Congress has passed a series of “reforms” for the Federal student financial aid system. If the reforms are signed into law, relying on them to help finance a college education could be dangerous. Congress has mapped out the “plan” for a new student financial aid system well into the future, but they can only fund programs for a few years at a time.

Congress hasn’t committed to funding this program in the long-term, which means that if you are saving for a college education and part of your plan includes loans, you could end up on the short end of the balance sheet if Congress decides to change its funding plan, or if student loan aid funds get cut or redirected. Worse than that, Congress plans to dictate which lenders can and can’t participate in the student loan lending program. You may get stuck with a lender you’ve never heard of and if another lender offers a better deal, you may not be able to take advantage of it.

Most American college students rely on loans of one sort or another to help finance their college educations. The student loan lenders in the US have worked in partnership with the federal government for more than 40 years to develop a system that helps the largest number of students. Statistics show that the system is working.

The original goal of Congress in 1965 was to increase the number of college graduates in our country. At the time, about eight percent of high school graduates went on to college. The President and Congress recognized that if American prosperity was going to continue, the country needed a steady supply of college graduates. To ensure that supply, Congress initiated the FFELP.

Now, Congress wants to change the deal. They’ve lost the vision that President Johnson espoused in 1965, and the groups that will be most hurt by these changes are the students from low- and middle-income families. Congress wants to redirect funds from the FFELP program to other aid programs, but only a small number of students qualify for the programs that Congress will be redirecting these funds toward. Most students who now receive aid through the FFELP programs will be shut out.

If Congress wants to help college students, it should take steps to reduce the amount of money a student has to borrow either by substantially increasing the amount of aid it provides and the number of students the Federal programs serve, or attacking the root causes of the double-digit tuition increases we’ve seen in the past several years. By reining in tuition increases, Congress could increase the number of students who can attend college, decrease the overall cost of college for students, and decrease the amount of student loan debt a graduate carries, if only they would focus on the real issue. Instead, they choose to attack the one functional solution they’ve managed to draft in the past 40 years.

Tell your representatives and senators that they should not attempt to fix what isn’t broken, and instead, they should concentrate on reducing the overall cost of college by addressing the high cost of tuition.