President Obama surprised us yesterday at the University of Buffalo when he offered up this bit of common sense: “It is time to stop subsidizing schools that are not producing good results.”
The president is on to something here. And it relates directly to the $1 trillion in outstanding student college debt.
Whether students graduate or even learn anything, the colleges still get paid. Before we start encouraging people to take out loans for a college education, we need to ensure they are getting better value for those dollars.
In this regard, the president is also right that we need a different way to rank colleges. As he pointed out yesterday, rankings such as US News & World Report’s give some good information. But on the most important thing students need to know — whether the degree they seek is worth the investment — there’s not much to go by. We’re doubtful the answer is for the government to rate schools, but we do need evaluations that measure colleges the way Consumer Reports would.
While we’re at it, we’re surprised Obama didn’t insist on another good way to help stop money from flowing to bad schools. This could be done by holding the schools responsible for a portion of the college loans taken out by any student who defaults. You can bet our institutions of higher learning will be less casual about a student’s loan burden if they’re on the hook for some of it.
We’re not sold on all the president’s education agenda. But it’s refreshing to see someone on a college campus making the case to end subsidies for failure.