Now that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy’s Department of Government Efficiency, better known as DOGE, is in full swing, the digital Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot of X can find a treasure trove of waste. Liberty Nation News has already provided examples of bureaucrats throwing taxpayer dollars out the window. But there might be another avenue to explore: higher education.
Will DOGE Eye Higher Education?
In August 2022, President Joe Biden and his administration unveiled a new income-driven repayment plan. The program’s official title was “Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE).” The purpose was to help students and graduates lower their loan payments by selecting the most affordable vehicle best suited to their circumstances. The initiative has crashed into legal roadblocks, and borrowers enrolled in SAVE were placed into administrative forbearance this past summer.
If the White House’s initiative remains intact, which may seem doubtful under the Republican trifecta, the government could continue to subsidize worthless degrees and tax the productive ones.
In 2022, the Brookings Institution crunched the numbers of income-driven repayment program subsidies, which are dependent on the field of study. It revealed that the government prioritizes the fine arts over engineering, which might explain why America’s education standards and results have deteriorated this century. According to the report, the most subsidized degrees have been cosmetology, drama, liberal arts, music, health and medical administration, and biology. The least subsidized degrees have been engineering (mechanical, civil, electrical, and chemical), nursing, finance, economics, and mathematics.
Remember, the IDR subsidy is based on post-university earnings. So, if you find employment that generates solid earnings, you will be forced to repay everything in full. However, if you are out of work and stuck in your parents’ basement, you receive a generous handout from Uncle Sam. Or, as Brookings’s Adam Looney wrote in 2022: “Want a free ride to college? You can have one, but only if you study cosmetology, liberal arts, or drama, preferably at a for-profit school. Want to be a nurse, an engineer, or major in computer science or math? You’ll have to pay full price (especially at the best programs in each field).”
Indeed, this is just the tip of the iceberg, as government-backed student loans and debt forgiveness schemes merely exacerbate the plethora of problems inflicting higher education. This has, unfortunately, been years in the making, meaning that the blame does not solely fall on the Biden administration. Once upon a time, Biden knew better.
Subsidizing Mediocrity
When Biden was vice president a decade ago, he admitted that government subsidies have added to the mountain of student loan debt and contributed to rocketing tuition costs. “It’s a conundrum here,” Biden told a college audience. He had a point.
State-guaranteed student loans artificially bolster demand for these educational pursuits, allowing colleges and universities to raise prices because the government is backing these programs. Is it any wonder why tuition inflation has spiraled out of control? This is only one side of the equation. Forgiving student loan debt will create a moral hazard, incentivizing students to continue studying areas that produce little results in the real world, whether gender studies or stagecraft.
For taxpayers, this is a poor return on investment and collective resources because these individuals will be more likely to depend on the state rather than contribute to or grow the economic pie. Research has revealed the consequences of taking on an enormous amount of student debt, from delaying adult milestones (having a family or buying a house) to maintaining a putrid credit score. Of course, on a fundamental level, it is a wealth transfer, with the government confiscating money from people who did not attend college to pay for others to enroll in a post-secondary institution.
A costly endeavor as enormous as student loan debt forgiveness will trigger generational consequences. Like Social Security, which has become a significant facet of retirees’ living standards, a long-term $10,000, $20,000, or $30,000 universal benefit for every college student will constantly lead to the same conclusion: The market does not value young people specializing in fields like lesbian dance theory or Everyone Who Disagrees With Me Is a White Supremacist.
Who Benefits?
In the end, there are only two beneficiaries. The first is the universities, as they can perpetually increase their prices. The second is the politicians who can buy votes promising free college. Some might argue that the students seeing their debts transferred to taxpayers are beneficiaries. However, like toddlers who routinely get their way at the candy section of the supermarket, young generations will never obtain the long-term value of hard work, sacrifice, and responsibility.
