Ron Paul has previously stated that he would do away with Department of Education and the federal student loan program and he was offered to the opportunity to retract that statement during Wednesday night’s CNBC “Your Money, Your Vote” Republican debate.  Paul declined.  

Instead, the Texas congressman said the federal student loan program was a “total failure.”  When pressed to answer on how students could be expected to pay for college without a federal student loan program, Paul offered this suggestion: “the way you pay for cell phones and computers, competition and quality goes up and the price will go down.”

Paul appeared to have company in the “end the federal student loan” camp – former House Speaker Newt Gingrich who called the program absurd.  

“[The federal student loan program] allows students to stay in college because they don’t see cost.  It allows them to tolerate tuitions going up absurdly, and in return they stay in school longer,” Gingrich said.