Recent economic research suggests that colleges siphon off a significant portion of federal education aid rather than lowering costs to students

Five years ago, in a maneuver that some of us regarded as a troubling move for a federal government swimming in red ink, Congress decided to temporarily supersize the subsidy on student loans.

This post by Rick Hess is a response to Fawn Johnson's post on the National Journal blog, "Education Experts."

The normal way that free societies encourage "responsible" behavior when it comes to the cost of services is to allow sellers to set a price and buyers to decide whether they're willing to pay it.

For-profit colleges aren't the first, or even the biggest, education lobbyists. They simply learned from the best: America's beloved public and nonprofit universities.

An AEI survey found that when asked to think of the cost for a low-income student, a majority of parents do recognize a distinction between sticker price and “net price after aid.” Yet, low-income parents often tend to overestimate the net price of college attendance.

Six in ten families rule out some colleges because of sticker price, yet many do not know that the “net price” is typically far lower. Proactively teaching parents—especially those with lower incomes—to think in terms of net price is critical.

President Obama’s latest ploy is a student lending policy that teaches a new generation of college-goers that government is there to provide free stuff.