Reagan Wrong, But Well-Tanned

PRESIDENT REAGAN acted out his own version of the lawgiver this Easter weekend, but his performance just didn't wash. Addressing the nation by radio from a Caribbean hilltop anion, he sharply denounced critics of his proposed cutbacks in student loans, denying that his Administration has been "snatching away" the loans with "Draconian cuts." But the President's "working vacation" message was not only unconvincing--it was dead wrong in belittling the impact of the cuts on America's students.

For one thing, the President alleged that the volume of federally guaranteed loans would grow in 1983 to "the highest level ever" under his proposal. But even his own officials dispute that contention; moments after the speech, an Office of Management and Budget spokesman predicted that, in fact, the number of recipients would drop by 100,000.

For another, he asserted that the amount of loans offered by private lenders promises to fill the gap left by his reductions in, direct federal aid. Yet there seems no evidence to support that prediction. And for all his angry retorts, the President failed to address his critics' principal objection: that the revision in aid eligibility he has put forth will actually make it dramatically harder for most students to procure aid. Graduate students, for one obvious example, would become ineligible for the low cost loans that have made higher education accessible to so many. And one the home front, the signals given off by the President's cuts seem to have dramatically reduced the number of poor applicants here, threatening this University's diversity.

We've criticized the substance of the Reagan aid cuts proposals many a time, and need not repeat those objections. But the President's five-minute sermon from the mount this weekend suggests an equally fundamental criticism: that on a topic as critical as federal education policy, he remains ignorant of the ramifications of his recommendations and uninterested in learning more: If the President's "working vacations" are only going to breed haphazard pronouncements on issues of grave importance, we'd just as soon see our Chief Executive eliminate the "work" from his vacations altogether.