When I graduate next year, I’ll be in a pretty typical position for a recent graduate: hoping to find employment with my liberal arts degree in hand and the weight of my student loan debt on my back.
But I won’t be the only one coping with that debt: My parents have also had to draw on federal loans to help me pay for school. These loans have been the difference between my attending UCLA and being forced to discontinue my education.
A 2011 change to the federal Parent Loan for Undergraduate Students, or PLUS, program made it more difficult for students to access this money. That policy is currently under review – and even though restricting loans could impact the availability of funds to families like my own, it is crucial to understand that loan criteria must be crafted as part of a larger conversation about college access.
Families are increasingly relying on PLUS loans to help soften the blow of high tuition costs. That’s why when the Department of Education made the criteria for PLUS loans more restrictive, leading to a rise in denials from 28 to 38 percent between 2011 and 2012, the change sparked objections by both students and parents that the restrictive standards were hurting college access.
But while the department’s implementation of the change to the standards was poor – it was instituted immediately from one year to the next with very little publicity – the complaints it has generated about hurting college access miss the larger point.
If both students and their parents must take on massive debts in order to finance their education, that doesn’t count as true access to higher education. Instead of demanding that federal loan programs be extended or made more lenient as a temporary solution to the issue of high college costs, students should be getting at the heart of the issue: Nationally, loan debt has become so inflated that the Department of Education has been forced to hedge its bets against widespread defaults.
This spring, the Department of Education will consider making changes to the criteria for qualification again, in response to the complaints it received about the 2011 change. Despite the concerns of many universities that have spoken out against making the qualifications restrictive – mainly private, for-profit universities and historically black colleges and universities, which have been hit particularly hard by the 2011 change – the department should not revert back to its pre-2011 standards.
By no means should PLUS loans be difficult to qualify for or have the same kinds of restrictive standards as some private lenders, but we have to acknowledge that it’s irresponsible policy to lend families money that they can’t pay back.
The change in the Department of Education’s policy actually reflects that fact by more deeply considering the credit history of applicant families. But there is currently no ability-to-pay metric used in the consideration for PLUS loan qualification, and parents can borrow up to the entire cost of attendance, meaning that there’s a higher chance of default on the loan.
Instead of lobbying for loans to be extended to families who may not have the financial resources to pay them back, universities and the families trying to send their children to university should be directing the conversation toward extending Pell Grant funding and driving the price of college down.
PLUS loans have their place in the model for financing college, as all student loans do, but it’s important to keep things in perspective. We cannot lend out money to people who will be overburdened by the debts, and we should not have to overburden ourselves with debt to pay for school.
That’s what students and parents should be talking about when they complain about federal policy and funding for education.
And maybe when that happens, fewer students will be walking across the stage their senior year leaving their families facing the same kind of uncertainty they are.
Email Delgadillo at ndelgadillo@media.ucla.edu or tweet her @ndelgadillo07. Send general comments to opinion@media.ucla.edu or tweet us @DBOpinion.