Does More Federal Aid Raise Tuition Costs? Not For Most Students, Research Says

"I'm here to raise a warning flag with American students and American taxpayers," Education Secretary Betsy DeVos said at a conference about federal student aid in Atlanta in November. "We have a crisis in higher education."

The cost of college has risen dramatically in recent decades, she told her audience. "It has something to do with what one of my predecessors famously pointed out decades ago. When the federal government loans more taxpayer money, schools raise their rates."

That predecessor, former Secretary of. It became the Bennett Hypothesis, and researchers have studied it extensively in recent years. Results and opinions are mixed — but there's isn't definitive evidence that federal aid is driving up costs across all types of schools.