^{Chapman’s News & Ideas} Don’t Increase Loans, Decrease Tuition

The country faces over a trillion dollars of student loans that in many cases will not be repaid because the millennials who took them on cannot do so.

In Indiana, President Mitch Daniels of Purdue has shown how to hold the line on tuition by cutting costs. In Washington State, the GOP Senate was able to get a 20 percent tuition reduction — rather than increased loans — through the Legislature and to gain the governor’s signature.

In any bureaucracy it always seems impossible to cut costs rather than increase expenses — until you have to. Universities have to now, even though there will be protests. There especially is no excuse for high endowment private institutions and state universities that hoard cash. If they don’t do it on their own they may see laws like Professor Fleischer urges.

Meanwhile, donors can push back when they get their next pledge drive call: Why are you pricing college out of reach of most families — short of crippling loans?