Who should pay for poor student choices?

The student loan situation is a mess, with thousands of students unable to repay their loans.

The government famously lowered lending standards for federally backed mortgages, and the great recession was triggered by the massive (though predictable) default by people who simply could not afford the homes they were buying on impossibly easy terms.

The same thing is happening with college loans — the government lends generously without assessment of ability to repay, the colleges spend that money gleefully, the students default and the bill ultimately comes due to…..you guessed it, the taxpayer.

The Wall Street Journal treated this issue again recently, and my assessment on National Review’s higher education blog appears here.