Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s approach to controlling college costs is dead wrong, writes Neal McCluskey, associate director of the Cato Institute’s Center for Educational Freedom. More federal aid will fuel exploding college costs, argues McCluskey, author of How Much Ivory Does This Tower Need? What We Spend on, and Get from, Higher Education.
To a system blackout-drunk on taxpayer money, the Obama administration would deliver even more booze while only whispering about tough love.
Speaking at a Nov. 29 Las Vegas gathering of financial-aid administrators, Duncan addressed exploding college costs, a problem highlighted by Occupy Wall Street protesters angry over rising student debt. He lauded loan forgiveness and repayment reduction, and exhorted colleges to do, well, something to become more efficient.
The education secretary inflated the benefits of a college degree — it’s not really $1 million over a working life — and ignored the reason colleges keep raising tuition, McCluskey writes.
Between 1985 and 2010, inflation-adjusted federal student aid rose from about $30 billion to about $140 billion, a 367 percent leap. Pell Grants alone ballooned from $8.1 billion in 1985 to $41.7 billion in 2011.
Add various tax credits and deductions to that, and it’s no wonder college prices have inflated even faster than health care: Government has ensured that ever-higher bills can be paid.
Declining state support for higher education isn’t the reason tuition keeps going up, argues McCluskey. Private colleges are charging more and more too.
President Obama wants to lead the world in college graduates by 2020. That means raising graduation rates for the many students who start college and never finish, often because they’re not prepared for college-level work.
Duncan says the administration will “challenge” schools to improve their graduation rates. Great.
Colleges’ most likely response will be to run warm bodies through to graduation, while giving them few if any college-level skills. Indeed, we’ve been seeing this for years, with literacy for degree-holders dropping and earnings for people with only a bachelor’s degree falling, too.
The only way to make college much cheaper or more effective is “taking the jet fuel — federal student aid — out of college pricing, and being frank about the real value of higher education,” McCluskey writes.
He provides links here to research on the effect of aid on college prices.
Virginia Postrel has more in a Bloomberg View column, including a warning:
A good chunk of the educated public has decided that college educators are decadent and lazy. Many are positively lusting to see higher education get its Detroit-style comeuppance.
This attitude is unfortunate and often unfair, but it’s the direct result of decades of federal policies. Any strategy to reduce college costs needs to look beyond traditional subsidies to remove some of the insulation that stifles innovation and feeds public resentment.
I keep expecting the non-elite private colleges to collapse as students and parents realize that it’s just not worth the money compared to a state university or a community college. If we do see cost controls, they’ll come in the private sector.
Comments & Trackbacks (1) | Post a Comment
at 7:47 am
[...] Secretary Arne Duncan is dead wrong on how to control college costs, argues Cato‘s Neal McCluskey. To a system blackout-drunk on taxpayer money, the Obama [...]