Higher education is beset with serious problems, all of them stemming, I believe, from unwise and unconstitutional federal meddling with it. Since LBJ decided that the federal government needed to play a big role in education from kindergarten through grad school, it has been declining in quality and increasing in cost.

One member of Congress who cares about this is North Carolina’s Virginia Foxx, who chairs the House committee that oversees education. She is sponsoring a bill that could make quite a difference in the way our colleges operate, and in today’s Martin Center article, we present an interview with Representative Foxx by the Center’s Shannon Watkins.

For one thing, the bill puts limits on how much students can borrow. It would be better just to get the feds out of student lending entirely, but this is a reasonable first step.

Another important part of the bill is the “skin in the game” provision, meaning that colleges and universities would be responsible for unpaid student debts. Foxx states:

If schools have a situation where a lot of students aren’t paying off their debt, then the schools will be held responsible for paying off that debt. We want the schools to have responsibility here. And we think that will make a huge difference in: number one, the cost; number two, the counseling that the students get in terms of borrowing money; and three, the counseling the students get about repaying their money. The idea is, a lot of people are going to have skin in this game. The students have time and money in it. Parents will have money in it. And the schools and the taxpayers have money in it, because we back up the loans. Now we want the schools to be responsible also.

That’s an idea the Martin Center has been advocating throughout its entire existence. If it were to be adopted, the incentives for colleges would change dramatically. And that probably dooms the bill in Congress now, since most Democrats are happy with the way the higher-ed system helps them.

Also, the bill addresses another weak spot in higher education: accreditation. Foxx states:

I think our accreditation system has become pretty staid. We want the accreditors to be looking at outcomes, and they have not been doing that. We want the accreditation to be focused on outcomes. The accreditors have said they want to do that, and we want to get them to do that.

I doubt that college accreditation will ever be of much use in identifying schools (and parts of schools) that have good educational outcomes and those that don’t, but the bill might help marginally.

The bill is going to the House for a vote soon, and it will be interesting to see if it gets any Democratic support or if the higher-ed lobby peels away some Republicans.