RISK-BASED PRICING: Should student loans be priced differently according to major? “Without risk-based pricing of student loans, there may be no reliable price signal about the long-term financial risks inherent in different courses of study. This lack of price signals undermines students’ ability to make informed decisions about the course of study that will best balance their innate abilities and individual preferences with postgraduate economic opportunities. Similarly, the lack of price signals may undermine post-secondary educational institutions’ ability to adjust their programs to improve their students’ postgraduate prospects. Misallocation of educational resources is not only harmful to individual students and their families — it could threaten to undermine the productivity and competitiveness of the U.S. labor force and the U.S.’s ability to continue to invest in education and research.”

If we’d priced student loans this way, we probably wouldn’t have had a higher education bubble.