Higher Education Costs on the Rise–Still

Just read a story at http://www.theolympian.com/2012/05/16/2107098/state-help-for-higher-education.html and felt I really needed to comment on this.

First of all, the main thrust of this article is “we gotta do something, government, help us, help us” in regards to tuition.  Tuition is being artificially jacked up because of government interference, and we’re demanding that government do something to “help” with it. 

The article continues to sight declining State funding of Universities over the last several decades.  A major contributor to declining state funding has been the Federal Government taking on an ever increasing roll in funding universities, as well as subsidizing loan programs, artificially keeping interest rates lower than they would/should be, and other things to “make education affordable for everyone.”

While this sounds like a laudable goal on the face of it, the fact is that this serves to encourage schools to offer programs that appeal to a broader range of people who can suddenly get a government guaranteed loan to go to school, regardless of whether or not the programs is actually useful.  It encourages the schools to offer more and more courses that, while appealing to some, offer degrees that are more useful as toilet paper than they are as degrees.  The schools encourage people to explore a great many of these programs, increasing the amount of time people spent in school, which in turn increases the amount of money the school takes in. 

The students don’t care, since they don’t have to pay for anything until later, and many of them simply do not understand that they are taking useless classes at far above market value prices.  The number of people being granted a degree increases every year, which devalues the degrees that others earn, and makes it so a Bachelors Degree is worth about what a High School Diploma was 50 year ago, as far as job potential goes.

The government has done far more damage than good in their quest to “make education affordable to all.”  By artificially holding down interest rates, while simultaneously lowering the bar to qualify for loans, and then backing those loans so the banks don’t have to risk anything, they government has created a situation where tuition can rise astronomically, raising the cost of education while at the same time decreasing the value one receives for that money.  It’s like inflation squared.  Education is a great goal, but it needs to be a personal goal.  If you don’t need to work hard prior to going to college, you’re unlikely to be successful at working hard in college, and beyond.  This is why 53% of Bachelors Degree holders under 25 are underemployed or unemployed.

So we demand the government step in to “help” again?