Why colleges might not want to advise students against debt

While researching student debt, I came across this New York Times article from last year that had an interesting angle on why colleges might not want to counsel students against taking on a lot of debt to attend their school:

There’s a branding problem. Urging students to attend a cheaper college or leave altogether suggests a lack of confidence about the earning potential of alumni. Nobody wants to admit that. And once a university starts encouraging middle-class students to go elsewhere, it must fill its classes with more children of the wealthy and a much smaller number of low-income students to whom it can afford to offer enormous scholarships. That’s hardly an ideal outcome either.

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