Say Anything Blog

And, ironically, the bill that passed is called the “College Cost Reduction Act.” From North Dakota Representative Earl Pomeroy’s press release about the bill:

Washington, D.C. – Congressman Earl Pomeroy today voted for legislation that would boost college financial aid by about $20 billion nationally and by an estimated $78 million in North Dakota over the next five years. The College Cost Reduction Act of 2007 (H.R. 2669) would make the single largest investment in college financial aid since the 1944 GI Bill, directly benefiting the over 17,000 North Dakota students who take out need-based loans each year at 4-year public schools.

Leave it to a liberal to call expending $20 billion tax dollars a “cost reduction.” But the fact that billions upon billions of our tax dollars are being spent on this “cost reduction” aside, the simple fact is that this bill is going to do very little to actually reduce higher education costs.

Why?  Because it isn’t going to stop tuition from increasing.

There should be no doubt among the economically literate that increasing higher education subsidies just encourages universities to raise tuition rates to absorb that subsidy.  The extra financial assistance might provide some relief for a year or so, but after that tuition rates will adjust and after-subsidy costs will be right back where they were before this latest handout.  Except now, at the even more inflated cost of tuition, even more people who might not have needed the subsidy before will need it.

It’s a vicious cycle.

If Pomeroy and his comrades in the House actually wanted to do something about tuition prices they’d cut subsidies for higher education.  But that won’t happen, of course, because for many politicians (and sadly man journalists and citizens as well) the only solution there ever is for a problem is to throw money at it.