美国国家公共电台 NPR--'Throughline': The origins of federal student loans and promises the government made

'Throughline': The origins of federal student loans and promises the government made

Transcript¹

At the start of the 20th century, only the most privileged could afford to go to college. Today millions of students pursue higher education, but collectively they owe $1.7 trillion in debt.

LEILA FADEL, HOST:

Around 46 million Americans are saddled with $1.7 trillion in student debt. President Biden is expected to announce by the end of the month whether he'll extend the pause on federal student loan payments again. At the same time, many are anxiously waiting to find out if Biden plans to forgive some of that debt. This has started debate over the government's role in helping² to pay for higher education. Today, Rund Abdelfatah and Ramtin Arablouei at NPR's history podcast Throughline take us to the beginning of the debate that started decades ago.

RAMTIN ARABLOUEI, BYLINE³: In the decade after World War II, the United States emerged as a world superpower. It was the Cold War, and the U.S. was at the top of the game, a world leader in production, innovation and technology.

JOSH MITCHELL: And then everything changes on a Friday evening in October of 1957.

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DOUGLAS EDWARDS: Until two days ago, that sound had never been heard on this Earth.

MITCHELL: A news item comes across the radio that says the Soviet⁴ Union has made it to space.

ARABLOUEI: This is Wall Street Journal reporter Josh Mitchell. He wrote a book called "The Debt Trap: How Student Loans Became A National Catastrophe⁵."

MITCHELL: About a month later, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 2. And this was, like, a double blow. I mean, it was - you know, it was just, like, shocking again.

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RUND ABDELFATAH, BYLINE: Shocking for the U.S., who viewed the Soviet Union's advancement⁶ of science and technology as a threat, a sign that it might be moving ahead in the ongoing⁷ Cold War. And some Democrats⁸ wanted to use this moment to expand the government's role in higher education to compete. After all, they argued, it wouldn't be the first time the government stepped in to pay for higher education. Back in the 1940s, Congress had passed the GI Bill to give scholarships to returning veterans, and that was largely seen as a success.

MITCHELL: And 11 months after the first Sputnik, Congress passed the National Defense⁹ Education Act.

ABDELFATAH: The National Defense Education Act was targeted basically just for high-achieving, generally white male high school students, students who wanted to go into math, science and foreign language - things that could help the country's national defense. Although it was popular, it wasn't a program designed for everyone, like some Democrats wanted.

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LYNDON B JOHNSON: Will you join in the battle to build the great society?

ARABLOUEI: President Lyndon Johnson created a broad legislative¹⁰ agenda to fight poverty and inequality, what he called great society. And at the center of this agenda was education. Johnson grew up poor and actually got a private bank loan to go to college himself. And in 1963, when he inherited the presidency¹¹ after the assassination¹² of President John F. Kennedy, he finally had a chance to make his education agenda happen.

MITCHELL: So in 1965, he pushed Congress to pass the Higher Education Act.

ARABLOUEI: Unlike the National Defense Education Act, which gave money to schools, this act gave money directly to students. The only catch?

MITCHELL: Instead of it being a scholarship, these were loans.

ABDELFATAH: The idea Johnson was pitching was that the Higher Education Act would make student loans with grants to provide more people with the chance to go to college. But it was going to be expensive, and the government couldn't afford to foot the bill. So if the Johnson administration wanted to make higher education universally accessible, it had to get the banks on board.

MITCHELL: To convince banks to do this, they came up with what was called the Guaranteed Loan Program and basically said, if you give this student a loan and that student fails to repay, ultimately, we will make you whole. So guess what? You're not taking on that much risk because ultimately the government's going to step in and pay you back.

ABDELFATAH: And the Johnson administration assumed that the program wouldn't cost taxpayers¹³ anything because everyone would get out of college, get good jobs, and be able to repay their loans. But while college attendance shot up in the late 1960s and '70s, so did inflation.

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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Food costs are very much increased.

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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: I think my wife just went out and bought me some shirts the other day, and I can't believe what they cost.

ARABLOUEI: There were higher prices, higher unemployment, and banks weren't totally happy loaning to students, even with the backing from the government. At the same time, more people wanted to go to college. And so in 1973, Johnson's successor, President Richard Nixon, supported a new idea, a government-backed private company that could help get more loans to more students. It would be called Sallie Mae.

ABDELFATAH: Sallie Mae's board was made up of government appointees, banks and schools. And what they decided¹⁴ was Sallie Mae would play the role of a middleman, administering student loans from banks that are guaranteed by the government. And it ended up being very good for banks and private partners.

MITCHELL: The banks have no risk at this point. They had zero risk. In fact, the only risk they had was not getting money fast enough out the door because every time they did not make a loan, they were leaving profits on the table.

