When Obama takes to the podium for the State of the Union, one of the things he is allegedly going to push is a
wholesale federal take over of the student loan industry. Already, his plans are causing a lot of students, particularly of private higher ed colleges and universities,
problems with getting financing for education. Obama intends to shut out the usual third party lenders and put
everything within the federal government – under a program that has been shown repeatedly to be highly inefficient
and burdensome for academic institutions. More troubling, by putting everything under the Department of Education, universities and colleges will be forced
to adhere to federal rules, some of which conflict with the values of sectarian institutions that presently use the
third party student loan system for their students. The feds controlling the student loan industry means the feds get to tell academic institutions what values they
can and cannot promote among the selection and disciplining of their students. Brigham Young, etc. better watch out. More troubling, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan sent out a letter recently to colleges and universities telling
them to get on board the federal program right now. There’s just one problem — the Congress has not passed the program.
Likewise, the Department of Education is encouraging outside groups to lobby for the legislation, a clear violation
of federal law. In other words, Duncan is trying to get schools that have expressed real apprehension over the program to get into
the program now so Congress will believe the expressed concerns have been ameliorated. The wholesale take over of education funding by the feds will, like a wholesale take over of healthcare, drive up
prices through decreases in competition and, more troubling, allow the feds a backdoor into higher education learning
and indoctrination.
