We're just at a loss about the silliness today.

We just don't know what say about this. Sen Kennedy, in today's Huffington Post is making some leaps of logic that would make Sherlock Holmes roll over in his grave (if he weren't a fictional character).

Apparently the loan level guarantees that the government provides on FFELP loans "could and should be used to make college more affordable and debt more manageable." Well, OK. but the affordability of college is not a function of borrowing money. Affordability of college is a direct function of the tuition levels. Nevertheless, we should spank the financial intermediary function because tuition is so high.

In his rambling post, Kennedy, seems to imply that private education lenders charge too much money. OK....this is like telling a bank that they are charging too much money for an auto loan. Well, you know what? If the interest rate is too high, then don't take out the loan. You have a choice! Banks charge interest based on the ability to pay a loan back. If the credit underwriting is such that the borrower has a poor likelihood of repaying the loan, then that risk will be built into the cost to borrow the money. These decisions are all made systematically based on automated credit decisioning platforms.

To imply that banks are making too much money in FFELP and Private Ed lending is to imply that the free-market does not work. Sure, there are instances where the free-market hiccups and a benevolent government must step in to right the cart. But what we have here is hardly a tipped cart. We just have skyrocketing tuition.

We're curious to see how Sen. Kennedy proposes to fix the system. He can't possibly suggest that the Direct Loan program be the savior to all these problems! Using Holmesian logic, twisted a la Kennday, would lead to the conclusion that the government is better at building and operating a business than the open market ever could.