Economist explains why college costs so damn much

[Knightskye]

http://www.reason.com/blog/show/135512.html

So there you go. :)

[Lovecraftian4Paul]

I think it's because the big universities are drunk of government subsidies and throw away far too much money on pointless athletics.

[Knightskye]

I think it's because the big universities are drunk of government subsidies and throw away far too much money on pointless athletics.

I think you hate that your school had a weight room you never used.

Just kidding. :D

[Aakron]

I think the solution to this problem would be to designate all Pell money to new universities without requiring any form of accreditation, provided they are providing a legitimate education. While its true employers may have to actually check into the quality of a person's degree they should be doing that any way. I think pretty much anybody can set up an online university that offers coursework far more relevant to what they would actually be doing in the workforce.

Another stupid thing the government does is give free classes to those over 65 years old. Not only is that age discrimination, it is throwing away money on people who can't use the education for anything because they are retired. If they prove they are going to actually use the money to make even more, than fine. But other wise its a huge waste. If the government is going to hand out education money based on age discrimination they should switch the program from those over 65 to those under 25.

[Feenix566]

The whole higher education system of government acceditation and funding is just the government's attempt to simulate the free market. Colleges and universities get assesed by a group of "experts", and they get funding from the government as a result of their assesment. That's how free markets work, too. Providers of a good or service are assesed by their customers, and then get funding from their customers as a result of the assesment. So, why spend so much time trying to simulate the free market? Why not just scrap the whole process and let the free market work on its own?

If you removed the government accredidation and funding, employers and students would still need to asses the quality of a college's education, and they would find ways to do that. They would probably do it with independent consumer advocacy groups. The process would be just like it is now, but rather than having one group with a monopoly on the process and driven by politicial concerns, there would be competing groups driven by market forces.

[erowe1]

I think it's because the big universities are drunk of government subsidies and throw away far too much money on pointless athletics.

For the big universities, athletics make more money than they cost. Or perhaps, by "pointless athletics" you mean, not all athletics, but particularly the ones that don't cover their own cost. But then we're back to the government being to blame, since it requires that they give equal athletic scholarships to women (whose sports don't make any money, and rightfully so) as to men (whose sports do make money, and rightfully so).