So they are taking the money from the student loan program. It’s not really going to pay for the grants because that loan money is still available just at different institutions. It’s an accounting trick.
But those institutions are an easy target. The right views them as spreading leftist ideals and the left views them as bastions of privilege.
Of course if this passes it will be middle class kids that get hurt the worst.
The important point is who is benefiting from the subsidy? Just like the Federal tax credit for EVs benefit Tesla not the consumer, so too do student load subsidies benefit the universities, not the student.
When the Fed steps in to pay a portion of a consumer’s bill, if the supplier isn’t regulated, the supplier simply increases their prices exactly in line with the subsidy.
Consumers have a price they will bear, and that price is NET of any subsidies. It doesn’t really matter who technically “receives” the subsidy, directly to the supplier or to the consumer after the fact, because the purchasing decision works out the same either way if the supplier is free to increase prices.
Since the schools have high demand there is another student that will replace the loan recipient so the private school will not suffer one iota.
However the poor or middle class student just had their bootstraps cut off, the same ones that they'll be told they should've pulled themselves up by in 10-20 years when it's explained to them why they are not to have help with healthcare when they get cancer and have to stop working or why the banks are getting bailed out directly but their mortgage is definitely going to be foreclosed in the next housing crisis
However, we've made these loans non-dischargeable and people are basically on the hook to repay them no matter what and if they are going to pay them back they should have pretty broad freedom to use them at the school. If these were grants that didn't get paid back, I'd be a lot more sympathetic to the "well these have to be used at a state school and that's it, sorry, no free ride into the elite class today".
But these aren't bags full of cash that are not traceable, the students are going to pay these back come hell or high water, they should be able to use them where they want (within reason--we shouldn't be issuing loans to people to go to ITT Tech)