made it more difficult to pay for a college degree.
Average college tuition, fees, room, and board was $4,399 for public colleges in 1995-1996 and $2,081 for community colleges. By 2015-2016, costs were $9,410 and $3,435, respectively, increases of 53 percent and 65 percent. Student aid increases failed to slow down high tuition costs.
Clinton bumped up student financial assistance funding by 20 percent before he left office and introduced direct federal student loans, along with tax credits to further defray costs. Somewhat ironically, Clinton set the stage for student loans to dominate higher education funding.
The reality of colleges funded by student loans could be seen as far back as 1995.
“Direct lending could lead to more borrowing; to the extent that it succeeds in streamlining delivery of loans, it may make loan capital that much more accessible and attractive,” Lawrence E. Gladieux, then the College Board’s executive director for policy analysis, wrote.
Yet the Clinton administration declared that “direct student loans make college affordable for students.”
The Clinton administration, not understanding the effect easy access to funds would have on college costs, guaranteed tuition increases. In 1987, before Gladieux, William Bennett, then-secretary of education, warned the Reagan administration of the unintended effects of federal financial aid.
Democratic dogma has ignored those warnings. Congressional Democrats sing the same tune as President Clinton did in the 1990s: more federal aid will solve the college affordability crisis. Hillary Clinton’s “new college compact” repeats those errors, as does her argument for refinancing student loan interest rates. The Democratic approach to higher education has refused to accept that more government intervention can cause higher tuition for students.
For many graduates, the rising costs have been workable. They pay more for a degree, but that degree still brings a return to their initial investment. Graduates have a positive view of their college experience and declare that it was “worth it.” Dropouts, however, don’t. The average six-year graduation rate for a four-year degree is 59 percent. For community colleges, only 20 percent of its students complete a degree within three years.
For transfer students, or students who leave higher education for a job, that’s not an issue. For the students who struggle to repay loans, big and small, the talk about a college degree is empty.
The technocratic approach to higher education has been enshrined among Democrats for decades. The return of a Clinton to the White House isn’t likely to change that. If anything, a Clinton redux will drive higher education costs even higher. Nor did the Republicans offer few ideas during the campaign for an alternative solution.
