Congress has not increased the maximum amount of Pell Grant awards since 1992. Not coincidentally, students have been turning to private student loans in large numbers to finance their educations.

The issue of private student loans is really separate from the discussion I normally conduct on this blog. Whether you approve of private loans or not, the fact is that students have turned to private lenders – FFELP and non-FFELP – because Congress did nothing to offset the rising cost of tuition for fifteen years. Now, Congress is crying foul.

What did they expect? Students just can’t stop going to college, and when they have no other credible means of funding their education, they turn to student loans. Congress precipitated this issue by not providing adequate funding for students in the first place, and they have no one to blame but themselves. It’s much more convenient, especially during an election cycle, to look for someone else to point the finger at, but the truth of the matter is that students would have been much better off had Congress re-adjusted the Pell Grant caps in 1998 or in 2004.

Congress isn’t blameless in this matter, and frankly, the entire legislative body plays a far more central role in student loan lending and Federal financial aid than they want to claim credit for. Why am I bringing this up? The speeches, finger-pointing and so-called investigations that are being conducted now are simply window-dressing for the electorate.

Congress is content to dismantle the Federal financial aid mechanism that has worked quite well for decades. Instead of asking for reforms, they’re throwing the baby out with the bathwater, and bringing chaos into the lives of college students and prospective college students everywhere.

Regardless of what the House has promised, what will be delivered is a funding mechanism that’s broken from the get-go. The new program relies on deficit spending, and I don’t care how long you try it, you can’t borrow your way out of debt. Once graduates have paid back their Federal student loans, they’ll continue to pay the debts of the new funding mechanism, which will sink under the weight of an increased number of program participants. The new Federal proposal will never work because it doesn’t address the real problem: the unchecked rise in the cost of tuition. The meat of student loan debt comes not from the interest rate, which is capped for Federal subsidized and unsubsidized student loans, but rather from the enormous sums that students must borrow to get through college.

Tell your Congressmen and Senators that you’re not interested in going through a broken funding mechanism that cannot sustain the demands of an increased number of borrowers, and the unrestricted rises in the cost of college tuition.