This excerpt originally appeared in U.S. News & World Report on June 12, 2012.

Absent congressional action, the interest rates on federally subsidized student loans will double to 6.8 percent on July 1. Both President Barack Obama and former Gov. Mitt Romney have urged Congress to act before that deadline, but no one seems willing to state the obvious: The problem is not the interest rate but that the federal government subsidizes student loans at all.