[Willie Green]

Thread posted with Jacoby's column: Making college affordable

[RippleFire]

bump

[Bahbah]

60 years of federal tuition aid only has served to increase the cost of a college education.

I've beem saying this for years. What, is the world finally catching up?

[KiloLima]

Higher salaries for administration, too. More "programs," departments, chairs. Whoopeee!

[F. Barnard]

The rate of inflation is not the appropriate comparison for public school tuition, because state legislatures have been consistently cutting back the amount of money they give to public schools. Thus, even if public schools had not inceased spending at all on science equipment and buildings, sports programs and recreational facilities, dormitories, faculty, staff, student financial aid and the like, schools would have to charge the students more. As legislatures have spent less on public education, the cost of that education has been increasingly borne by individual students (rather than taxpayers). In fact, "public" schools (like the University of Virginia) are becoming almost independent of the state legislature.

Now, it may be appropriate to ask the students to pay rather than the taxpayers, but that's a separate question from why the costs are increasing or whether the increase in tuition is inappropriate. If you want a better comparison, look at how expenditure increases (not tuition) compare with inflation.

[Oblongata]

This theory also directly applies to the cost of health care.

[hosepipe]

[ "Every dollar that Washington generates in student aid is another dollar that colleges and universities have an incentive to harvest, either by raising their sticker price or reducing the financial aid they offer from their own funds." ]

Same thing with the price of drugs and health care in general.
Probably the price of all road building is adjusted "UP" by federal incursion too.. where does it stop... A smaller federal government across the board could start a virtual boom in U.S. business.. makeing for some REAL capitalism.. leaving all URP and Asia in the dust.. Exposing URPean socialism as the slavery by government that is..

[Mad Dawgg]

"The bottom line, as Cato Institute scholar Gary Wolfram found in a new study, is that "federal loans, Pell Grants and other assistance programs result in higher tuition for students ... ."

Hmmm introducing government inefficiency into a market results in higher prices and less efficiency? Who would have thunk it?

[o_zarkman44]

My son recently graduated from college. Tuition went up about 70% in the 3 1/2 years he was a student. Every year the amount of money borrowed was more to cover the increased tuition.

It seems like there are no controls over tuition increases.
Tuition goes up, borrowing goes up. More subsidy is involved. The college knows the student and the parents will sign the notes to cover. It is a crock. I agree with the premise of the article.

[tubebender]

Rush pointed this out years ago, just as subsidized rental fees increase the cost of renting a house or apartment...