Higher Education

The federal presence in higher education is both unconstitutional and harmful. Federal student aid drives up college prices, creates numerous distortions and inefficiencies, and costs taxpayers ever more. Federal institutional aid, university-based research grants, and academic pork also cost taxpayers billions of dollars each year. Finally, federal efforts to impose ‘accountability’’ on the nation’s ivory tower threaten to destroy its greatest strengths: institutional autonomy, consumer freedom, and the powerful competition and innovation they create. Washington must get out of higher education.