OPINION:
The federal government had no lawful authority to initiate a student loan program in the first place (“Supreme Court weighs Biden student loan plan worth billions,” Web, Feb. 28 ).
The cost of education only became uncontrollable after Jimmy Carter created the Department of Education in the 1970s to reward teachers unions for their support. This resulted in virtual financial bondage for two generations of college students, warping careers, delaying marriage and limiting family sizes. It gave the government a control over curricula and values that has resulted in — among other things — the low quality of leadership we see from under-educated graduates in all fields.
When government oversteps its lawful bounds on such a massive scale, disaster is always the result. In this case, it’s a disaster that cannot be fixed by Band-Aids here and there but rather by the total elimination of the Department of Education.
When states had control of education, things worked.
ELIZABETH WARD NOTTRODT
Baltimore, Maryland
