how does Gov't make college expensive

[trey4sports]

Ive heard Ron Paul and Peter Schiff talk about college, and how government is in the business of making college more expensive. I was wondering how it is that they do this?
Im trying to formulate a concise all-around argument and ive thought about some of these arguments....

do they create a barier to entry through subsidizing certain univirsities?
do they have excessive regulations pertaining to college?
do federal loans inhibit the growth of more efficient free-market loaning agencys?

[HenryKnoxFineBooks]

Ask yourself this: Education is all about information, we live in the information age, with computers and the internet being able to transfer information paperlessly, yet the cost of college raises faster than inflation.

[trey4sports]

bump for some more info

[micahnelson]

The government provides lending for this product, thus people can go into debt for it. Thus, people can "afford" it.

Without the lending colleges would have to work out their own programs and financing, and would not be able to attract people at such high prices. College tuition prices reflect the availability of government lending. Without it the price would drop.

[torchbearer]

When you subsidize something(grants/student loans), you get higher demand for it. Higher demand drives up prices.
Subsidizing something ends up hurting the poor in the long run... and in the end, you pay for it twice.

[Original_Intent]

The entire concept of diplomas is a load of B.S. and I have mine (B.S. that is)

I really hate that you cannot just study, learn from who you will or whatever source and then prove yourself in the marketplace.

Certifications, diplomas, licenses - a complete waste of time and money. The system is so screwed up it's sickening.

[muzzled dogg]

accreditation

[trey4sports]

The entire concept of diplomas is a load of B.S. and I have mine (B.S. that is)

I really hate that you cannot just study, learn from who you will or whatever source and then prove yourself in the marketplace.

Certifications, diplomas, licenses - a complete waste of time and money. The system is so screwed up it's sickening.

in a way you could, i mean you can apply anywhere you want with any education level however the marketplace values a piece of paper quite highly.

[torchbearer]

The entire concept of diplomas is a load of B.S. and I have mine (B.S. that is)

I really hate that you cannot just study, learn from who you will or whatever source and then prove yourself in the marketplace.

Certifications, diplomas, licenses - a complete waste of time and money. The system is so screwed up it's sickening.

I wasted many years and much money on a college degree.
Now I make my bones fixing computers and networks. A trade I learned from a mentor for free.
I make on average $75/hour, whereas, had i continued in sociology in this area, i'd make about $10 an hour or less.

[cindy25]

mainly student loans.
until the early 80s college was paid mostly by parents. part-time jobs paid for car expenses etc but parents accepted it as normal they would pay tuition and books.
student loans made it easy for parents to get out of this, and for states and private colleges to go wild with tuition and teacher salary increases.

[slothman]

The entire concept of diplomas is a load of B.S. and I have mine (B.S. that is)
I really hate that you cannot just study, learn from who you will or whatever source and then prove yourself in the marketplace.
Certifications, diplomas, licenses - a complete waste of time and money. The system is so screwed up it's sickening.

New movie "The Sickening" :D
I do agree though.
I have learned many things from books.
Unfortunatly I only have an HS diploma but I know many things college level.

[werdd]

I wasted many years and much money on a college degree.
Now I make my bones fixing computers and networks. A trade I learned from a mentor for free.
I make on average $75/hour, whereas, had i continued in sociology in this area, i'd make about $10 an hour or less.

IT seems to be just about the only area where people respect experiance, knowledge and seniority. Kids coming right out of college with IT degrees know virtually nothing, but how to count binary. Completely irrelevant computer theory.

Im actually really interested to find out exactly where americans abandoned experiance and seniority for a bloated subsidized piece of paper.

I mean, in the past only doctors and lawyers would go to college. Now you have to go to college to be a photographer. I think it is a huge part of our collective downfall, where we started giving people jobs that cheated their way through college with enough loans.

[JaylieWoW]

Here is a fairly informative paper from CATO, Making College More Expensive: The Unintended Consequences of Federal Tuition Aid (http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=3344).

On page 6 of the .pdf there is a fairly good explanation of why an increase in federal aid causes a direct rise in the amount of tuition.

You might want to search for other papers from CATO as well. Just like Ron Paul is known to say, "when you subsidize something you get more of it..". Federal student aid, like most government assistance programs, has many unintended consequences. Here is a pretty good quote from this paper regarding why so many of these programs rarely have the intended affect. (Emphasis is my own).


Through the years, the (financial aid) system has evolved with changes in funding levels, adjustments in rules, and the addition of programs. For the most part, this evolution had been unplanned. On occasion, programs have been changed with no thought to how other programs might be affected. . . . The financial aid system of today resembles something that has been patched up many times with duct tape, bailing wire, clothespins, and spit. It is dizzyingly complex, and is not doing its job efficiently

This describes everything the government undertakes outside its proper role. Because administrations come and go what we end up with is something planned to span say 10 years with an intended goal ends up getting tinkered with so much that the originally intended plan is never realized. Though I believe that even in the absence of any tinkering, any planning is at risk of unintended consequences.

Google turned up other results as well, but this was the most relevant link on the first page of results.

[Truth Warrior]

Inflation!

[acptulsa]

mainly student loans.
until the early 80s college was paid mostly by parents. part-time jobs paid for car expenses etc but parents accepted it as normal they would pay tuition and books.
student loans made it easy for parents to get out of this, and for states and private colleges to go wild with tuition and teacher salary increases.

Well, this is actually the band-aid that has ruled the last twenty-seven years or so. Before Reagan gave the gift to the banks and turned the whole thing into a way to sustain the Class System, tuitions were driven up by grants. Not loans.

Think about what Medicare has done to medical costs. That's what the grants did to tuitions and books. The march of technology was used as the excuse.

All part of the social stratification of the U.S. that was the LBJ Great Society.

[sratiug]

Of the 1.2 billion dollars my state got back from the federal department of education a couple years ago some 200 million was in direct student loans and 500 million to bankers to subsidize student loans. I'm sure most people think that money was spent on high school and grade schoolers, but that is not the case.

For 700 million dollars I am sure it would be possible to take one state university and broadcast every class to the whole state to provide completely free secondary education. But that wouldn't make money for banks and corporations.

Also I understand that most federal money to higher education goes to private institutions (largely for the benefit of pharmaceutical companies who will get patents on the drug research funded by you through NIH and such) though I don't have a link for that. Who needs students when you get paid anyway? They just need enough students to do the lab work for them.