Although I do not think it was the intention of the Obama administration to turn indebted students into cash cows, a systemic analysis tells us that the federal government is profiting from the state reduction of funding for public higher education, which in turn has helped to cause the increase in student tuition at public institutions, which increases student debt, and at the same time, increases in the number of students going to high-cost, low-performing for-profit colleges.
I recently had the opportunity to talk to the new UC president Janet Napolitano about the fact that what we need is a new compact among the federal government, state governments, and public institutions of higher education. I believe she is dedicated to working on this issue, but it is hard to imagine the feds walking away from their new profit center ? indebted students.
If there was ever a sign that we need a totally new model for funding public higher education, we now have it in the extraction of profit from indebted students.
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