Regardless of political leanings, this is the most salient point to me. What has been causing this? To me, this is one of the disasters that liberals and conservatives have both been responsible fro creating, liberals because of their insistence that everyone borrow as much money as they want, and conservatives for slashing higher education budgets, ensuring that students have to borrow that much. Whatever the case, the professor is correct that it's the wrong direction. I have no idea how we could reverse this trend, but I think it's a must (both on a human level and for practical, economic considerations). Anyway, no matter what your political leanings, this is a very interesting lecture, and I recommend reading it if you have some time.Today, only about 7% of recent college graduates come from the bottom-income quartile, compared with 12% in 1970 when federal aid was scarce. We’re going the wrong direction.