4) The federal government is subsidizing education generally, with market-distorting grants and below-market loans to students. Therefore, there is nothing keeping the price of tuition from rising to sop up these funds.
“Students are subsidizing research and other activities unrelated to teaching.”
That’s a good one. Funny ha ha.
But the tuition does subsidize all the administrative idiocy and that includes the psycho PC liberal indoctrination programs and schemes.
It all comes down to dumb kids (and their parents) falling for educrat propaganda. When there is a Great Turning Away by potential students, these institutions will have to straighten up their acts in a hurry.
And those endowments' investments are tax exempt, as are contributions to those endowments. So, unless you are one of the people contributing, your taxes are supporting these institutions, even the private ones.
Not everyone needs to go to some big university. Community colleges and vocational schools are great options.
Staff pay at a university must be outstanding?.
My daughter graduated from an IVY and we did it by a combination of grants, our savings and her working. No debt. She is married now and her hubby is paying for her grad school-Smirk!
“Many schools have enormous endowments, so big...”
In fairness, many of those universities spend a reasonable portion of their endowment income to support the university. The last time I looked, Harvard contributed 4% of its endowment as income to the university’s budget, which is a reasonable and prudent amount.
As otherwise mentioned, the problem is with costs. Many of these costs are brought on by government regulation, which is encouraged by the richest schools, as it serves to heighten the barrier to entry of upstarts to compete with the already-established vendors.
That being said, outside of community colleges, often, the better the reputation of a school, the less expensive it is for a middle-income family. Harvard, Princeton, and Yale are usually cheaper for the typical family than are schools lower down in the food chain, because of financial aid.
I have been saying for YEARS that the GOP should support two policies to stick it to these sorts of institutions:
-Make student loan debt dischargeable in bankruptcy
-Make discharged debt subject to “clawback” provisions from university endowments and funds
Those two reforms alone - even if it’s not yet politically possible to get the government out of student lending entirely - would do a whole lot to starve the liberal propaganda apparatus at one of its major sources.
Universities are some of the biggest political players in America.
They need to be threatened with the end of their tax exemption.
"If you think this one's good Kirk, just wait until you see my next scam."