For much of the new year, Jason Delisle has taken every available opportunity to argue against a return to the bank-based federal student loan system that existed before 2010.
On panels, in policy papers and in guest columns and op-eds, the American Enterprise Institute resident fellow has made the case that returning to a bank-based system from the current set-up where the government originates all federal student loans -- a plank of the GOP platform -- is misguided policy.
"I’m [generally] inclined to believe that if the market is involved, the product will be better," Delisle says. "This was a case where that wasn’t true."
With Republicans controlling the White House and Congress for the first time in a decade, questions about how they will approach federal student aid, and how far they will veer from the path on loan policy staked out by Obama, are abundant.
Conversations with Delisle and other conservative policy analysts -- those seemingly likeliest to seed ideas for a party with renewed power -- suggest that the change might not be radical. Not surprisingly, they generally favor a bigger role for private capital in the student loan system, but they seem disinclined to undo the transformation wrought by the Obama administration. That's not because they love federal direct lending but because they don't think the previous bank-based system was truly market-driven either. Their other major goal -- simplifying the student financial aid system -- is shared by many across the political spectrum.
The question is how to get there. And while denizens of the think tank world agree on some policy steps to reach those objectives, it’s not yet clear how effectively those ideas are reaching policy makers in the administration or Congress.
Read more at Inside Higher Ed: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/02/22/consensus-forms-loan-policies-among-conservative-thinkers