Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share Can the Trump administration make college cheaper?
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
Can the Trump administration make college cheaper?
Will limiting how much students can borrow force schools to lower their prices?
The Department of Education thinks so. It has a new plan to bring down tuition costs. Starting today, July 1st, it’s going to cap how much it’s willing to loan to graduate students.
You read that right. To reduce the burden of school…the plan is to give students less money to pay for school.
This plan is, in part, based on an idea that’s been floating around higher education circles for decades: The Bennett Hypothesis, which claims there’s a direct relationship between student borrowing and tuition prices. And therefore, if the Department of Education — the biggest student loan provider in the country — limits how much students can take out, then schools will have no choice but to charge students less.
This hypothesis was floated roughly 40 years ago...without evidence. But now, as the Trump administration rolls out their Bennettian plan, we have decades of data to see how true this hypothesis is.
Today on the show: NPR Education Correspondent Cory Turner explains this theory, and what the new plan influenced by it will mean for borrowers this fall.
Other notes:
Music: NPR Source Audio - “Morning Chorus,” “Belle Mar,” and “The Sky Was Orange.”
See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.
NPR Privacy Policy
The Department of Education thinks so. It has a new plan to bring down tuition costs. Starting today, July 1st, it’s going to cap how much it’s willing to loan to graduate students.
You read that right. To reduce the burden of school…the plan is to give students less money to pay for school.
This plan is, in part, based on an idea that’s been floating around higher education circles for decades: The Bennett Hypothesis, which claims there’s a direct relationship between student borrowing and tuition prices. And therefore, if the Department of Education — the biggest student loan provider in the country — limits how much students can take out, then schools will have no choice but to charge students less.
This hypothesis was floated roughly 40 years ago...without evidence. But now, as the Trump administration rolls out their Bennettian plan, we have decades of data to see how true this hypothesis is.
Today on the show: NPR Education Correspondent Cory Turner explains this theory, and what the new plan influenced by it will mean for borrowers this fall.
Other notes:
- Bill Bennett: “Our Greedy Colleges”
- Cory Turner: "July 1 brings big student loan changes. Here's what you need to know"
- The Indicator: "What you should know about your student loans"
- Planet Money+
- Our book: Planet Money: A Guide to the Economic Forces That Shape Your Life
- Our weekly longform Planet Money newsletter
- Our weekly Indicator round-up newsletter
- TikTok
- YouTube
Music: NPR Source Audio - “Morning Chorus,” “Belle Mar,” and “The Sky Was Orange.”
See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.
NPR Privacy Policy
View all episodes
By NPR
4.6
2958829,588 ratings
Will limiting how much students can borrow force schools to lower their prices?
The Department of Education thinks so. It has a new plan to bring down tuition costs. Starting today, July 1st, it’s going to cap how much it’s willing to loan to graduate students.
You read that right. To reduce the burden of school…the plan is to give students less money to pay for school.
This plan is, in part, based on an idea that’s been floating around higher education circles for decades: The Bennett Hypothesis, which claims there’s a direct relationship between student borrowing and tuition prices. And therefore, if the Department of Education — the biggest student loan provider in the country — limits how much students can take out, then schools will have no choice but to charge students less.
This hypothesis was floated roughly 40 years ago...without evidence. But now, as the Trump administration rolls out their Bennettian plan, we have decades of data to see how true this hypothesis is.
Today on the show: NPR Education Correspondent Cory Turner explains this theory, and what the new plan influenced by it will mean for borrowers this fall.
Other notes:
Music: NPR Source Audio - “Morning Chorus,” “Belle Mar,” and “The Sky Was Orange.”
See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.
NPR Privacy Policy
The Department of Education thinks so. It has a new plan to bring down tuition costs. Starting today, July 1st, it’s going to cap how much it’s willing to loan to graduate students.
You read that right. To reduce the burden of school…the plan is to give students less money to pay for school.
This plan is, in part, based on an idea that’s been floating around higher education circles for decades: The Bennett Hypothesis, which claims there’s a direct relationship between student borrowing and tuition prices. And therefore, if the Department of Education — the biggest student loan provider in the country — limits how much students can take out, then schools will have no choice but to charge students less.
This hypothesis was floated roughly 40 years ago...without evidence. But now, as the Trump administration rolls out their Bennettian plan, we have decades of data to see how true this hypothesis is.
Today on the show: NPR Education Correspondent Cory Turner explains this theory, and what the new plan influenced by it will mean for borrowers this fall.
Other notes:
- Bill Bennett: “Our Greedy Colleges”
- Cory Turner: "July 1 brings big student loan changes. Here's what you need to know"
- The Indicator: "What you should know about your student loans"
- Planet Money+
- Our book: Planet Money: A Guide to the Economic Forces That Shape Your Life
- Our weekly longform Planet Money newsletter
- Our weekly Indicator round-up newsletter
- TikTok
- YouTube
Music: NPR Source Audio - “Morning Chorus,” “Belle Mar,” and “The Sky Was Orange.”
See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.
NPR Privacy Policy
More shows like Planet Money
View all
This American Life
90,994 Listeners
TED Radio Hour
21,790 Listeners
Radiolab
43,898 Listeners
Freakonomics Radio
32,100 Listeners
Hidden Brain
43,528 Listeners
Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!
38,856 Listeners
99% Invisible
26,197 Listeners
Marketplace
8,776 Listeners
The Daily
111,948 Listeners
Up First from NPR
56,508 Listeners
The Indicator from Planet Money
9,532 Listeners
Throughline
16,399 Listeners
Short Wave
6,564 Listeners
People I (Mostly) Admire
2,027 Listeners
Planet Money Summer School
184 Listeners
The Economics of Everyday Things
1,637 Listeners
Planet Money: We Invested in Gold
2 Listeners
Planet Money: We Set Up a Shell Company
8 Listeners
Planet Money: We Bought a Toxic Asset
2 Listeners