Decades ago, Washington began pursuing programs to help students and their parents get money to finance higher education. Making it easier to get loans was a big part of this push. Talk about horrifically expensive unintended consequences!

All of these efforts—especially the loans—ended up fueling massive increases in tuitions. There were no objective reasons for college and graduate school sticker prices to rocket several times faster than the pace of inflation.

This episode of What’s Ahead discusses what must be done. First, students and their parents need to be made aware of the truth about these loans. They should watch the sober, eye-opening video, Student Loans: Do the Math! produced by Izzit.org. (Disclosure: I’m working on a project with Izzit.org.)