[shrinkermd]

This is a superb essay discussing a difficult subject. This is a crucial issue in Minnesota where the budget for higher education--through Democrat and Republican Administrations--just keeps growing and growing.

Oh, if the world was just this would be on every Minnesota Legislator's desk!!!!

Policy makers seem to lack any idea of why they do things except a basic conviction if they spend more they get more. This is not true in higher education where at most 20% (IQs over 110) of the population can graduate from the usual academic college. Yet we have now forced this graduation rate to 28% in Minnesota and Governor Pawlenty (R) has a goal of 50%.

Egalitarianism as a political economic goal survives only because of ignorance; facing this is not easy.

[Jaysun]

Great post. And he did a great job of explaining how increased financial aid has caused higher tuition cost.

[smalltownslick]

Tax dollars shouldn't fund socialist indoctrination. Period.

[familyop]

"I think many of the kids going to college are innately superior to begin with, so the differential may have very little to do with what the college is doing."

I disagree with that, as I've seen many kids learning over long periods of time. The will to learn and efficiency in learning are not often dependent on genetics. Besides, too many of the students now are having to forgo needed literacy and math education while sucking up much political correctness.

But I agree very much with the rest of what the author wrote. University instructors and other teachers need to be subjected to the judgements of the market--a far better judge than any others available to us. Otherwise, we continue with special interests (corporates, for one), who inject their extraneous biases into education policies (for example, the long list of well known corporations that paid for filing briefs for "affirmative action" in the Michigan case). And the costs will continue to become ever more unreasonably high.

[lt.america]

I would also point out some of the majors that students receiving this funding have declared. I read an article a few years ago dealing with the astronomical debt that college graduates were leaving with after their stint was over, and it blew my mind how many liberal arts majors were hitting the work force with $50,000 in college loans.

I feel that if we are going to continue to subsidize education, we need to ensure that society as a whole will benefit and maybe add some more computer/information systems based degrees as opposed to some of the useless degrees that many are graduating with.

[happygrl]

In additional to these problems, there is a lot of neglect of students going on in universities as an unintended consequence of all this. The reduced teaching loads of faculty, the five- and six-year graduation rates, partly reflect—not entirely, but partly—closed classes, students not able to get into courses they want. There is evidence that resources have been declining in some relative sense for com­munity colleges and for liberal arts colleges, relative to the high research institutions.

It now takes upwards of six to seven years to get a two year Nursing degree from Community Colleges.

Meanwhile, California has the worst nurse to patient ratio in the country as a result. California has overfunded the gilded programs at the UC system level, while neglecting the basic educational programs that truly serve the taxpayer.

I have long advocated selling off the UC system, making it private, let them sink or swim on their own, without their silly gender and ethnic studies programs, pornography as art, and other wastes of the taxpayers money.

[traviskicks]

The black hole of 'education' funding. (here's another good article, IMO)





Libertarian ping! To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here.