2012 presumptive presidential nominee Mitt Romney released his higher education plan Wednesday, decrying the nation’s “education crisis.” During a speech before the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Romney blamed President Obama for rising tuition prices and increasing student debt.

Of course, tuition increases and growing debt are a phenomenon several decades in the making. And Romney’s plan would make the problem decidedly worse in two important ways, giving federal money away to Wall Street banks and predatory for-profit colleges, two industries to which Romney has extensive ties.

First, as he’s promised before, Romney intends to divert money away from student aid — instead giving it away to banks — by repealing Obama’s student loan reforms:

Reverse President Obama’s nationalization of the student loan market and welcome private sector participation in providing information, financing, and the education itself.

President Obama did not nationalize the student loan market. (Plenty of banks still make private sector student loans.) Instead, Obama and the Democrats cut private banks out of the federal student loan program, ending billions in subsidies that were needlessly going to banks for acting as loan middlemen. The money saved went into the Pell Grant program. Romney’s plan would entail taking away Pell money in order to pay Wall Street to service federal loans.

Second, Romney would remove regulations meant to protect students from predatory for-profit colleges:

Ill-advised regulation imposed by the Obama administration, such as the so-called “Gainful Employment” rule, has made it even harder for some providers to operate, while distorting their incentives.

This rule simply states that colleges leaving too many students crippled with debt and without good jobs lose their access to federal dollars. Many for-profit schools make nearly all of their revenue from the federal government — in the form of the various streams of aid used by their students — yet have much high rates of student loan default than public schools. Only 11 percent of higher education students in the country attend for-profit schools, but they account for 26 percent of federal student loans and 44 percent of student loan defaults.

Romney is already intimately tied to the for-profit college industry. Inside Higher Ed noted that two of his advisers “have lobbied on behalf of the Apollo Group, the parent company of the University of Phoenix.” On the campaign trail, Romney has effusively praised Full Sail University, a for-profit institution. And it seems that his policy platform would be a boon to this industry which is, in many instances, extremely predatory.

Unless Congress acts, interest rates on federal student loans will double from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent in July. House Republicans have been blocking efforts to prevent the increase, saying they will only agree to do so if Democrats gut a preventive health care fund. The House Republican budget — authored by Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) — called for allowing the increase to occur.

The House Republican budget also calls for cutting nearly one million students off of Pell Grants. But in an op-ed Ryan wrote over the weekend for the Wisconsin State Journal, he claimed that Republicans are just attempting to tackle “tuition inflation” with their plan for student loans:

The House-passed budget takes steps to tackle tuition inflation…Consequently, student loan debt is on pace to eclipse $1 trillion. This unprecedented level of borrowing, which has surpassed the national level of credit-card debt, is causing young people to graduate with mortgage-sized debt payments, a debilitating hurdle to clear as they seek to start a family, a career, or a business.

The House-passed budget addresses this problem by limiting the growth of open-ended financial-aid subsidies. Instead, we focus aid on low-income students who need help most. Furthermore, we propose to remove regulatory barriers that restrict competition, flexibility and innovation in higher education.

So to Ryan, the way to deal with growing student debt is to cut student aid and deregulate the industry, presumably to allow for-profit colleges to run even more wild than they already are. Ryan also claims that increasing student aid has driven tuition increases, which isn’t actually true.

Meanwhile, Ryan’s entire op-ed on student loans does not mention the fact that the interest rate on student loans will double in just over a month. Senate Republicans have been equally unconcerned with the rate increase, voting last week for several budgets that would allow it to occur. Earlier this month, Ryan said that he would not approve of closing corporate tax loopholes in order to cover the cost of preventing the rate increase.

Illinois Rep. Joe Walsh (R) last month announced his opposition to legislation that would prevent the interest rates on federal student loans from doubling in July, saying it amounted to giving everyone “basically free college education.”

Last weekend, in his first debate against his challenger, Tammy Duckworth (D), Walsh reiterated that position and again struggled to maintain control of basic facts regarding student loans. Walsh said he opposed efforts to prevent rates from doubling from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent because it would bring minimal benefit to students while adding to the national deficit, the Chicago Tribune reports:

Walsh defended his vote against a plan to keep student interest rates at 3.6 percent [sic] after a July 1 deadline, saying it would not result in the savings that have been touted. Walsh said new students would save just $7 a month while the national deficit would rise by $6 billion.

“This was a perfect issue that just typifies everything that’s wrong in Washington,” Walsh said. “Here was this president whose numbers might be down among young Americans. So what’s he going to do? He’s going to try to throw a bone to young Americans.“

Walsh’s assertions aren’t quite correct. The doubling of the current interest rate would cost students an average of $1,000 a year, or about $83 a month. And neither the House nor Senate version adds a single cent to the national deficit. Senate Democrats paid for their version by closing a tax loophole that benefits wealthy individuals. House Republicans have thus far refused to cover the cost by closing tax loopholes, instead choosing to pay for their version with cuts to the prevention fund from the Affordable Care Act.

Over the weekend, reformed deadbeat dad Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) smeared the push in Washington to keep student loan interest rates from doubling as giving away “free college education.”

Walsh’s remarks came at a town hall meeting in Wheeling, Illinois after being asked about the impending student loan showdown in Congress. Democrats are pushing to keep student loan interest rates from doubling their current rate in July; Republicans have blocked their efforts thus far. The Illinois congressman was beside himself with disbelief, telling the audience incredulously that President Obama was pushing for “basically free college education.”

CONSTITUENT: The latest debt twist of course is student loans, where the federal government has created such demand over the past 20 years that the cost of education has skyrocketed. I believe Congress wants to accommodate this reduction in the interest rate by paying for it, via reallocation of funds from some medical account. I believe the president wants simply to go further into debt. How will that play out and will the Republican House stay strong and if we want to subsidize that more can we at least pay for it?

WALSH: Look what this president’s doing. He was running around a month and a half ago basically saying, “free contraceptives for everybody.” Free contraceptives. What’s he been doing now the past couple weeks? Basically free college education. Student debt? Don’t worry about it. Don’t worry about it, you’ll pick it up.

Student loan interest rates will double from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent in two months if Walsh and House Republicans continue to block Democratic efforts to keep them low. Republicans passed an extension of the rate last week but paid for it with funds from health care reform, knowing Democrats would never accept it.

If an agreement isn’t reached, they will double at a time when student loan debt is larger than credit card debt and car loan debt across the country. As the cost of tuition has soared, so has the amount of money students have had to borrow to pay for their education. This is not about “free college education”; it’s about preventing student loan debt from becoming an even larger problem than it already is.