Joe Biden admitted at a talk at Florida State University the other day that, yes, federal student-financial-assistance programs probably did contribute to rising college costs. That was newsworthy, and I suspect a statement that was not vetted by the White House (not the first Biden rhetorical faux pas from the Administration’s perspective.)

The Biden statement flies in the face of the generally perceived wisdom among supporters of the federal student-loan and grant programs, namely that these programs really have little impact on college costs. The Biden admission, however, implicitly agrees with those who argue the gains from these programs to college students are significantly dissipated by the fee-raising behavior of the schools enrolling the affected students.

Biden, in effect was embracing an idea first vocally proclaimed by Bill Bennett, then Secretary of Education, in 1987…

Read More

One of the major rationales for public subsidies of higher education is that colleges are supposed to make students more virtuous–better persons. We are told a college education strengthens awareness of the difference between right and wrong, enhances the impulse to help one’s fellow citizens, and reinforces a respect for the rule of law and the negative consequences of corruption. Some cite statistics showing lower crime rates amongst college graduates as evidence of the effectiveness of colleges as purveyors of virtuous behavior. Early in my odyssey in higher education, say around 1960, these civic virtues were reinforced at liberal-arts colleges by mandatory attendance by students at chapel, even at nonreligiously affiliated institutions. Still earlier, the instilling of civic virtues was the ostensible major purpose of higher education.

Yet today, not only is virtue downplayed,…

Read More

Whatever else one might say about President Obama, he has good political instincts, so the heavy emphasis he is placing lately on college costs suggests this issue is breaking through the minimum threshold level of interest to make it a topic in the coming presidential/congressional campaigns. His suggestion that colleges should lose federal aid if they raise tuition too much will probably resonate well with many of all political persuasions; a former top GOP member on the House Education Committee, Buck McKeon once proposed something very similar.

I found myself in a little mini-debate with University of California President Mark Yudof about this last Friday on the PBS “NewsHour.” President Yudof, whom I greatly respect, made the usual argument about falling state appropriations being a major cause of rising college costs. I conceded that point, but argued that College Board data…

Read More

The announcement of agreements between Burck Smith’s StraighterLine and the Education Testing Service (ETS) and the Council on Aid to Education (CAE) to provide competency test materials to students online is potentially very important, along with several other recent developments. A little economics explains why this is so.

In the first week of beginning economics courses, professors usually make this fundamental point: If the price of something rises a lot, people look for substitutes. Resources (dollars) are scarce, and individuals want to make the best use of them. They “maximize their utility” by shifting away from high-priced good or service A to lower-priced good B.

With regards to colleges, consumers typically have believed that there are no good substitutes–the only way a person can certify to potential employers that she/he is pretty bright, well educated, good at…

Read More

Below is an abstract of a speech summarizing my thoughts on some of the shortcomings of American higher education today, although let me note that in the speech (which I gave at St. Cloud State University, in Minnesota), I also talk of the strengths of our system of colleges and universities:

Let me enumerate in a very sketchy way what I believe are 12 “inconvenient truths about American higher education,” which will be forming the basis of longer writings over the course of the year, some of which probably will be mentioned in this space. While not all of these truths are self-evident, I think they all have enough basis in fact to suggest cumulatively American universities have a lot of problems.

Inconvenient Truth #1: College Costs Are Rising Both for Students and Society

We all know that tuition fees, adjusted for inflation, are rising a lot over time, even after allowing for…

Read More

When one thinks of geographic concentrations of greatness in American higher education, one probably starts with Massachusetts, which is probably the home to more top-flight elite private schools per square mile than any other state. After all, in a relatively small area are located the likes of such great universities as Harvard, MIT, Boston University, Tufts, Brandeis, etc., as well as some extraordinarily highly regarded liberal-arts colleges, including top ranked Williams and Amherst.

Thinking of public universities, people look to California with its world-class University of California, as well as its large network of community colleges and other state universities. Rivaling California  qualitatively is Virginia, whose top state schools, such as the University of Virginia and the College of William and Mary, are amongst the nation’s best by almost any reckoning.

But I think …

Read More

Paraphrasing Dickens, “These are the best of schools, the worst of schools.” Higher education in America is to be both rightly praised and damned.  It has both saints and sinners, angels and demons. If forced to give it a grade, using the more rigorous grading standards of the Golden Era (the 1950s and 1960s), I would give it a “C+.”if I were in a good mood, a “C” if I were in a bad one. Using today’s grading standards, it would do better, maybe a “B-.” But it is certainly not the “A+” sector of the economy that university presidents would lead you to believe.

On a positive note, in some ways the claim that America “has the best universities in the world” is true, as international rankings agree. We seem to be able to do cutting-edge research very well in American universities, albeit at a high price. The fact that we are a significant net importer of students, despite inane …

Read More

Universities are communities of scholars—faculty and students. The “administration” has the job of seeing that bills get paid, buildings are provided, funds are raised, etc. But university presidents should not use their position to advocate a public policy position or make judgments about scientific truth, with the one possible exception of offering commentary on governmental programs or regulations that directly impact the institution’s ability to perform its mission.

Yet more and more, university presidents are taking stands, and are implying “our campus believes X, or we want policy Y to be adopted.” This is dangerous and a further example of how modern universities try to stamp out diversity of ideas in order to promote the fad of the moment in the liberal intellectual community. Colleges should be marketplaces of ideas, where diverse views can be freely expressed but where the…

Read More

Are we on a threshold of a level of public interest in college costs where that topic becomes a major issue in the 2012 presidential election, rather than some small side issue? Economists like myself think margins are important—and at some point if the marginal benefit of something rises while the marginal cost falls, people will want more of it. A threshold is reached that moves people from apathy to action. We have been creeping towards that threshold in higher education for years, as rising college costs and decreased perceived benefits have led to more and more discussion: Is higher education worth it? Nonetheless, compared with issues such as unemployment, health care, environmental concerns, international terrorism, etc., higher education has been a small issue—mainly because at any moment of time it impacts only a small portion of the people—maybe 5 or 10 percent.

Two …

Read More

When I started my little research center (the Center for College Affordability and Productivity) a few years ago, I thought I would stay away from curricular and free speech issues, thinking there was enough to say and research to do concerning the economics of higher education. But events over the years make me realize that these issues are important, and that “productivity” involves relating outcomes to inputs (resources), and if freedom of inquiry and expression is stifled, outcomes are imperiled, and in a true sense, productivity falls.

All of this comes to mind recently.  I read that there are folks at Whitman College who are unhappy that, associated with a lecture the Charles Koch Foundation  sponsored at the college,  students were asked if they would provide e-mail addresses, presumably to allow the Foundation to contact them about other Foundation-associated activities…

Read More