New York Times essayists argue for subsidized food, housing, and transportation for college students. Well, why the hell not?

Sara Goldrick-Rab and Katharine M. Broton argued in the New York Times today that federal poverty programs should be expanded to include college students. Some college students are homeless, the authors point out, and one in five reported in a recent survey that they had gone hungry at least once in the previous 30 days due to lack of money.

This is the second vacuous essay published in the New York Times over the space of less than a week about the cost of higher education and what to do about it. Just a few days ago, Vassar's President Catharine Hill argued against Bernie Sanders' "College For All" proposal to allow people to attend a public four-year college for free. Hill said the solution to the high cost of higher education is better counseling and long-term repayment plans.

If I were grading President Hill's essay, I would give it a C- and scribble "trite and unoriginal!" in the margin of her paper in bold red ink. If I were grading Goldrick-Rab and Broton, I would assign them a failing grade but give them the opportunity to resubmit after doing a little research.

Yes, there are homeless college students--about 50,000, according to one report. But at least some of those people were unscrupulously recruited by colleges who just want their Pell Grant money and the proceeds from their student loans. Do we really want to expand the federal school-lunch program to deal with those people as Goldrick-Rab and Broton propose? Shouldn't we just help homeless college students in the same way we help all homeless people?

Currently, the U.S. government is spending about $165 billion a year on various student-aid programs, including loans, grants, and campus work-study jobs. And the government gives food stamps to 52 million people, including some college students. Isn't that enough?

Interestingly, neither Vassar's Hill or Goldrick-Rab and Broton (from the University of Wisconsin apparently) offered any serious plan for reducing college costs. Hill said vaguely that students need longer repayment plans to pay their tuition bills and the Wisconsinites didn't offer any suggestions at all.

Higher education is a great business isn't it? The universities can jack up their tuition as high as they like, knowing the students will simply borrow more money to cover their fee bills.  Who cares if the saps can't repay their student loans? "Not my problem" is the higher education industry's stance.

And when the public wakes up to the fact that the cost of going to college is out of control, who does it turn to for answers? People like Catharine Hill, Sara Goldrick-Rab and Katharine Broton--lackeys of the institutions that created the problem. And the New York Times, which doesn't really give a damn about the student-loan crisis, obligingly prints these dopes' essays on its op ed pages.

Sara Goldrick-Rab wants to expand the school-lunch program to include college students

References

Sara Goldrick-Rab and Katharine M. Broton. Hungry, Homeless and in College. New York Times, December 4, 2015, p. A33. Accessible at: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/04/opinion/hungry-homeless-and-in-college.html

Catharine Hill. Free Tuition Is Not the Answer. New York Times, November 30, 2015, p. A23. Accessible at: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/30/opinion/free-tuition-is-not-the-answer.html?_r=0

Homeless People Borrowing Money to Attend College: Is That a Good Idea?

According to a recent news story, 58,000 homeless people are enrolled in college, a 75 percent increase from just three years ago (Ashtari, 2015). How, you might be asking, are homeless college students paying their tuition bills?

Most, if not all of these hapless college students are eligible to receive Pell Grants based on their economic circumstances and most are probably borrowing money from the federal student-loan program.  At the University of Massachusetts-Boston, a student support center provides free meals for homeless people and guidance on financial aid.

Is this a good idea? Kathleen O'Neill, who runs something called Single Stop USA at Bunker Hill Community College, thinks it's a great idea for homeless people to attend college. "These are people who get it," said Ms. O'Neill. "The way out of poverty is education and they are committed to doing whatever it is they need to do to get there"(as quoted in a Huffington Post article).

Obviously, having homeless students in college works out great for the colleges. They get more tuition-paying students, and the federal student-aid program foots the bill.

I would love to chat but I'm late for my social studies class.

But some colleges have been criticized for recruiting homeless people. A few years ago, Drake College of Business was spotlighted for recruiting homeless people and then paying them a stipend. For a time at least,  homeless students apparently received $350 biweekly stipends so long as they showed up for 80 percent of the classes and received "Cs" for their work.

Drake's president defended the practice of recruiting homeless students. "We do not believe that recruiting at [homeless] shelters is either illegal, unethical, or immoral so long as the recruitment of students from shelters is above board, which it has been," Drake's President Ziad Fadel said of its practice (as quoted in Golden & Hechinger, 2010). Nevertheless, Drake stopped recruiting homeless students.

If homeless people borrowed money to attend college, obtained the training they needed to get good jobs, and then paid off their student loans, this would be a Cinderella story. But my guess is that an awful lot of these 58,000 people will never pay off their student loans. And when they go into default they will be barred from participating further in the federal student aid program.

In my view, a university that feeds homeless people while it helps them fill out financial aid applications sounds a lot like the way religious homeless shelters used to operate. Sure, we'll feed you, but you have to listen to this sermon first. Here's a nice hot meal, but don't spell soup on your FAFSA form.

When I reflect on the fact that 58,000 homeless people are paying tuition with federal student aid money, President Obama's proposal to offer two years of free education at the nation's community colleges sounds like a good idea.

Wouldn't it be better if economically disadvantaged people could get two years of free secondary education or training rather than forcing them to take out student loans to pay their tuition bills--loans very few of them will ever pay back?

References

Shadee Ashtari. A Look Into the 'Double Lives' Of America's Homeless. Huffington Post, December 26, 2014 (updated January 7, 2015. Accessible at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/26/college-student-homeless-boston_n_6145980.html

Daniel Golden & Jon Hechinger. For-Profit N.J. College Halts Recruiting of Homeless. Bloomberg, May 5, 2010. Accessible at: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2010-05-05/drake-for-profit-college-in-new-jersey-will-stop-recruitment-of-homeless