Thankfully, the public has been focused on the terrible health care proposals coming out of Washington for the past several weeks. Unfortunately, that preoccupation is allowing some other bad bills to slip through the process largely unnoticed.

One example: the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act. This blog post from the Cato Institute summarizes the bill and its problems quite nicely.

Referring to the legislation, President Obama said, “Not since the passage of the original GI Bill… have we taken such a historic step on behalf of community colleges in America. And let me be clear: we pay for this plan by ending the wasteful subsidies we currently provide to banks and private lenders for student loans, which will save tens of billions of dollars over the next 10 years. Instead of lining the pockets of special interests, it’s time this money went toward the interest of higher education in America.”

The bill would:

– end federally backed student loans that come through private companies, and instead make Uncle Sam the universal lender;- greatly increase Pell Grants and peg their growth to the rate of inflation plus 1 point; – balloon the federal Perkins loan program; – authorize $5 billion over two years for elementary and secondary school facility projects, with a focus on “green” efforts; – authorize $10 billion over ten years for Early Learning Challenge Grants; and- provide $12 billion to community colleges.

Now, to be fair, the legislation isn’t all bad since it could save some money (although not nearly as much as the President claims). However, only $10 billion of the estimated $87 billion in savings will go towards deficit reduction. With the rest, politicians will do with it what they do best – spend! There are also no incentives for schools and colleges to actually improve their product. Essentially, they get access to millions with no standards.

Politicians regularly claim more money is the solution for higher education problems; that is simply not the case. This bill is just another example of government hand outs with no precautions to ensure taxpayer dollars are used appropriately and produce the desired results.

– Elizabeth Young