EDITORIAL: Who needs to pay tuition?

During the Democratic presidential primaries, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders sought to woo millennials by offering escalating proposals to make college “free.” It was the kind of cynical vote-buying scheme that passes for a serious policy proposal these days.

Besides, who needs to pay tuition when Barack Obama has a pen and a phone?

The General Accounting Office disclosed Wednesday that taxpayers are on the hook for an estimated $108 billion in expected default costs under student debt forgiveness programs that the president has unilaterally expanded in recent years. The price tag is almost double the most recent Department of Education estimates on taxpayer liability, Money magazine reported this week.

In addition the $108 billion covers loans made only through the current school year, meaning it is virtually certain to increase.

As the president has liberalized such plans — which base payments on a borrower’s income and then forgive outstanding debt after a time period ranging from 10 to 20 years — enrollment has more than tripled in the past three years, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The federal government now has a $1.26 trillion student loan portfolio. Predictably, the GAO found that the government’s accounting methods were deceptive and essentially designed to mislead taxpayers about the extent of defaults. Indeed, government officials and some progressive politicians — think Sen. Elizabeth Warren — have loudly proclaimed the administration’s nationalization of the student loan market would generate a surplus for Washington thanks to interest and other charges.

But that becomes less and less likely as the red ink piles up. “I’m not at all confident,” a higher education expert told the Journal, “that the federal government will end up making money on student loans.” Shocking.

“The administration has been manipulating the terms of the student loan program without the consent of Congress,” said a statement from Sen. Mike Enzi, a Wyoming Republican, “while shirking its statutory duty to carefully assess the cost impact of those changes.”

It’s also worth noting that these forgiveness programs appear to be helping mostly better-off graduates escape their obligations. Labor Department figures suggest “a disproportionate share of those benefiting from the plans are graduate-degree holders [who] typically have higher incomes and lower rates of unemployment,” the Journal pointed out.

President Trump will have plenty on the agenda after he takes the oath of office next month. Let’s hope wading into this morass on behalf of taxpayers will be a priority. During the campaign, Mr. Trump proposed tightening standards for debt forgiveness and reducing the Washington’s role in the student loan business paving the way for private lenders to step up.

Such reform can’t come too soon.