Clinton in 1998 made student debt unbankruptable; which makes all student debt prime investment because you know you're going to get paid back.
This has the unintended consequence that universities can keep raising tuition and you have to pay it. They will keep raising tuition far in excess of this.
He did sign the Higher Education Amendment in 1998, however that was bipartisan and near unanimous in both Congress. That bill introduced federally funded work study, and new types of loans such as PLUS and Perkins loans which did likely contribute to the cost inflation. It appears support for increased financialization of education went across the aisle at that time.
Well, it was pretty bipartisan, and over the past decades since the mid-70s loopholes have been slowly closing--in 2005 the ability to discharge loans for nonprofit schools was eliminated.
Weirdly, attempts to roll back these ridiculous restrictions have been bipartisan, too. In 2007, Hillary Clinton tried to restore the 7 year limit, and right now there's some Republican senator whose name I can't remember pushing a bill that would eliminate the hardship test.
Bankruptcy prevents banks and schools from shunting all the risk onto students. Given the state of higher ed, going to school isn't a guaranteed paycheck, and they need to stop lending like it is. This will hopefully force schools to control tuition costs.
A fantastic goal that's sadly incorrect. African Americans graduating university is still a very low rate.
So the goal was not successful, but the consequences is as bad as ever. The mistake made by Clinton now has this major issue that's being discussed by the Democratic presidential nominees. https://time.com/5613425/student-loan-forgiveness-bernie-san...
I suspect the better solution would have been Clinton not screwing up in the first place; but better yet until this is fixed the tuition problem will continue to be worse and worse.
This has the unintended consequence that universities can keep raising tuition and you have to pay it. They will keep raising tuition far in excess of this.