Sequestration: A Solution to the Higher Education Student Loan Crisis

Student loan debt is a critical concern for the economy, to say nothing of the students and graduates that hold it.[1]Student loans are made solely for the purpose of financing higher education;[2]that is, they are designed to help students pay for college tuition, books, and living expenses.[3]It is the intention of this discussion to examine the issues affecting the Student Loan Program(s), and offer a recommendation to address the programs most deleterious effects. 

Research indicates the increased usage of student loans has been a significant factor in college cost increases.[4]Some authorities such as the noted economist George Gilder has call the program a “scam.”[5]

The following data for the past 20 years (1997 - 2017) speak for themselves:[6]

• The average tuition and fees at private universities have jumped 157 percent.
• Out-of-state tuition and fees at public universities have risen 194 percent.
• In-state tuition and fees at public universities have grown the most, increasing 237 percent.
• The total consumer price index inflation increased, for the same period by 52.7 percent (August 1997 to August 2017), according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The rise in student loan borrowing per person reflects to a large extent the rising cost of higher education that has been going on for over a decade. That begs the question, why has Higher Education costs risen so precipitately? 

At public colleges and universities, rising spending on: faculty; administrators; tumefied esoteric curriculum; student support services; and the need to make up for reductions in government subsidies, has generally driven up tuition. Additionally, the federal government imposes no direct borrowing limit. If a school sets tuition higher and higher every year, a government guarantee loan will cover the increase. Accordingly, schools have little interest and no incentive in keeping down costs. Moreover, studies have found that in some cases, such as at community colleges (which educate about half of the nation's college students), tuition have raised while spending on classroom instruction has actually fallen.[7]

Government control of the student loan program destroyed the integrity of the system by which loans are lent based on suitability of the borrower. Normally, or what economists call the Perfect Capital Market; the factors that affect a lender’s decision about whether to extend a student loan will thus be the opportunity cost of the funding (the interest the lender could have earned on other loans) and the riskiness of the gains (mainly due to the uncertainty about the borrower’s income). Therefore, these conditions are not met when government guarantees and/or holds the borrower’s indebtedness.  

The federal government has become the dominant supplier of student loans, first through its loan guarantee programs and more recently through direct loans.[8]Now with government authorization, there is no consideration of worthiness. It is simply guaranteed. Moreover, the fact that government has a history of involvement in Higher Education[9]is not ipso facto justification for its ‘predatory’ loan program. However, the only guarantee result is that the US Taxpayer will be left holding the bag. Hence, the risk of massive default provides a valid comparison with the Savings and Loan Crisis (S&L) 1980s and 1990s, and Subprime Mortgage Crisis of 2008.

Some critics of financial aid claim that, because schools are assured of receiving their fees no matter what happens to their students, they have felt free to raise their fees to very high levels, to accept students of inadequate academic ability, and to produce too many graduates in some fields of study. About one-third of students, whether or not they graduate or find jobs that match their credentials, are financially burdened for much of their lives by their debt obligations, instead of being economically productive citizens. When, not if, those former students default on their obligations, the burdens are shifted to taxpayers.[10] 

The point is made, that the cost of higher education, being past on to parents and students, has been outrageous. Simply "forgiving" the debt would be absurd public policy for multiple reasons. However, I would posit there is an alternative that relieves some of the pressure on parents and students. 

Reduce the debt by “sequestration” of part of the debt from universities, colleges, et cetera that are responsible for this egregious situation. It should be said that any sequestration program would require strict guidelines as to where and how program cost reductions can be made, therefore guarding against the inevitable use by schools of a ”Washington Monument” strategy.[11]

One further point should be made. In fact, there is a precedent. In 1967, I was an undergraduate student at the University of Wisconsin – Madison. I had a student loan(s). Out of the blue, the University notified me that I was awarded a one-time financial aid award that could be used to reduce my existing loan, or taken to meet other obligations. Hence, a mechanism to reduce a student loan obligation is not without precedent. 

