Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Today’s New York Times Editorial About Student Loans is Not Very Useful


Today’s lead editorial in the New York Times is entitled “Full Disclosure for Student Borrowers.” Basically, the Times says that “[c]olleges, lenders and Congress must ensure that students understand their debt burden.”

Pardon me, Mr. and Ms. New York Times editorial writers, but that advice is not very useful. It is true that a lot of student-loan borrowers did not understand the nature of their loan obligations. Some did not realize they had borrowed from private lenders instead of the federal student loan program, for example; and a great many made poor decisions with regard to what they chose to study. People who borrowed a $100,000 or more to pursue degrees in religious studies, sociology, or some other non-remunerative field did not make smart decisions.

But the fact that many students took out college loans without understanding the consequences is only part of the problem. A bigger part of the program is this: The student loan program has spawned a rapacious for-profit college industry, which Congress refuses to regulate. As a whole, this industry has very high student-loan default rates; and many of them are much more expensive than public-college alternatives. Today, the for-profit institutions enroll about 10 percent of all the post-secondary loan borrowers but they receive about 25 percent of the Federal student aid money.

Another problem is the private student-loan market, which generally charges students higher interest rates than the federal student-loan program and offers students fewer protections like economic hardship deferments. Congress passed legislation that makes it almost impossible for students to discharge their private student loans in bankruptcy, which is an outrage.

If the New York Times wishes to offer useful advice about solving the trillion-dollar student-loan mess, it needs to endorse the following actions:

More accurate reporting of student-loan default rates by the U.S. Department of Education, particularly the default rate for students enrolled in for-profit schools,
Repeal of the statutes making it nearly impossible for insolvent students to discharge their student loans in bankruptcy,
Passage of effective consumer-protection laws that will protect students from unscrupulous college recruiters and colleges’ misleading representations about job prospects for graduates of post-secondary programs,
Congressional or executive action to stop the federal government and the student-loan guarantee agencies from garnishing elderly defaulters’ Social Security checks.

Perhaps the New York Times has offered more useful information about the student-loan crisis in the past.  But the advice offered on today’s editorial page does not go nearly far enough toward solving a problem that is causing hardship and suffering for millions of people.

References

Editorial (2012, May 23). Full disclosure for student borrowers. New York Times, p. A20.

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