[tzs]

> Yeah, who guessed that federally incentivized lending would make the cost of something go up?

I have not seen any convincing data to support the idea that this had anything to do with college costs increases. Looking at tuition costs at top private schools, costs have risen pretty steadily for at least the last 90 years. I didn't see any obvious difference between pre and post Federal loan program eras.

(I looked at private schools because public schools are often highly influenced by what is going on in their state government. For instance, if a state is having a budget shortfall, one of the things they often due is cut college funding, and the colleges make that up with tuition increases).

People who assume that Federal loans are responsible for high college costs seem to be assuming that college costs follow "normal" market rules. That is a questionable assumption, for if the college marked did follow those rules, then college costs would actually be much higher than they are now. Good colleges turn away students, and so if they were in a "normal" market, they would be raising prices to the point where they are just able to fill their seats.

[philwelch]

> tuition costs at top private schools

Hardly the whole story, especially since sticker-price tuition at "top private schools" is more a mechanism for price discrimination than anything. Do what you will to justify cherry-picking your evidence--you're still cherry-picking your evidence.