Higher education tuition increases fueled by?
Salon points us to a primary reason public higher education tuition inflation has occurred that is left out of election rhetoric, more so than the suggested availability of Pell grants. And of course the selling of the need for one by us all.
The problem: The word “public” doesn’t mean as much as it used to. Direct state support for public colleges has cratered over the past 10 years, and really fell off the cliff after the financial crisis. Yes, tuitions have risen, but not by as much as state and local appropriations for higher education have fallen. Just between 2008 and 2009, for example, average tuition revenue at public research institutions increased by $369 per student, but the loss in state and local appropriations per student was $751. Similarly, at public community colleges, tuition revenue rose by $113 per student, while appropriations fell by $488. Since the recession of 2001, tuition hikes, as exorbitant as they have been, still haven’t kept pace with the fall in government support.
The bottom line: For the large majority of college students, rising tuitions have nothing to do with the availability of student loans or Pell Grants. What’s happening, instead, is that the burden of paying for college that was previously provided directly by government has now been shifted onto the backs of students…
The article makes a good point but I can’t help thinking something essential is being missed. Student loans are one of the few examples of recourse debt that most people will have any experience with. The recourse is one that is uniquely enforced by the feds including the SSA and the IRS. In this sense a loan officer at DeVry actually has power greater than a federal bankruptcy judge; she can do something the magistrate is powerless to undo.
So the direct subsidies to universities are now in some sense massive subsidies to private lenders – most of whom scoop up fat margins and fees on debt that carries little to no risk. It’s not bad work if you can get it, as my dad used to say.
Here’s a story from Truthout on senior citizens having their paltry SSA checks garnished to repay student loans. http://truth-out.org/news/item/9054-indentured-servitude-for-seniors-social-security-garnished-for-student-debts
As a matter of public policy I guess the goal was to make our education system as corrupt and wildly inefficient as our pitiful health care system. Quelle surprise.
The article makes a good point but I can’t help thinking something essential is being missed. Student loans are one of the few examples of recourse debt that most people will have any experience with. The recourse is one that is uniquely enforced by the feds including the SSA and the IRS. In this sense a loan officer at DeVry actually has power greater than a federal bankruptcy judge; she can do something the magistrate is powerless to undo.
So the direct subsidies to universities are now in some sense massive subsidies to private lenders – most of whom scoop up fat margins and fees on debt that carries little to no risk. It’s not bad work if you can get it, as my dad used to say.
Here’s a story from Truthout on senior citizens having their paltry SSA checks garnished to repay student loans. http://truth-out.org/news/item/9054-indentured-servitude-for-seniors-social-security-garnished-for-student-debts
As a matter of public policy I guess the goal was to make our education system as corrupt and wildly inefficient as our pitiful health care system. Quelle surprise.
The article makes a good point but I can’t help thinking something essential is being missed. Student loans are one of the few examples of recourse debt that most people will have any experience with. The recourse is one that is uniquely enforced by the feds including the SSA and the IRS. In this sense a loan officer at DeVry actually has power greater than a federal bankruptcy judge; she can do something the magistrate is powerless to undo.
So the direct subsidies to universities are now in some sense massive subsidies to private lenders – most of whom scoop up fat margins and fees on debt that carries little to no risk. It’s not bad work if you can get it, as my dad used to say.
Here’s a story from Truthout on senior citizens having their paltry SSA checks garnished to repay student loans. http://truth-out.org/news/item/9054-indentured-servitude-for-seniors-social-security-garnished-for-student-debts
As a matter of public policy I guess the goal was to make our education system as corrupt and wildly inefficient as our pitiful health care system. Quelle surprise.
The article makes a good point but I can’t help thinking something essential is being missed. Student loans are one of the few examples of recourse debt that most people will have any experience with. The recourse is one that is uniquely enforced by the feds including the SSA and the IRS. In this sense a loan officer at DeVry actually has power greater than a federal bankruptcy judge; she can do something the magistrate is powerless to undo.