In the last analysis, it’s time students, and their parents, are given relief from this onerous and severely flawed aid program. The federal government should not be in the student loan business, and needs to end this government largesse to the Higher Education Establishment.

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[1]According to the Census Bureau, college enrollment as a fraction of the population between ages 16 and 25 rose from 34 percent in 1990 to 51 percent in 2010. 

[2]Higher Education is defined as colleges, universities, community colleges, and technical schools. 

[3]Wenli Li, “The Economics of Student Loan Borrowing and Repayment,” Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, Business Review Q3 2013.

[4]David O. Lucca, Taylor Nadauld, and Karen Shen (July 2015). "Credit Supply and the Rise in College Tuition: Evidence from the Expansion in Federal Student Aid programs" Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

[5]George Gilder, “Live, Liberty, & Levine,” Fox Cable News Network, October 14, 2018.

[6]Briana Boytington, “See 20 Years of Tuition Growth at National Universities,” U.S. News & World Report, September 13, 2018. 

[7]Steven Hurburt, “Trends in College Spending,” 12 January 2016, The Delta Project, The American Institutes for Research (AIR), 1000 Thomas Jefferson Street NW, Washington, DC.

3Prominent arguments for government involvement are that social returns to education are greater than private returns. Furthermore, employers tend to under invest in generalized training, since they do not fully capture the returns in the event the trained employees leave the firm. Cited in Wenli Li, “The Economics of Student Loan Borrowing and Repayment,” Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, Business Review Q3 2013, P.2.

[9]The modern student loan program dates to 1965, when the Guaranteed Student Loan, now known as the Stafford Loan, was introduced.

[10]Vedder, Richard; Denhart, Christopher; Hartge, Joseph (June 2014), “Dollars, Cents, and Nonsense: The Harmful Effects of Federal Student Aid,” Center for College Affordability and Productivity, retrieved November 23, 2014.

[11]A Washington Monument strategy is a tactic employed to avoid program cuts by finding the most essential, popular and visible programs and services to cut, instead of the superfluous. First espoused in Aaron Wildavsky classic book: Wildavsky, Aaron. “Politics of the Budgetary Process,” Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1964.

In The Beginning

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. Thus begins the preeminent book (The Hebrew Bible) in the history of mankind. A sacred book that has been more often cited than read, and more read than understood.

This discourse will attempt to explain Creation, and specifically the first human being. In other words, it is the beginning of a beginning.  

I have come to understand that the conflict in interpretation, aka commentary, of the Hebrew Bible, or Torah,[1] is man made. This conflict can be understood in the context of a Non sequitur. A Non sequitur is a Latin phrase meaning “it does not follow.” It means that the conclusion reached does not follow from the premise(s). Nowhere is this more in evidence than rabbinic interpretation and commentary of mankind’s creation. 

The account of Creation is so fundamentally rooted in Judaism’s consciousness that any attempt to consider it from solely an intellectual distance is immediately seen as suspect, and even amateurish. However, much contemporary commentary, in my view, as it relates to Creation, has been tendentious. In this sense, the historiographical shift from the literal to a figurative symbolism, shows the notion that mankind’s creation was not what it was. In terms of Creation, the contrast between literal and symbolic is easily understood. However, it is increasingly clear that contemporary interpretations have acquired a more ideological inclination. 

It needs to be said; the assertion that man can faithfully interpret G-d is naive at its best, and egotistical at its worst. An assertion is not a valid justification. Argument by assertion is the logical fallacy where someone tries to argue a point by merely asserting that it is true, regardless of contradiction. For example, the statement that ‘everybody would agree.’ The assertion establishes an a priori as a fact that in fact may not be true, or at very least cannot be verified as true. An individually intuitive perception is not sufficient. To simply assert something or some action is good, is not proof, nor is it even reasoned justification.  Hence, it is only a supposition, an assertion, and certainly not a certainty. In this light, thus can we begin to interpret G-d’s meaning in Genesis.

