Prices for college have risen dramatically over the past decade and while the government has not taken unprecedented action to help students and make college available university, it is actually because this action helps students that the university has become less available. Some may think that helping students with their payments by providing loans will make going to college easier and less expensive, but that is not the case. In recent years, however, studies have shown that as college loans have increased, tuition has also increased, making it less easy to attend college and less available to everyone. It's not that the programs and loans aren't doing enough to make college affordable, so we need more of it, but these tuition aids are actually making college more expensive, so we need less of it. To find out why, we need to examine college prices both before and after government intervention, as well as the process itself. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay The theory that government-provided loans increase tuition was first publicized by William Bennett, former Secretary of Education during the Reagan presidency. He presented his theory in an article titled “Our Greedy Colleges” (Matthews, 1). Here's how the idea went. If you were to start with a totally free college, with no tuition or fees, and the government came along and told students they could get $5,000 in college loans for their tuition, any college would be an idiot if they didn't raise their tuition up to $5,000 and get money out of the situation. In other words, when the government increases subsidies by one dollar, universities will match that amount by increasing tuition. It's free money for universities, there would be no reason not to raise tuition and reap the benefits. Therefore, by offering student loans, the government does not give money to students, but to universities. Fortunately for status quo politicians, most of the literature on this topic has been very weak on specific evidence. In a 2001 study by the National Center for Education Statistics, no hard evidence was found to support Bennett's claim, but no evidence to the contrary was found either. Two recent studies by Nicholas Turner and Lesley Turner of UC San Diego, however, have shown that government student financial aid causes spikes in tuition prices and that colleges capture 16% of the value of the Pell Grant. Michael Rizzo of the University of Rochester and Ronald Ehrenberg of Cornell found further evidence to support Bennett's claim. They stated: “We find substantial evidence that increasing the generosity of the federal Pell Grant program, access to subsidized loans, and need-based state grants lead to increases in state education levels. However, we find no evidence that nonresident tuition has increased as a result of these programs.” (Matthew, 1). In the book by senior economists Michael McPherson and Morton Schapiro, The Student Aid Game, it was found that public universities raise tuition based on government loans, but private schools do not. By contrast, Harvard economist Bridget Long says government aid, particularly the HOPE Scholarship, increases tuition at private schools. Finally, Stephanie Cellini of George WashingtonUniversity and Harvard's Claudia Goldin found that increases in public subsidies match college tuition. Friedrich Hayek, a famous economist and philosopher, once said that democracy is “especially responsible, if not guided by accepted common principles.” , to produce overall results that no one wanted." (Wolfram, 1). According to the Cato Institute, a public policy research organization, when examining the Higher Education Act of 2008, using basic economic theory, it was deduced that college tuition increased due to the aid provided by this law, a result “no one wanted”(Wolfram, 1). This institute suggests that the reason for the variation in specific numbers and exact tests, discussed in the last paragraph, is a result of the different types of programs and aid among the many colleges and the difference between the colleges themselves. Yet we can still see a trend. Most of these studies and articles claim some change, even if the evidence is not concrete. It's rare to find an article that claims government aid doesn't affect tuition at all, and if they do they don't even have substantial evidence to support their claims. So it's safe to assume that Bennett's ideas are, in a sense, sound. So we know that loans increase tuition and that state governments and universities receive a fraction of the benefit afforded to students. Additionally, Cato better explains tuition growth in relation to increased government borrowing in more detail – evidence suggesting that the HEA was a factor in rising tuition costs. Rising tuition costs then translate into political pressure to expand the HEA and provide tax credits and deductions for higher education expenses; this in turn increases enrollment costs, which leads to further expansion of the HEA and the use of the tax code to influence taxpayer behavior.” In other words, it's a vicious cycle. The HEA increases tuition, and therefore the government feels more pressure to increase student aid, and therefore loans are increased relative to tuition. In fact, we see loans steadily increase over the years, and with them college tuition. Perkins loans increased from $892 million in 1993 to $1.263 billion in 2004. That same year the Federal Direct Student Loan Program and Federal Family Education Loans increased from $12.539 billion in 1993 to $52,197. billions of dollars. As a result, the College Board found that college costs began to rise faster than inflation in the 1980s, and this had continued to be the case for many years. From 2004 to 2005, tuition increased by 51 percent at public universities, and this trend has continued along with rising loans over the years. This raises another question. While some students receive loans, others are not eligible for this aid. Thus, while some students can afford high tuition thanks to loans, many struggle with the crushing burden of high education costs and cannot benefit from them. They cannot receive any of the loans but are suffering the consequences that these loans have brought. This makes it more difficult for many to attend college, and while some are helped, many who could attend college are held back because of the aid given to others. As loans increase and college becomes more expensive, students' dependence on the government increases. This can endanger our freedoms, when the government lends money, the.