Has the deluge of federal aid to students – about $2 trillion worth since the 1960s – had an unintended effect of increasing the inflation of college costs? It is certainly at least a possibility.

One question to ask is whether colleges feel freer to raise their prices because they know students aren’t as constrained by higher costs. If more federal aid – or easier subsidized student debt – is available to pay for college, students may be able to pay more, colleges may reason. So, is this happening?

Consider two stories, both about how law schools are reacting to the coming federal forgiveness of student debt. As Politico reported last year:

“Top law schools have long helped graduates who choose public service over corporate law repay their loans after graduation. For graduates who went to work in a legal position at a government or nonprofit, schools would help cover loan payments for up to10 years. The idea was to help graduates pay off six-figure debt on a five-figure salary.

“But the programs couldn’t usually cover students’ entire monthly loan payment, which nationally averages more than $1,000. And once the 10 years were up, graduates were on their own to pay the remaining balance.

“Then Congress made two changes to student loans that magnified the power of school assistance programs, said Jason Delisle, director of the Federal Education Budget Project at the New America Foundation. Starting in 2006, graduate students could for the first time borrow enough from the federal government to cover the entire cost of their education.

“Then, in 2007, Congress created a sweeping public service loan forgiveness program. Borrowers who work for a nonprofit or the government for 10 years and make payments based on their income have their student loan balance canceled when the decade is up.”

Repayments based on income, especially for a lawyer with costly debt but a starting-income government jobs, would be low enough that a great deal of debt would remain after 10 years. Law schools could cover the payments for that first decade – “the money for law school repayment assistance programs usually comes out of tuition mostly paid with federal student loans,” Politico reports – and the remaining debt would be covered by taxpayers.

The result: A free legal education for lawyers to go to work for the government. The Wall Street Journal reported last month:

“Law schools at Columbia University, the University of Chicago and Georgetown University are among those offering some graduates additional aid to cover all or part of their minimum monthly payments under the federal plans.

“Max Norris, a 29-year-old lawyer for the state of California, illustrates the potential costs of the program. He pays about $420 a month to the Education Department on his $172,000 in debt, which he says fails even to cover the interest owed. But his out-of-pocket expense falls to $100 monthly after aid from his school, University of California's Hastings College of Law.

“Mr. Norris, who makes $60,000 a year in his job, would have about $225,000 in debt forgiven after 10 years, assuming he stays in public service and his salary rises 4% annually, according to a repayment calculator created by the New America Foundation, which advocates less-generous forgiveness.

“He said he learned of the programs before enrolling. ‘My intent the whole time in going through law school was to take advantage of this program,’ he said.

“Schools aren't shy in touting the programs' benefits.

“Georgetown said on its law-school website until recently the school's aid combined with the federal plan ‘means public interest borrowers might not pay a single penny on their loans—ever!’”

You can argue that such plans are worthwhile. Enrollment in federal student debt forgiveness plans has surged 40% in six months, the Journal reports, “to include at least 1.3 million Americans owing around $72 billion, U.S. Education Department records show.” I have doubts about piling more debt on our children and grandchildren to make life easier for people with costly law degrees in government jobs.

But what is indisputable is that colleges and students knew that the aid meant neither of them would have to worry about the cost of law school. They knew that taxpayers bear that cost, and not them.