How a Government Scheme <br>Steers Student Loan Relief <br>Away From Free Enterprise

There’s philanthropy and then there’s philanthropy. In February, hedge funder Kenneth Griffin gave his alma mater Harvard College what was then the largest gift in its history, $150 million. Harvard doesn’t need the money. In June, the Koch brothers gave $25 million to the United Negro College Fund, which sorely needs the money.Our crisis in higher education is impacting the least fortunate most severely. While Harvard banked Griffin’s $150 million, the Wall Street Journal reports that the 37 historically-black colleges in the UNCF system lost $155 million in funding in 2013 alone as one federal college loan program tightened its credit standards. The UNCF reports that two-thirds of its member institutions experienced enrollment declines in 2013, largely as a result.The mission of historically-black colleges is critical. Including those outside the UNCF system, these institutions graduate nearly 20% of African Americans who earn undergraduate degrees.While Harvard and the historically-black colleges represent the extremes, we are facing the twin challenges of college affordability and of a mounting student loan crisis. For the last quarter century, college tuition has increased at roughly twice the rate of inflation. Over just the last decade, outstanding federal student loan debt has tripled to $1.1 trillion, making it the second largest category of personal debt.These trends are unsustainable. Nor are they being sustained. According to the latest data, but about 50% of student borrowers are paying according to the original terms of their loans, and, among these, 10% are delinquent more than 90 days.Another 10% of borrowers are in outright default (delinquent by 365 days or more). About 23% have been granted modified terms. The remainder (roughly 17%) have not yet entered repayment status as they are still in school or graduated only recently.With that kind of a portfolio, is it any wonder that the federal government, as lender, has tightened credit standards?By the same token, if the impact of the tightening threatens the very existence of our system of historically-black colleges, is it any wonder that credit standards are being loosened again? In 2015, the federal education department plans to reverse its tightening of credit standards for loans to parents to pay for their children’s college education, so-called Parent PLUS loans, upon which UNCF colleges depend disproportionately.So why weren’t the Kochs more generous?Remember the 23% of borrowers who have been granted “modified terms?” Well, the Obama Administration is allowing borrowers to reduce their student loan payments to various levels keyed to their earnings (between 10% and 20% of “discretionary income”). It is setting maximum terms for the loans (20-25 years), after which any remaining unpaid loan balance is forgiven.Over just the last year, legions of borrowers have seized the opportunity to modify and the outstanding balances of these “Income-Based” and “Pay As You Earn” programs have burgeoned – doubling to about $100 billion.Welcome relief for the many post-crash graduates still struggling to find jobs. Something even the Kochs might support.However, there’s a hitch. There is additional relief, but only for graduates employed in government service, non-profits, and certain social service professions. The Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program offers loan forgiveness after only 10 years.The Kochs’ gift to UNCF is to fund students pursuing completely different careers — careers in business, in the free enterprise system. Likely the Kochs would be more generous if the government weren’t steering college grads into the public and non-profit sectors. The Kochs are unabashed free-enterprise advocates. They want to shrink the public sector and grow the for-profit private sector.If the Kochs simply gave unrestricted funds to the UNCF, or any other college, they might fear that they were providing funds that the institutions would commingle with federal loan funds that would eventually coerce the student borrowers into the public and non-profit sectors. So what would be the point?The Kochs are right. America needs to rebuild its private sector, which has been declining as a percent of GDP ever since WWII. Yet we still depend upon it to generate most of the jobs we desperately need and most of the tax revenue upon which the public and non-profit sectors depend.The occupational preferences in the student loan modification programs should be eliminated. A job at Google or in the energy industry or in aircraft manufacturing or with a local home builder should be just as good as one at the Department of Education or as a community organizer for some non-profit.If the occupational preferences were dropped, perhaps the Kochs and other successful businessmen would give more to colleges (and perhaps apply more pressure to eliminate the administrative bloat that is driving escalating tuitions).It would be nice if the Kochs were comfortable giving to UNCF on the same scale as Griffin did to Harvard. This would fill the hole created by the tightening of Parent PLUS loan standards. And such well-targeted philanthropy might allow the federal government to maintain those tighter standards, i.e. to operate as a more prudent lender.

How a Government Scheme <br>Steers Student Loan Relief <br>Away From Free Enterprise

How a Government Scheme <br>Steers Student Loan Relief <br>Away From Free Enterprise

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