CHART OF THE DAY: Here’s How Biden’s Student Debt Forgiveness Plan Backfires

President Biden has said he’s canceling student loan debt to make college affordable for more Americans. But the result may be exactly the opposite.

SO WHAT

How many more administrators will colleges buy with their Biden Bonus?

THE CHART

In the past few decades, tuition at U.S. colleges and universities has exploded. While it costs much more to own a home and car these days thanks to inflation, that’s nothing compared to how much more Americans pay to attend college.

Sources: HUD, Kelley Blue Book, NCES

The government keeps subsidizing tuition, and colleges and universities keep raising their prices.

  • As William Bennett, President Reagan’s education secretary, said in 1987, “increases in financial aid in recent years have enabled colleges and universities blithely to raise their tuitions, confident that Federal loan subsidies would help cushion the increase.”
  • Some elite schools have so much money they now employ more administrators than they have students.
  • According to a 2014 analysis, the number of university staffers who neither teach nor conduct research more than doubled over the previous 25 years, far outpacing increases in enrollment.