Rein in cost of college tuition

Ahh ... spring. The time of year for renewal, flowers, baseball games – and sheer panic for many parents.

Why? Because May is collegedecision month.

Sadly, instead of marveling about the possibilities that lay ahead, parents are left fretting about their children’s future – and their own.

While college has always been sold as a path to success, its staggering costs have resulted in a far different reality.

The numbers bear out the crisis:

• Student loan debt now stands at nearly $1.5 trillion (that’s trillion with a “T”). By the end of the next decade, that figure will be almost $3.5 trillion. The amount owed is now more than the total debt on credit cards, auto loans and mortgages.

• The average debt of 2016 graduates exceeds $37,000. And that’s not including graduate/ law/medical school debts, which can easily be six figures.

• Not surprisingly, the default rate is skyrocketing. The balance defaulted on exceeds $137 billion – for which the taxpayers are on the hook, since the federal government subsidizes many of those loans. The similarities to the housing crisis are eerie.

Naturally, many are wondering if college is worth the investment. The majority believe otherwise, largely because so many college grads face a significant underemployment problem. Yet parents and students continue taking the plunge. To what end?

All their lives, children are told that they can achieve the American dream, with college playing a big part in that equation. But for so many, the truth crashes down hard after graduation, with massive debt and mediocre job prospects crushing hopes and dreams, often for decades.

Welcome to the generation with the dubious distinction of not doing better than their parents. And it’s only getting worse, as incomes are growing more slowly than the rate of tuition increases.

The more something is subsidized, the more its price increases.

Therefore, until the federal government’s gushing student loan spigot is turned down, colleges have no incentive to hold the line on tuition. And obviously, they haven’t. Since 1978, college tuition costs have risen 12-fold – more than 1,200 percent, compared with just 250 percent for food.

Tuition even outpaced medical costs by a factor of two, which is really saying something. Between 2008-2010, public universities jacked up their rates an average of 15 percent, with some private colleges increasing even more. Time to break universities’ addition to the federal trough by restricting how much is loaned.

Since most colleges are nonprofit, and thus tax exempt, their lavish endowments should lose tax-free status unless two provisions are met: A) tuition costs do not increase by more than 2 percent per year, and B) the endowment does NOT grow by more than 6 percent in a given year.

If either requirement is not met for that specific year, they would pay taxes on all gains and income – thereby creating an incentive to use such funds to control costs.

If colleges banded together to lower tuition, it would be illegal, with administrators likely prosecuted. Time to revisit that law so that collusion doesn’t apply to price reductions. Without that reform, almost no school will reduce tuition for fear of being labeled “inferior.”

More college-level courses, both online and in high schools, should be offered, and colleges should be pressured to more readily accept the results.

Yes, many high schools offer AP courses, but colleges, fully aware that they reduce a student’s tuition, often create needless obstacles for students to gain credit. Numerous other areas should be explored: Tuition-free community college; public universities selling assets not related to their core business; outsourcing services to the more efficient private sector; capping salaries and administrative costs; and employing graduates in public service programs to forgive debt.

Congress has thus far earned an “F” when it comes to reining in exorbitant college tuitions. If our children, indeed our future, are going to have any shot at realizing the American dream, reforms must be implemented. And you don’t need a college degree to understand that.