Betsy Mayotte, president of the Institute of Student Loan Advisors, has it right (”Debt forgiveness not enough to make paying for college easier, activists say,” Page A1, Sept. 7). The issue is the cost of higher education. Run the compound growth rate for your college’s tuition from your freshman year to the current year. For me, it’s 50 years and almost 8 percent. There isn’t a business in the world that could raise its price at that rate, delivering the same product and still be in business, but the colleges are. Why? Because the government lends their customer money without regard to the collateral value of the education they get. The colleges raise prices with impunity. No real skin in the game. The students get poor advice or no advice in matching their career objectives with the cost of the education to get there. A student who choses a profession that is relatively low paying doesn’t stand a chance if they also borrow money to go to a college that costs too much. Now the federal government compounds the problem by forgiving those loans, ignoring those who didn’t go to college or those who did and paid off their loans, and further encouraging the college machine to continue raising prices. I’m not saying that certain targeted forgiveness doesn’t have a place. What I am saying is solve the real problem, don’t expand it.
Tom DeSimone
Swampscott