Note: travel has limited writing time. In light of the NDP releasing their New Deal for People, it seemed a good time to re-run this post on the whether the federal government “profits” from the student loan program. Congrats and thanks to the NDP for releasing their platform early, but the claim that is “profiting from student debt” is highly suspect, especially since the 2019 budget reduced interest rates on the loans.

You’ll remember a couple of weeks ago I took the Ontario NDP to task for an absurd meme about the provincial government “profiting” from student loans. But it occurred to me later than though there is no way the charge sticks against the provincial government, it arguably might about the federal government’s Canada Student Loans Program (CSLP), which both borrows more cheaply and lends more dearly than the provincial government. So I decided to find out.

The data I am using in this blog comes from the latest CSLP Actuarial Report, which was published in 2012 (and hence presumably written in 2011). This is done periodically by the Chief Actuary of Canada (the same guy who makes sure the Canada Pension Plan is solvent). I suspect a lot of his data after 2011-12 is off because of the large jump in loan program usage after Ontario introduced the 30% tuition rebate midway through that year. The Actuary also assumed interest rates were going to rise throughout the decade (they haven’t), and more controversially, assumed enrollments would fall substantially over the same period (which they have in certain regions but not nationally). So to avoid these and other issues, I am simply going to use the 2011-12 projections, which have the least doubt about them as they are the least contaminated by dubious projections.

Here’s a quick summary of the estimated cost of the program: In-school (Class A) interest – that is, the interest government pays on student loans while students are in school and hence paying no interest – is $128 million (which is *tiny* considering that there are 400,000 borrowers per year – credit here to prolonged slow growth and the lowest interest rates in living memory). The Repayment Assistance Program, which subsidizes repayments for low-income borrowers in repayment, is another $169 Million. Then on top of that is the provision for bad debt. Based on long-term trends, the government puts aside 12.4% of every dollar lent on the assumption some people will default. That, plus the interest on the loans left outstanding comes to $376.2 million. Grand total: $673.2 million.

(There are also $650-odd million in grants plus $280 or so million in alternative payments to Quebec, Nunavut and NWT and $140 M in administration fees, which brings the total cost to a little over $1.7 billion or so, but put that aside for the moment.)

So to go back to our example from last week, the question is whether or not CSLP meets the Elizabeth Warren test for “profiting from students”: that is, does net income from the interest paid by students more than cover the cost of interest subsidies and defaults? Income from loans comes from the spread between the rate at which the government of Canada borrows (currently hovering around 1% on ten-year bonds) and the rate at which it lends to students (prime +2.5%, or currently 5.2%). The rates were slightly different in in 2011-12 but the 420 basis point spread has stayed pretty consistent. Which is a whole lotta basis points – it’s over three times the spread Ontario gets on its loans – and quite a lot of room in which to “make money”.

A lot, but not quite enough. The projection for revenue on interest paid for 2011-12 was $521.4 million. The cost of borrowing was $166 million, meaning that “net” revenue – that is, earning on the spread between loan costs and loan revenues – was $355 million. So the huge spread the federal government has on student loans more or less covers the cost of defaults, but still leaves the government’s Consolidated Revenue Fund to pay nearly $300 million for loan costs such as Class A interest and RAP, not to speak of another billion or so for the Canada Student Grants, the alternative payments and administration.

The lesson to be learned from all this is that student loan programs are expensive. Even if you charge stonkingly high rates of interest with huge spreads, loan losses from defaults and interest subsidies will eat those up and more. There are no profits to be seen here.