You can trace the explosion of college tuition costs precisely to the moment the government got involved to make college more "affordable." It's the same pattern that repeated itself in housing and healthcare, too: the second government makes something "affordable" by subsidizing it with taxpayer dollars, the costs explode.
When my eldest was born in 2007, we lived in a three-bedroom apartment on the south side of Milwaukee. The landlord sold the building to a company that jacked up the rent from $700 a month to $1300 a month, and management explicitly said it was so they could get more Section 8 renters into the property. We ended up moving. For Obamacare, we were all promised $2,500 a year in savings and the ability to keep our doctors and our plans. Insurance costs, including deductibles and premiums, have instead skyrocketed.
The same thing with student loans. The Higher Education Act of 1965 created the Guaranteed Student Loan Program, and borrowing expanded greatly over the following decades. From 1979 to 1995, tuition rose 48 percent at public colleges and 71 percent at private colleges.
By 2000, tuition at public colleges increased 114 percent and private colleges 118 percent. That led millions of college students to take out massive loans for useless degrees and find they simply cannot (or will not?) pay them back. Instead of taking responsibility and fixing the root causes of the problem, Democrats simply wanted to use more taxpayer money to forgive billions in student loans.
It would be the largest transfer of wealth from the working class to the upper class in American history. Only about one-third of Americans have a college degree, and many of those with debt have degrees in medicine, law, and other high-earning careers. Either way, the 67 percent of Americans who didn't go to college shouldn't be on the hook for others' bad choices.
Enter President Trump, who decided to get to the root of the problem and prohibit the use of federal student loans for fields of study that have a low return on investment (ROI).
Matt Vespa wrote about this yesterday, noting these tweaks to college loans will solve part of the student loan debt crisis by preventing it from happening in the first place.
This is actually f***ing evil holy s**t. In the land of the free students must only study what the president approves apparently. https://t.co/Ojj7SSDwn7
— Joe (@electionsjoe) September 28, 2026
No program is banned under these rules. You are still free to go to college and study whatever you want. You just have to pay for it yourself.
So you can't study transgender literature in college on the taxpayer dime.
I promise, you will survive.
This is the same meltdown the Left had over changes to the SNAP program, when they could no longer buy soda or junk food courtesy the taxpayers (who also pay for their healthcare, mind you). Just because the government doesn't pay for you to do something doesn't mean you can't pay for it yourself. That personal responsibility is, however, anathema to far too many people.
This is the only way to fix the student loan crisis: cut the problem off where it takes root, before the loans are even taken out.
And I am perfectly comfortable making several predictions.
First, the cost of these programs will go down. Why? Because schools that offer them will have to make them attractive to students who have to pay out of pocket or with private loans. Second, people will stop majoring in feminist theory and underwater basket weaving and instead either not go to college — thus avoiding student loans altogether — or go into a field of study that will give them a better job. Third, not one person will be materially harmed by this policy.
Last, but certainly not least: despite the Left's whining, this will be a success, and Donald Trump will get no credit for it. In fact, some Democrat will take credit for fixing the student loan crisis down the road.
Yes, this solution may seem painful to some. That's what happens when you spend years feeling you're not only entitled to taxpayers' funding for your useless degree, but also entitled to a bailout because you chose a career path where you can't (or won't) pay back a debt you took out. The correction of decades of wrongs often hurts.
But it's what's necessary, and thank goodness President Trump came up with a real solution instead of another handout.
