College reform that could lower college costs is anathema to the Democratic Party — their proposals return to the failed model of “throw more money at the problem.”
The latest example is Maryland, where Republican Gov. Larry Hogan has faced pressure from Democrats to sign a bill that increases state contributions to colleges, according to The Baltimore Sun.
The Sun detailed what the new bill would do:
The measure also provides a refundable tax credit of $5,000 for people who have piled up $20,000 or more in undergraduate college loan debt and who have at least $5,000 still outstanding. The legislation also takes a series of other steps to lighten the burden of student loans.
The legislation includes spending mandates of the type Hogan has opposed. By 2021, it would require the governor to provide annual funding of $10.3 million in addition to the $5 million in revenue lost because of the tax credit.
If Gov. Hogan wants to make college more affordable, he’ll veto the bill.
The changes would benefit well-off students the most. Low-income students tend to be most at risk of defaulting on their debt and not completing a degree. Their debt totals, however, tend to be low. Students who accumulate the most debt tend to be students working on graduate or professional degrees — future academics, lawyers, and doctors, whose incomes are large enough to cover the debt. Giving them tax breaks is another choice that favors the well-off over the struggling.
It also rewards colleges with more funding without demanding more results. Of Maryland’s 13 public colleges and universities (excluding the University of Baltimore), the six-year graduation rate for a bachelor’s degree is 48 percent, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. The national average is 59 percent.
Without requiring colleges to improve student success, Maryland Democrats want Gov. Hogan to approve a $15 million funding increase. More state support, student loan relief that favors affluent students, and college investment plans that, again, favor affluent students, fails to make college affordable.
Those minor tweaks have been the norm. Nationally, funding per student grew unabated for decades until the recession. Those figures generally remain lower than before the recession, though overall funding has increased as student enrollments have skyrocketed.
Maryland’s college costs have grown slower than the national average. It’s fees are the 23rd lowest in the nation, and fees only increased 8 percent in the last five years, according to the College Board.
Subsidizing college costs, either from state or federal governments, have failed to restrain cost growth. Students continue to find value in a college degree — if they graduate — and the debt has blossomed as colleges haven’t seen enrollment decreases when they raise. They can get loans and grants from the government, so the cost doesn’t seem so dramatic.
That’s great news for college bureaucrats, who find new job titles to provide services and keep the college in compliance with the law. For the sake of students, however, state politicians need to reckon with the cause of higher tuition prices. Financial aid has had an unintended effect of making a college degree more expensive.