So the direct subsidies to universities are now in some sense massive subsidies to private lenders – most of whom scoop up fat margins and fees on debt that carries little to no risk. It’s not bad work if you can get it, as my dad used to say.
Here’s a story from Truthout on senior citizens having their paltry SSA checks garnished to repay student loans. http://truth-out.org/news/item/9054-indentured-servitude-for-seniors-social-security-garnished-for-student-debts
As a matter of public policy I guess the goal was to make our education system as corrupt and wildly inefficient as our pitiful health care system. Quelle surprise.
The article makes a good point but I can’t help thinking something essential is being missed. Student loans are one of the few examples of recourse debt that most people will have any experience with. The recourse is one that is uniquely enforced by the feds including the SSA and the IRS. In this sense a loan officer at DeVry actually has power greater than a federal bankruptcy judge; she can do something the magistrate is powerless to undo.
So the direct subsidies to universities are now in some sense massive subsidies to private lenders – most of whom scoop up fat margins and fees on debt that carries little to no risk. It’s not bad work if you can get it, as my dad used to say.
Here’s a story from Truthout on senior citizens having their paltry SSA checks garnished to repay student loans. http://truth-out.org/news/item/9054-indentured-servitude-for-seniors-social-security-garnished-for-student-debts
As a matter of public policy I guess the goal was to make our education system as corrupt and wildly inefficient as our pitiful health care system. Quelle surprise.
The article makes a good point but I can’t help thinking something essential is being missed. Student loans are one of the few examples of recourse debt that most people will have any experience with. The recourse is one that is uniquely enforced by the feds including the SSA and the IRS. In this sense a loan officer at DeVry actually has power greater than a federal bankruptcy judge; she can do something the magistrate is powerless to undo.
So the direct subsidies to universities are now in some sense massive subsidies to private lenders – most of whom scoop up fat margins and fees on debt that carries little to no risk. It’s not bad work if you can get it, as my dad used to say.
Here’s a story from Truthout on senior citizens having their paltry SSA checks garnished to repay student loans. http://truth-out.org/news/item/9054-indentured-servitude-for-seniors-social-security-garnished-for-student-debts
As a matter of public policy I guess the goal was to make our education system as corrupt and wildly inefficient as our pitiful health care system. Quelle surprise.
oh dear and it won’t let me delete the extras either… I guess I shouldn’t have clicked “retry” (I only did it once honest!) apologies to all…
oh dear and it won’t let me delete the extras either… I guess I shouldn’t have clicked “retry” (I only did it once honest!) apologies to all…
oh dear and it won’t let me delete the extras either… I guess I shouldn’t have clicked “retry” (I only did it once honest!) apologies to all…
Well, there were people pointing this out back in 2005, when a bipartisan congress happily passed the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 2005, which was where they made some of these debts non-dischargeable in bankruptcy. How many Democrat congressmen and senators are willing to revisit that particular dog’s breakfast? That’s one financial “reform” we desperately need, and I don’t believe we’re likely to get it. There are others that would help, too, but restoring bankruptcy would be a big first step.
Actually the history of non-dischargeable student debt goes back a good deal farther. It was in the 80s that we exempted student loan debt (federal) from BK (Thanks again Saint Ronnie!). The little adjustment in 2005 extended that particular form of insanity to private student loan debt iirc…
Actually the history of non-dischargeable student debt goes back a good deal farther. It was in the 80s that we exempted student loan debt (federal) from BK (Thanks again Saint Ronnie!). The little adjustment in 2005 extended that particular form of insanity to private student loan debt iirc…
Actually the history of non-dischargeable student debt goes back a good deal farther. It was in the 80s that we exempted student loan debt (federal) from BK (Thanks again Saint Ronnie!). The little adjustment in 2005 extended that particular form of insanity to private student loan debt iirc…
Higher education is:
labor intensive
capital intensive
and now, technology intensive
I think costs could be brought down in many schools if we changed the models so that more professors were doing more teaching and a slect fewer professors were the research aces.
