Borrowing Trouble

U.S. Rep. George Miller's plan to make the government the primary provider of student loans and virtually eliminate the private loan market ("Student loan proposal makes college officials nervous", Oct. 5 and TribLIVE.com) is overambitious and foolhardy.

His plan would amplify the underlying problem that plagues higher education: runaway spending and rising tuition rates. With government guarantees backing student loans, tuition rates will inevitably rise, leading to more student loans backed by taxpayer dollars, creating a vicious circle.

One of the primary causes of the rapid increase in the cost of higher education is the growing addiction to debt spending in colleges nationwide. Increasing the flow of student loans without first addressing the spending problem will only make the problem worse and another bailout will be just around the corner.

The government's more active role in student lending agreements places a great deal of new financial risk on the federal coffers, allocating billions of taxpayer dollars to prop up a market that is currently highly unstable.

Certain groups have tried to portray these bailouts as a necessary step to preserve higher education, but they are in fact more harmful than helpful, distorting the private market and inflating the already high cost of higher education.