How come a college degree is the one thing that never gets any cheaper? The financial burden of virtually all goods and services has lightened over recent generations, with this one big exception. Since about 1980, the price tag of attending university has soared faster than overall inflation and the growth of family incomes. Recent “free tuition” proposals would be nothing more than extremely expensive Band-Aids. The way to address rising college costs is to rethink the entire government student-loan system.
In a 1987 op-ed, Bill Bennett, President Reagan's education secretary, hypothesized that tuition was rising partly because of the explosive growth of federal financial assistance. He observed that as it became easier for students to borrow money or get grants from the government, demand for college grew. This led schools throughout the country to raise fees aggressively.
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