The Federal Reserve’s asset purchases lowered borrowing costs and helped the economy, and more buying could further ease financial conditions, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said on Monday.

“I don’t have a number to give you, but I do think that the additional purchases, although we don’t have precise numbers, have the ability to ease financial conditions,” Bernanke said.

The Fed bought $1.7 trillion of mortgage-related and Treasury bonds after cutting benchmark interest rates to near zero to combat the financial crisis and help the economy pull out of a severe recession.

Financial markets expect the Fed to embark upon another round of asset buying to bolster a sluggish recovery as early as its November meeting, but policymakers remain divided about the effectiveness of further purchases.

Earlier Monday, the head of the New York Fed’s markets group, Brian Sack, said arguments that further purchases won’t affect the economy were “overstated.”

Bernanke said he was convinced that the Fed’s purchases had lowered borrowing costs, which in turn spurred the recovery.

The purchase program “increased the willingness of investors to take a reasonable amount of risk and create some support for the economy,” he said. “I think it was an effective program.”

In September, the Fed said it was ready to take further steps if needed to help the U.S. recovery and lift inflation.

In a wide-ranging, hour-long forum with university students, Bernanke also defended the government’s often-criticized program to support banks during the global financial crisis.

The Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, has turned out to be a “pretty good investment” for taxpayers as the money lent to banks is returned with interest, he said.

Many people don’t understand that the financial bailout fund was designed to help the economy, not the banks, and that the country’s economic downturn would have been much worse without it, Bernanke said.

The $700 billion program was approved by the U.S. Congress at the height of the financial crisis in October 2008. The program ended Sunday as the Treasury Department’s authority to make new investments expired.

The Obama administration said last week the ultimate cost of the program to taxpayers was likely to come in below $50 billion.

Bernanke, speaking to about 150 students from universities across Rhode Island, tried to allay their fears about facing huge student loans and a weak jobs market upon graduation.

“I’m sorry the economy is not stronger for you right now, but it will get stronger,” he said.