I will let Thomas Frank reply from his excellent op-ed in the June Harper’s:
“Ordinarily, conservatives are willing to believe the absolute worst about the groves of academe. In their view, college is a gilded re-education camp, where innocent children of the entrepreneurial class are turned into brainwashed Maoist cadres, chanting slogans and grinding away the hours in a sexual frolic. The university’s scholarly departments, they believe, are filled with political extremists; its graduates are snobs; its concern with diversity is a form of censorship; its scientists tell lies in order to further the “global warming” power grab or prepare the ground for more stem-cell monkey business.
Academia’s pricing, however, is apparently A-OK. Nothing wrong here. Consumers shop around, they compare and contrast, and they get the best deal they can, reassured all the while by their awareness that competition works. Just don’t come whining to the government for help“
(emphasis mine) Read the whole thing if you can (sorry not available online except to subscribers) – he also covers the sorry history of price fixing among elite universities in the late 80s early 90s when GHW Bush’s DOJ forced a consent degree against the Ivies.
I will let Thomas Frank reply from his excellent op-ed in the June Harper’s:
“Ordinarily, conservatives are willing to believe the absolute worst about the groves of academe. In their view, college is a gilded re-education camp, where innocent children of the entrepreneurial class are turned into brainwashed Maoist cadres, chanting slogans and grinding away the hours in a sexual frolic. The university’s scholarly departments, they believe, are filled with political extremists; its graduates are snobs; its concern with diversity is a form of censorship; its scientists tell lies in order to further the “global warming” power grab or prepare the ground for more stem-cell monkey business.
Academia’s pricing, however, is apparently A-OK. Nothing wrong here. Consumers shop around, they compare and contrast, and they get the best deal they can, reassured all the while by their awareness that competition works. Just don’t come whining to the government for help“
(emphasis mine) Read the whole thing if you can (sorry not available online except to subscribers) – he also covers the sorry history of price fixing among elite universities in the late 80s early 90s when GHW Bush’s DOJ forced a consent degree against the Ivies.
I will let Thomas Frank reply from his excellent op-ed in the June Harper’s:
“Ordinarily, conservatives are willing to believe the absolute worst about the groves of academe. In their view, college is a gilded re-education camp, where innocent children of the entrepreneurial class are turned into brainwashed Maoist cadres, chanting slogans and grinding away the hours in a sexual frolic. The university’s scholarly departments, they believe, are filled with political extremists; its graduates are snobs; its concern with diversity is a form of censorship; its scientists tell lies in order to further the “global warming” power grab or prepare the ground for more stem-cell monkey business.
Academia’s pricing, however, is apparently A-OK. Nothing wrong here. Consumers shop around, they compare and contrast, and they get the best deal they can, reassured all the while by their awareness that competition works. Just don’t come whining to the government for help“
(emphasis mine) Read the whole thing if you can (sorry not available online except to subscribers) – he also covers the sorry history of price fixing among elite universities in the late 80s early 90s when GHW Bush’s DOJ forced a consent degree against the Ivies.
Why, exactly, is a watered-down diploma, in a country that no longer makes anything, the responsibility of the taxpayer? Yes, of course, one may always argue that a better educated population is a social good – but so is everything else in the world. Tuition is best set by the insitution, the cost best borne by the student. If tuition is too high, the institution will get the message. If a BA in a particular field from a particular school is a money loser due to tuition, there is some thinking to be done by the student, no? Why should the taxpayer subsidize a degree that has no net value?
The role of government should be as referee. Ensure that lenders and schools completely disclose the cost of an education. Then let the potential student decide.
I don’t understand your argument, MD. “Why, exactly, is a watered-down diploma, in a country that no longer makes anything … “. Are you saying that BA degress were required for jobs in manufacturing? Isn’t it just the opposite? Don’t you need an education more in an economy where there are fewer decent paying jobs that DON’T require an education? Good lord …