We have a country in which it is too easy to avoid math. I have seen serious proposals to lower local taxes by asking for state money, for example, from people who also try to roll back state taxes. Tuition inflation is parallel. Families choosing universities placed growing emphasis on non-instructional amenities and were then shocked by the rising costs. More importantly, anti-government crusaders -- led by Grover Norquist -- vilified the public sector and slashed its funding. This editorial focuses on a private college, but the broader problem to which it refers is in public colleges and universities, where most people get their education. (As I did in three different states, and as I now help to provide in a fourth.) Universities should look closely at their operational costs, but I know that in Massachusetts this has already been done. The real cause of swelling student debt is governors and legislatures -- and ultimately voters -- who do not treat public higher education as the worthy service that it is.

We have a freshman in college and two in high school - a senior who graduates this year and junior who graduates next year. Like so many others, we are really suffering from the wacky and insane calculations set up by the federal government in order to arrive at the ever present Estimated Family Contribution (ESC). To be sure, this calculation is wacky, insane and nearly criminal. Certainly, the government employees who set this calculation into motion were either hallucinating or making back room deals with the banks and "institutions of higher education" because as I see it, the banks and the colleges directly benefit from these forms. For the feds to say to this family and every school to which our kids apply that we can afford $53K a year per student is simply preposterous!! I mean really, you've got to be kidding me!! $106K a year for tuition? And we have a third on the way? What on earth are you thinking?!! Are they thinking?! Helloooo, we ARE the middle class!! I cut coupons and make careful choices with every purchase. We recycle our clothes to each other (typically me), have two 10 year old cars, I do all of my own housecleaning, clothes alterations, and together with the kids, yard work. Thank goodness our kids are healthy but, like everything, they too have general maintenance costs such as glasses and braces and orthotics, toothpaste, shampoo and food. They bring their lunches to school nearly every day because we can't afford to pay for school lunches, and each have chores and paying jobs. And still the federal government thinks we can fork over $53K next year for each of our two students to attend college. And when you call the school's financial aid office in an effort to explain how your situation really isn't realistically represented in the EFC, they treat you as though you're lying and looking for a hand out. In my opinion, the problem first stems with the Federal Government calculator and then with the colleges. The FASFA bar is artificially low which gives colleges permission to withhold aid because heck, it wasn't their calculation, it was the third party who said you could afford it. The only ones I see getting assistance are those who are indeed low income. And rightly so, students of low income households should get assistance to further their education. But for those of us in the middle, the assessment is wrong. There needs to be a way to allow schools and families to partner with one another and the students, so as to allow a reasonable contribution to their children's educations with schools providing assistance to this group as well. Isn't this really what the no-loan trend is all about? Should the kids of middle class families only have community colleges and state schools from which to choose? Surely, these educations are good ones but what if they really want to go somewhere else? What if their career aspirations lead them to a private school? It's not like they aren't willing to contribute their time and effort? Which l