In his Encounter Books Broadside “The Higher Education Bubble,” Reynolds says this bubble exists for the same reasons the housing bubble did. The government decided that too few people owned homes/went to college, so government money was poured into subsidized and sometimes subprime mortgages/-student loans, with the predictable result that housing prices/-college tuitions soared and many borrowers went bust. Tuitions and fees have risen more than 440 percent in 30 years as schools happily raised prices — and lowered standards — to siphon up federal money. Read more at:
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/op_ed/view/20220610higher_education_bubble_is_about_to_burst/
Yes, I believe Arum's Academically Adrift book makes a similar point. Some of the Federal hearings on the for-profit 2-year institutions pointed to the very high percent of attendees going only because of federal aid or high-interest loans.
Posted by: Mark Thompson | June 11, 2012 at 07:53 AM