The Wall Street Journal favorably mentions the Pope Center’s latest paper in an editorial. The WSJ writers strongly agree that the great expansion of Pell Grants over the years has served mainly to puff out college enrollments and increase tuition, and has not done much to increase the level of skills and knowledge that recipient students take into the labor market after graduation — if they graduate.
Even if there were a constitutional justification for federal grants and loans for students (and there isn’t), they’d be a bad idea. Lending or giving money for education is an activity better left to individuals and entities that stand to lose if they make bad decisions. Politicians don’t lose anything if their “generosity” draws in lots of students who are neither much interested in nor prepared for real college education.