Cato’s Neal McCluskey cuts to the heart of the unfolding student loan scandal, wherein lenders and colleges cooperated to profit at students’ and taxpayers’ expense, and financial-aid officers at major prestigious institutions, e.g., Columbia University, personally profited from stock deals from companies on their schools’ “preferred lender” lists:

[G]overnment aid increases the costs it’s meant to defray – that is, that a college degree actually costs more because of all the subsidies… The well-to-do get their aid: In the 2003-04 academic year, more than 30 percent of dependent students from families earning $100,000 or more got federal loans. Schools lobby hard for “student aid” – because it’s the colleges and universities that actually pocket the money. As long as aid keeps ballooning, students can pay ever-escalating tuition and fees – and Greedy U. can keep boosting salaries, building new facilities and making life cushier for faculty and staff.

The title of McCluskey’s forthcoming book, Feds in the Classroom: How Big Government Corrupts, Cripples, and Compromises American Education, perfectly captures this cynical dynamic.