Richard Vedder of Ohio University and the American Enterprise Institute writes at Bloomberg View: "According to College Board data, total federal student financial assistance programs totaled $56.8 billion in 2001-2002, compared with $173.8 billion a decade later, an astonishing compounded annual rate of increase of 11.7 percent."
Almost as astonishing as the increase in the overall federal budget over the same period, according to the White House Office of Management and Budget: to $3.6 trillion in 2011 from $1.9 trillion in 2001. When you consider that the federal budget taken as a whole nearly doubled over the decade, the trebling of the federal financial aid budget, while still astonishing, is a little less astonishing than it might otherwise be.