Two-thirds of subsidized financial aid swallowed up by tuition increases, Federal Reserve Bank study finds
The College Fix quotes CEI`s Hans Bader on federal student aid programs:
The Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Hans Bader cites a bevy of other research in support of this connection between financial-aid expansion and tuition increases.
He says the growth in financial aid is luring young people away from more affordable and better-paying vocational training that
they can actually complete:
Yet states spend billions of dollars operating colleges that are little better than diploma mills in terms of academic rigor, yet manage to graduate few of their students—like Chicago State University, “which has just a 12.8 percent six-year graduation rate.” “Our colleges and
universities are full to the brim with students who do not really belong there, who are unprepared for college and uninterested in breaking a mental sweat.” Nearly half of the nation’s undergraduates learn almost nothing in their first two years in college, found a 2011 study by experts like NYU’s Richard Arum, and 36 percent learned little even by graduation. Although education spending has mushroomed in recent years, students “spent 50% less time studying compared with students a few decades ago.” As George Leef of the Pope Center for Higher Education Policy noted, the National Assessment of Adult Literacy also indicates that degree holders are learning less.