As Harold Bloom[2] cogently discerned, ‘to read in the service of any ideology is not, in my judgment, to read at all.’

It is problematic to interpret Genesis as only figurative language. The plain sense of the Book of Genesis text (Torah) does not support this interpretation. Instead, Genesis is a literal account given to Moses from G-d. It is the only book in the bible that Moses was not an active participant in, and as such, is exhaustive and unabridged by definition. 

The point is, some commentary try to work out what happened in each hour of the creation of Adam on the sixth day. But here they delved way beyond the information in Genesis (text). In fact, this is the problem in much of the commentary to Genesis. The commentary does not reflect the text, and, in fact, goes way beyond.       

A primary example, is Bereishit 1:27, Human Beings, “And God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them." Yet, the Chumash[3] states in its text[4] that “He created them as a single, androgynous being comprising both male and female bodies, attached back to back.” This is a contradiction with the text,[5] and therefore must be suspect and taken as conjecture. It would only be correct in the sense that Eve was later created from Adam’s “bone and flesh.”[6] Yet, that is not what the Chumash says or implies. Clearly, man was created first – the first human being was a man, and not an androgynous being! No where in Genesis does it say that the first man, Adam, was partly male and partly female in appearance, or in any other feminine aspect.

Furthermore, the verse, "He created them," should be understood, not that G-d "created them" at the same time, for that contradicts the preceding, "so God created the human in his image, He created him in the image of God." Accordingly, "He created them," should be read in the future tense. Additionally, G-d created the fish, birds, reptiles, and animals in the plural, with the intention that all would go forth and multiply. However, it is only latter that He creates woman (Eve) for much the same purpose, in their role as humans.        

Moreover, Genesis says “ he created him,” not he/she, or it. “Then the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”[7] The fact is that Genesis recounts creation as “his nostrils,” and “the human,” not humans. “And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the Garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.” Again, it is man and him, singular, not them. G-d did not put “them” in the Garden of Eden. “And the LORD God said: It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a help(er) meet for him.”[8] If “Eve existed along with “Adam,” why would G-d say ‘that the man should not be alone,’  and why would the helper need to be created? 

Genesis tells us, “And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the place with flesh instead thereof.“And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from the man, made He a woman, and brought her unto the man.”[9] G-d created Eve from the rib and flesh of Adam. The first women did not exist at the same time that the first man was created.

By attempting to reduce Creation to a politically correct ideological distortion that man was an androgynous being, one is only too prone to limit non-bias intellectual scrutiny. Within that framework nothing is easier then capitulation to interest group politics. But, in reality, critical analysis and Devine understanding are not so simple.

As previously stated, the Chumash avers that “He created them as a single, androgynous being comprising both male and female bodies, attached back to back.”[10] However, it is not believed that a closing of ranks by rabbinical commenters is ipso facto validity to adopt an illogical assertion – that the first man was an androgynous human being. In other words, an illusion and invalid assertion does not confirm respectability of an opinion, regardless of how many times you repeat it. Again, the first women did not exist at the same time that the first man was created.

Creation when recounted by means of politically correct ideological distortions, are often used as a veil of ideology, which then hides the real meaning of the event. Such is the case of this understanding of Creation. 

The purpose of this discourse is to interpret and understand Creation void of ideological sentiments. And, to debunk a pathological state of cognition in which ideology takes precedence over the genuine search for truth. 

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[1]The Greek term is Pentateuch, which means five scrolls.

[2]Harold Bloom (b. 1930) is an American literary critic Professor of Humanities at Yale University.

[3]Chumash, Chabad House Publications, Los Angeles, CA, Kehot Publication Society, Brooklyn, NY, USA, 2015.

[4]Ibid. Page 11

[5]Genesis 2:18

[6]Genesis 2:21 – 24

[7]Genesis 2:7

[8]Genesis 2:1

[9]Genesis 2:22

[10]Chumash, Chabad House Publications, Los Angeles, CA, Kehot Publication Society, Brooklyn, NY, USA, 2015, Page 11.