Four Unintended Consequences of Federal Student Financial Assistance
“Most commentaries on federal student loans speak about the difficulty of loan repayments or about the impact such loans have had on tuition fees. It is certainly true massive federal student financial aid commitments have enhanced the rise in tuition fees, ironically sometimes turning away from higher education low income students who these programs were originally designed to help. This commentary, however, speaks to four other possible unintended consequences of the massive increase in federal student financial assistance since about 1970. The word ‘possible’ is used because the evidence is somewhat circumstantial, and more sophisticated statistical analysis is needed to confirm the suspected relationship.”