Compelling info from the article....
While no single cause is attributed as the primary reason college tuition keeps increasing, several possible explanations have been offered on the subject. Each of these ideas explain the rise in tuition as a result of an imbalance in market-driven economics.
The Bennett Hypothesis
The more grant aid a college student and their family get, the more they are willing to pay for tuition; subsequently, this allows colleges to set higher rates of tuition.
The Golden Ticket Fallacy
Believing any college degree would result in improved future earnings results in college students doing less in-depth research on the cost of college, including tuition.
The Invisible Menu
The published prices of tuition do not include grant aid or discounts the student may receive. With the true cost of tuition obscured, colleges have trouble lowering prices to match their competition.
Oligopolistic Competition
For the majority of college students finding a college constrains them to their local geographic area. Without competition, the small number of local colleges in the area can keep tuition rates high.
Excessive Regulation
Regulation, accreditation, and federal subsidies make it difficult for innovative providers of higher education to emerge and offer the kind of competition the market needs to lower tuition prices.
I will try to say this nicely, but if you are talking about public universities, this is pretty ridiculous in light of the facts that are well known and agreed upon.
Back when America really was great, a big part of it was because we, as a society, agreed that a well educated population was critical to our growth and quality of life. We believed that to the extent that even people w/o children paid taxes to ensure that children and young adults were able to go to school, if they wished. We supported public education at all levels with heavy subsidies, especially from the states.
And then the 1990s came along and society (we), decided that we did not want to pay to educate the children of others, even though those children would one day be wiping the spittle off our chins and keeping the furnaces lit when we aged into our second childhoods.
We also saw a lot of animosity being directed and people who might be considered "smart" (ie, well educated). Being "smart" was uncool. And then we decided that universities being part of the government, were simply evil, and all of this became politically driven well. When we came to hate .gov, that included, most especially, the universities (except for the football teams, of course,
).
The result was that state legislatures started defunding universities. They also started tying lots of strings to what they did fund, which pulled money away from other parts of the basic bones of a liberal curriculum. (note, "liberal" here, does not equate to red-blue divisiveness, it simply means a broad and balances exposure to many topics and perspectives).
The result of all of this that, where the majority of a public university's budget was paid by the state and only a minority share (like 1/3 or less) was paid by the student and his or her family, now that ratio has completely flipped and more. I used to have graphics for all of this, but they are long lost and outdated anyway. But I was just looking this up for my former institution, which is a typical public school. Right now, Tuition is footing about 73% of the university's entire budget while the state of Iowa covers most of the rest, minus a 4-5% that comes from the indirect costs associated with research grants.
If you do not already know, check out how tuition prices are changed. Public universities cannot raise their tuition. They have to get permission to do so from boards or regents or other politically appointed people. Appointed by the same people that are doing their best to cut the knees out from under public universities (again, except for the football teams).
Your politicians raised tuition (indirectly by cutting state subsidies) because it has been popular to beat up on universities by cutting the budgets and hog-tying as much of the money they do spend to special issues that are not aiding the university's overall health and effectiveness.
Votes matter, and you should notice that the folks that do not like our public universities also tend to not like our public lands.
Sorry for the late-night rambling, but it I think it gives you a pretty good idea of where your tax dollars used to go and where they do not go any more.
Those of you that are 60 something years old, thank your lucky stars that you rode the last coat tails from when America was great, with the help of your fellow citizens. Those of you that are much younger, know that your politicians and your parental generation voted this in, and now America ain't so great.
what school?
