Rock the Aid

At least one of the proposals to increase federal aid to higher education contains a provision that would virtually guarantee an explosion in the growth of government in the very near future. “We will also grant loan forgiveness to any college student who enters a public service profession,” Senator Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., promises in his proposal.

He elaborated on that promise in a recent press conference on Capitol Hill. “Your obligation is completed in full if you work in public service within ten years of graduation,” he told a crowd comprised mainly of College Democrats.

Like just about every congressional bill proposed, and not infrequently enacted, in the last three decades, the Kennedy bill and its analogues focus on the cost to students rather than federally subsidized spending by college administrators and the cause and effect relationship between them. “College costs have gone up by 41 percent above inflation,” Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., observes, but does not say why.

Instead, Sen. Kennedy and Rep. Miller would cut interest rates on student loans in half and increase direct aid to higher education. “There are $700 billion in student loans out there,” Sen. Kennedy said. “Banks get 2.8 percent for servicing them.”

“Credit cards and student loans are the two most profitable industries in the country.” Perhaps not too surprisingly, Senator Kennedy attacked a Republican Secretary of Education.

What was odd was that the target of the senator’s wrath left the top job at the Education Department 20 years ago. “I’m on the Education Committee,” Sen. Kennedy told the students. “William Bennett said in his testimony, ‘Leave it to the free market.’”

“‘There are cheap colleges that any student who wants to go to college can go to.’”

“We have this in the record,” Sen. Kennedy said. He mentioned none of the Republican appointees who succeeded Bennett, including the current minister of Education—Margaret Spellings.

The senator’s attack on Bennett did not draw much of a reaction from the young partisans, perhaps because none of them knew who the author of The Book of Virtues is. In addition to the aforementioned Democratic Party offshoots, some major unions and just about every left-wing group on the planet supports some faithful version of the Kennedy plan including:

• The National Education Association

• The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees

• The Service Employees International Union

• Rock the Vote

• Mobilize.org

• Campaign for America’s Future

• Campus Progress at the Center for American Progress, and

• The Public Interest Research Group’s Higher Education Project.

Of the students who shared stories of their individual hardships, probably the most moving was the one told by Jennifer Pae of the University of California at San Diego. Her degree not even in hand, she is already $40,000 in debt.

Maybe the least heart-tugging story came from Paul Perry—a bright, personable political science major from American University. “Last year, to pay for my education, I had to work in a restaurant for three whole days every week,” Perry told the capacity crowd.

Malcolm A. Kline is the executive director of Accuracy in Academia.