Seven Troubling Facts On American Higher Education You Probably Don't Know

The recent cheating scandal in which wealthy and well-connected parents paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to illegally game admission at elite universities exposed a rigged system. However, the biggest scandal facing higher education today isn’t the illegal activity – it’s what’s entirely legal. It’s a system so expensive that the $1.7 trillion in student debt now exceeds America’s credit card debt and auto loan debt.Last week, our organization at OpenTheBooks.com released our oversight report on the U.S. Department of Education (ED). We found billions of taxpayer dollars wasted on outdated policies, misaligned priorities, and weak accounting controls.Here are seven facts regarding higher education that you probably don’t know: The wealthiest colleges received nearly $7 billion in federal subsidies last year. The top 25 universities with largest endowments (collectively $272 billion) reaped $7 billion in federal student aid. Rich schools are getting richer and taxpayers paid for it. Wealthy colleges must make themselves affordable. Bad debt – a billion-dollar boondoggle for taxpayers. ED estimates that 26 percent of federal undergraduate student loans made in 2018 will enter default at some point. Considering that $100 billion in student loans were originated last year, it’s a billion-dollar boondoggle. A Brooking Institution study found that 28 percent of college students signed up for student loans don’t even realize that their “award” is a debt and must be paid back.