College loans, government grants, and subsidies have driven tuition rates higher and higher. A further negative societal impact from student loans and grants is the proliferation of useless degrees that do not correspond with any real job opportunities.
Loan forgiveness would be akin to removing all price constraints on college attendance or choice of major, which would cause an explosion of debt, funded by taxpayers, while encouraging more students to major in subjects with no corresponding job, like ethnic studies, child and family studies, philosophy, and other subjects like travel and tourism or culinary arts, which should not be degree programs but vocational training instead.
In 1987, then-Education Secretary William Bennett wrote an influential op-ed titled “Our Greedy Colleges,” arguing that increases in financial aid enabled colleges to raise tuition, confident that federal loan subsidies would cushion the increase. This became known as the Bennett Hypothesis.
The explosion of federal student aid since 1980 has fundamentally reshaped higher education, driving tuition inflation and encouraging the creation of low-value degree programs that leave graduates burdened with debt and poor job prospects.
A 2015 study found that tuition increased by roughly 60 cents for every dollar of subsidized loans and 15 cents for every dollar of unsubsidized loans. Since 1985–86, tuition and fees have risen 304 percent, while average federal loans climbed 278 percent. The pattern began with the Middle Income Student Assistance Act of 1978, which expanded subsidized loan eligibility to all undergraduates and extended Pell Grants to middle-income students.
Pell Grant spending subsequently soared from $8.56 billion in 1983–84 to $31.41 billion in 2022–23, a fourfold increase that coincided with the emergence of entire new academic disciplines of questionable value.
Because students are shielded from the true cost of education, they often choose majors disconnected from employment demand. Many of today’s least practical degrees simply didn’t exist in 1980.
Women’s studies, for instance, began with experimental courses at Cornell University and San Diego State University in 1969. During the 1970s, the field sought academic legitimacy as an independent discipline, expanding throughout the 1980s into mainstream university curricula. By the early 1990s, there were more than 800 women’s studies programs nationwide, offering degrees up to the Ph.D. level.
Ethnic and cultural studies followed a similar trajectory. Though these programs faced resistance in the late 1970s and early 1980s for being “too race-identified,” by the late 1980s Ivy League and other elite universities were establishing African American and related ethnic studies departments. American Indian studies emerged later, gaining traction in the 1980s and 1990s, with some universities, such as the University of Illinois, not launching programs until the 2000s.
The same pattern repeated across other emerging disciplines. Sexuality and gender studies gained prominence in the late 1980s and 1990s, evolving into LGBTQ and queer studies departments as postmodern theory entered Western academia.
Film and video production also exploded in popularity during this period: although prestigious programs had existed at NYU Tisch, CalArts, and Columbia since the 1960s, enrollment in film and media studies has grown nearly 300 percent since the 1970s, ten times the overall rise in college degrees.
The consequences of credential inflation have been devastating for graduates. A 2024 report found that 52% of bachelor’s degree holders are underemployed one year after graduation, working in jobs that don’t require a degree. Even after ten years, 45% remain underemployed.
Most of these graduates, about 88%, work in positions requiring only a high school education or less. Those who begin their careers underemployed are 3.5 times more likely to remain so a decade later. By contrast, among graduates who start in college-level jobs, 79% stay in such positions five years later.
Internships make a measurable difference: students who completed at least one internship were nearly 50% less likely to be underemployed, with a five-year rate of 41% compared to 54% for those without internship experience.
Beyond academically questionable majors lies an equally troubling category of programs that never should have become four-year degrees. These fields teach practical, valuable skills that employers genuinely need, but they lead to low-paying jobs that could be obtained through short vocational courses and on-the-job training. The economics simply don’t justify taking on student loan debt for them.
Culinary arts is a clear example. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects 15% job growth over the next decade, faster than average, but with a median annual salary of just $50,160 in 2021. Culinary programs, however, cost between $40,000 and $60,000 or more. When chef Gordon Ramsay appeared on YouTube in January 2024, he called U.S. culinary schools “depressing” institutions that “sandbag” students with debt before sending them into a low-wage industry. The math doesn’t work: starting at $50,000 with $40,000–$60,000 in loans means years of repayment while earning entry-level wages.
Hospitality and hotel management degrees face the same problem. These programs cost as much as any other bachelor’s degree, yet graduates rarely begin in management roles. Average salaries hover around $50,565 for hospitality graduates, $55,320 for food service managers, and $54,430 for hotel managers.
One analysis found that a non-resident at the University of Nevada pursuing a general manager role at a boutique hotel (salary range $75,000–$140,000) would face an estimated $220,000 in total costs, requiring 22 years of repayment even while dedicating 10% of salary to loans. Most hospitality jobs, like culinary ones, can be learned through experience or associate degrees.
Travel and tourism degrees suffer from the same flaw: entry-level jobs neither require a degree nor pay enough to justify the investment. These programs epitomize credential inflation; universities, backed by federal loans, have convinced students they need expensive degrees for jobs that once required only certificates or apprenticeships.
The third-party payer system fuels this distortion: students borrow $50,000–$100,000 for jobs paying $40,000–$55,000 because government-backed loans shift the risk onto taxpayers.
The average federal student loan debt for a bachelor’s degree is now about $37,000, rising above $42,000 when private loans are included. At 5% interest, that means over $400 in monthly payments for nearly a decade. Graduates emerge with massive debt for degrees that seldom lead to jobs requiring them, and costs spiral because the person receiving the service isn’t the one directly paying for it.
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