ARABLOUEI: The '80s saw a rise in tuition, a rise in the number of student borrowers and a rise in debt. Meanwhile, Sallie Mae was raking in the cash, and hundreds of new schools popped up to meet the growing demand for higher education. Many of them were for-profit specialty¹⁵ schools.

MITCHELL: And so if you take a look at a chart of college tuition, it would go up a little bit in the '50s and '60s, and then it was kind of flat in the '70s, and then it just soared in the '80s.

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ARABLOUEI: Student debt continued growing, and it didn't really hit the national consciousness until around the 2010s, following the Great Recession, when more people started talking about student debt...

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BARACK OBAMA: Michelle and I, we know about this firsthand. This is not something I read in a briefing book.

ABDELFATAH: ...Including President Barack Obama.

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OBAMA: We had a mountain of debt, both of us. That means when we got married, we got poorer together.

ABDELFATAH: And attached to the bill that enacted¹⁶ Obamacare was an amendment¹⁷ that also ended Lyndon Johnson's guaranteed student loan program. The changes mean the federal government now loans to students directly.

ARABLOUEI: But the problem of rising student loan debt remains¹⁸. And Josh Mitchell says even if President Biden forgives some of that debt, it won't stop more students getting into more debt in the future.

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FADEL: That was Ramtin Arablouei and Rund Abdelfatah. They're the hosts of the podcast Throughline. You can hear the whole episode by finding Throughline wherever you get your podcasts.

1 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

2 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 Soviet   

adj.苏联的，苏维埃的；n.苏维埃

参考例句：

• Zhukov was a marshal of the former Soviet Union.朱可夫是前苏联的一位元帅。
• Germany began to attack the Soviet Union in 1941.德国在1941年开始进攻苏联。

5 catastrophe   

n.大灾难，大祸

参考例句：

• I owe it to you that I survived the catastrophe.亏得你我才大难不死。
• This is a catastrophe beyond human control.这是一场人类无法控制的灾难。

6 advancement   

n.前进，促进，提升

参考例句：

• His new contribution to the advancement of physiology was well appreciated.他对生理学发展的新贡献获得高度赞赏。
• The aim of a university should be the advancement of learning.大学的目标应是促进学术。

7 ongoing   

adj.进行中的，前进的

参考例句：

• The problem is ongoing.这个问题尚未解决。
• The issues raised in the report relate directly to Age Concern's ongoing work in this area.报告中提出的问题与“关心老人”组织在这方面正在做的工作有直接的关系。

8 democrats   

n.民主主义者，民主人士( democrat的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The Democrats held a pep rally on Capitol Hill yesterday. 民主党昨天在国会山召开了竞选誓师大会。
• The democrats organize a filibuster in the senate. 民主党党员组织了阻挠议事。 来自《简明英汉词典》

9 defense   

n.防御，保卫；[pl.]防务工事；辩护，答辩

参考例句：

• The accused has the right to defense.被告人有权获得辩护。
• The war has impacted the area with military and defense workers.战争使那个地区挤满了军队和防御工程人员。

10 legislative   

n.立法机构，立法权；adj.立法的，有立法权的

参考例句：

• Congress is the legislative branch of the U.S. government.国会是美国政府的立法部门。
• Today's hearing was just the first step in the legislative process.今天的听证会只是展开立法程序的第一步。

11 presidency   

n.总统(校长，总经理)的职位(任期)

参考例句：

• Roosevelt was elected four times to the presidency of the United States.罗斯福连续当选四届美国总统。
• Two candidates are emerging as contestants for the presidency.两位候选人最终成为总统职位竞争者。

12 assassination   

n.暗杀；暗杀事件

参考例句：

• The assassination of the president brought matters to a head.总统遭暗杀使事态到了严重关头。
• Lincoln's assassination in 1865 shocked the whole nation.1865年，林肯遇刺事件震惊全美国。

13 taxpayers   

纳税人，纳税的机构( taxpayer的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Finance for education comes from taxpayers. 教育经费来自纳税人。
• She was declaiming against the waste of the taxpayers' money. 她慷慨陈词猛烈抨击对纳税人金钱的浪费。

14 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

15 specialty   

n.(speciality)特性，特质；专业，专长

参考例句：

• Shell carvings are a specialty of the town.贝雕是该城的特产。
• His specialty is English literature.他的专业是英国文学。

16 enacted   

制定（法律），通过（法案）( enact的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• legislation enacted by parliament 由议会通过的法律
• Outside in the little lobby another scene was begin enacted. 外面的小休息室里又是另一番景象。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹

17 amendment   

n.改正，修正，改善，修正案

参考例句：

• The amendment was rejected by 207 voters to 143.这项修正案以207票对143票被否决。
• The Opposition has tabled an amendment to the bill.反对党已经就该议案提交了一项修正条款。

18 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。