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The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” or H.R.1, is stirring up debate. My colleague, Kali Jerrard, provided an excellent summary of the bill on Tuesday: this House-passed bill cuts $350 billion over a decade through risk-sharing, eliminates Grad PLUS and subsidized loans, restricts Parent PLUS loans, and caps student loans based on a program’s median cost. The bill is a robust reform package for higher education, but the left is pushing back hard. They argue that capping student loan lending amounts to gatekeeping higher education for the wealthy. But they couldn’t be more mistaken.

The federal student loan program, ironically, has limited access for low-income students, as economist Richard Vedder recently argued. “The evidence is clear that the program has driven up college costs,” creating a $1.7 trillion student debt crisis.

And what’s the payoff for this financial catastrophe?

The U.S. Department of Education reports that over 5 million borrowers are in default—loans at least 270 days overdue—and 4 million more are in late-stage delinquency, putting nearly 25 percent of the $1.7 trillion loan portfolio at risk. Many borrowers have unimaginably large balances because limitless lending has spurred colleges to raise tuition, capturing as much federal money as possible, with college costs soaring 1,200 percent since 1980.

Additionally, as I noted last week, the program pushed millions, many of whom were unsuited for college, into higher education, fueling degree inflation and rendering many credentials worthless in the job market. With tuition costs soaring, students borrow heavily, expecting financial success, only to find degrees—often unrelated to available jobs—yield no return on investment. To be sure, a college education holds intrinsic value—I studied history myself—but borrowing thousands for fields like history, banking on high-paying jobs to repay loans, is a false promise the government shouldn’t enable.

[RELATED: The Senate Can Strengthen Student Loan Accountability—Here’s How]

I sympathize with the left on the idea that education should be affordable—I’d prefer it be free—but their defense of limitless funding ignores how it inflates costs, pricing out the very students they claim to champion. Colleges charge exorbitant rates because they know the “Bank of the Taxpayer,” as Matt Lamb, Associate Editor of the College Fix, puts it, is “always open.” “Right now, colleges have little incentive to control costs.”

This toxic mix of unchecked lending and false promises has sparked disasters before. “The 2007-2008 financial crisis shows that virtually limitless spending is sure to end in disaster,” Lamb added. In the early 2000s, the government, seeking to increase equity, pressured banks to accept subprime borrowers, resulting in the creation of risky mortgages that were repackaged into safe financial investment tools. Housing prices soared, defaults surged—fueled by Wall Street’s greed and credit agencies’ false ratings—and the crash inevitably followed. “Mortgages at least had collateral,” Lamb noted. Student loan defaults? Taxpayers foot the whole bill.

“Placing limits on how much can be borrowed is a common-sense approach to keeping costs down for higher education,” Lamb told me. “Since we taxpayers bail out defaulted loans, it’s only fair we set a limit.”

If students can’t borrow $100,000 for a degree in medieval poetry, colleges can’t charge it. “The student is the consumer, and if there’s a ceiling on how much money the student has, then other options will crop up to provide education at an affordable cost.”

In Lamb’s words, “money does not grow on trees.” I agree, and it’s high time our federal government acts like it.

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Image: “This Generation is Too Big to Fail (Student Loan Debt, Now $1-Trillion)” by Occupy* Posters on Flickr