Likening MSU to a credit card company might seem drastic, but every term sees this university — among countless others — acting more like a private business and less like a public institution. Society forces students to buy education through the widespread notion that without it, the hallowed gates of the suburbs will be closed to them.

Tuition goes up while wages go down. Money is spent on advertising and amenities to keep up with other institutions. We are told to procure our own blue books while getting emails to buy sports tickets and platinum meal plans. All the while, most students have no knowledge and definitely no say in how their tuition dollars are spent.

MSU is not a business. This is not to say that education should be free, or even cheap, but the best path through the financial aspects of higher education should be accessible to students. The SFPB would help ensure this happens in the same way the CFPB ensures companies in the private sector are not fleecing consumers. As a public-in-name but private-in-practice entity, MSU does not have the motive to give students what is in their best interest financially.

The SFPB could employ several beneficial tactics to ensure students receive the education they pay for under the lowest financial burden. Tactics such as attaching warning labels to loans, providing easy to understand information about financial aid or singling out indebted and failing students for specific help so they don’t get lost in the system.

The agency could also ensure that universities aren’t embarking on misleading advertising campaigns and that universities are using tuition money to support education itself, not for other endeavors only remotely connected to the educational process.

These are only a few ideas being floated around these days to lower the costs of education and ensure universities are providing students with the product they pay for. However, none of these programs will ever become a reality unless universities are given an impetus to introduce them by some outside force, such as the kind of bureau I’m proposing.

As far as reining in the cost of college goes, there certainly are many arguments against my approach, chiefly among them the already bloated size of our government. But the addition of an agency like this is more necessary than most other pieces of the bureaucratic machine – even Obama’s new CFPB.

Outstanding student debt in America now amounts to over $1 trillion, higher than credit card debt. We aren’t talking about a new car or house but an education; an asset that most would agree deserves more attention. With these facts in mind, it becomes obvious how necessary it is to ensure students and parents are more knowledgeable and universities more honest.

With MSU raising tuition 9.4 percent the last calendar year, I wonder how much longer students can wait for help, especially when individual student debt becomes a social problem. 19-year-olds who see no issue with $20,000 in student debt become 35-year-olds who see no issue with a $500,000 mortgage. Beyond irresponsible finances, though, it is questionable how much longer our government can support this trillion-dollar industry without passing any cost onto taxpayers.

A bureau such as the one I propose would be a good step toward solving these problems and making the business of higher education more ethical and accessible. Even this agency is never created, at the very least check your student account and make sure there aren’t any avoidable fees buried in there.

Christian Hokans is a State News guest columnist and political theory and constitutional democracy junior. Reach him at hokansch@msu.edu.