Tackling Student Debt Crisis Means Making College Affordable, not Harder to Access

If you want to address the growing student debt crisis, one way to do it, recently endorsed by Ivanka Trump and her father’s administration, is to reduce the amount of money students can borrow from the federal government to help them cover the exponentially-increasing costs of a college education.

I suppose it makes some sense, in the context of a twisted logic divorced from actual human lives and from studied and sound economic analysis and policy.
If people cannot access loans, then they cannot accumulate debt.

Of course, this also means, in this case, they likely cannot attend, or else have greatly reduced access to, college as well.

The challenge before us in the United States, however, is to make college more affordable, not less accessible.

Nonetheless, last March 18, Ivanka Trump proudly unveiled a new proposal to set legislative limits on PLUS loans, which a federal loans designated for graduate or professional students as well as for parents of undergraduate students who are dependents to help pay for college or career school. Ms. Trump tweeted enthusiastically about the proposal, “Today, @WhiteHouse will be sending Congress our policy priorities to modernize our higher edu system to ensure access to affordable, flexible, demand-driven education for Americans of all ages. We urge comprehensive Higher Edu reform!! It is long overdue!”