Costs of higher education


The U.S. spends a bigger chunk of it's economy on higher education than any other industrialized nation. Why aren't we getting more bang for our buck?
Vincent Carroll at the Rocky Mountain News makes a great point.

Why is spending so much on health care considered a national scandal by many commentators but the outsized spending on higher education is not?

Could part of the answer be that the health-care system is studied, analyzed and dissected by a scholarly community that simply isn't willing to apply the same critical perspective toward the institutions that sign its checks?

To the contrary: The self-interested consensus among academics is that this country needs to spend far more on higher education.

When health-care costs rise at double the inflation rate, intellectuals understandably knit their brows. When higher-ed costs outstrip inflation (as they do year after year), the only people who complain tend to be powerless parents and students.

"It takes more resources today to educate a postsecondary student than a generation ago," writes Richard Vedder, a professor of economics at Ohio University and a rare insider who is critical of rising costs. "That is not true for most goods and services . . . . Relative to other sectors of the economy, universities are becoming less efficient, less productive, and, consequently, more costly."

Free market economists know the answer, and so do libertarians. Competition drives quality up and prices down.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Sun - December 9, 2007 at 07:59 PM  Tag


 ◊  ◊   ◊  ◊ 

Random selections from NeoWayland's library


Pagan Vigil "Because LIBERTY demands more than just black or white"
© 2005 - 2009 All Rights Reserved