I’m not sure I understand. What’s the difference in incentives colleges in lowering tuitions whether the government pays them directly or indirectly through th

I’m not sure I understand. What’s the difference in incentives colleges in lowering tuitions whether the government pays them directly or indirectly through the students? They are getting paid either way. Unless there was a cap that was removed that I missed. And the students are picking up the same loan amounts whether it was originally backed by the government, or originated from the government. The chart in the figure also doesn’t line up with the claims, with college inflation deviating from before the law was passed, and then a further increase in growth starting over a decade after it passed. Anecdotally, having been heavily involved in the student govt affairs of a major state university at the time a lot of these tuition increases happened, what we saw was: 1) A huge pullback in state govt tuition support. 2) Coinciding with a massive increase in spending on athletics and buildings 3) leading to my otherwise extremely price competitive state college becoming as expensive as the equivalent private college a few streets down the road. 4) Followed a few years later by an increase in tuition at the private college. This was once again further entrenched after the 2007-2009 financial crisis.