http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-collegedebt27-2008dec27,0,4636992.column?page=1&track=rss
$140,000 at 18% interest for a photography degree? I oscillate between laughing and feeling really bad for the girl in the article. It would take someone with a serious degree (say, law or medicine) a few years to pay off 140k of debt at 0%, let alone 18%. (I doubt the entire loan was at 18%; however, it's clear the woman in the article was not getting a good deal.)
To be fair, I suspect we have several people (some smart, even) like the girl in the article at Columbia. Columbia is no stranger to bilking students for money. Right off the bat, the School of General Studies (GS) and the School of Continuing Education (CE) come to mind. The impression I get from talking to people is that GS is basically Columbia's low-aid-take-out-lots-of-loans-you're-still-not-in-CC-and-you-still-suck-and-are-destined-to-be-proletariat degree-mill. CE has a few serious programs, but for the most part I think its focus is to sucker the working population into getting degrees in "Negotiation and Conflict Resolution" or "Landscaping".
In any case, the reason college affordability is a libertarian's issue is because the government is involved in student loans. Government involvement has done nothing to reign in costs associated with college. What the government makes available through debt is is completely consumed by universities. (In fact, the same education I received as an undergrad is now 33% more expensive. I don't even think I could afford my undergrad education in today's economy.)
As for the future? I can see it now: Nancy Pelosi or Dianne Feinstein on TV asking for bailouts for white women and minorities victimized by "predatory" student-loan lenders. We'll probably get a bailout package for people getting photography degrees any day now. Obama will make more aid available for people to go to college, and the universities will just gobble up whatever money comes their way and ask for more as a result. Columbia's tuition will be $80,000/year in no time, and people will still send applications to CC to get a degree in African American Studies or East Asian Literature. (They will then spend the rest of their lives working in Roscoe's House of Chicken and Waffles or P.F. Chang's paying off their debt.)
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