Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (42553)	5/6/2004 1:56:17 PM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793757

The Big Steal Government funding for students means prosperity for schools. By Peter Wood - NRO ........Why is college so expensive? Why does federal aid never really succeed in making college more affordable? These shouldn't be deep mysteries. For over a decade I participated in university meetings aimed at determining my university's annual tuition increases. The only real question was, "How much can we get away with?" And the only real worry was that, if we overreached, we might move to the dreaded top of the list for largest increases. Most years, it fell to me to draft a letter to parents from the Chairman of the Board explaining that the tuition increase reflected this or that combination of new construction projects and programs. Title IV funds and other federal financial aid are seen by colleges and universities as money that is there for the taking. Tuition is set high enough to capture those funds and whatever else we think can be extracted from parents. Perhaps there are college administrators who don't see federal student aid in quite this way, but I haven't met them. But I don't mean to imply that college administrators are driven solely by profit maximization. One reason that many prefer sky-high tuitions is that it enables them to act as social engineers. The larger the income from tuition, the more money they have on hand for scholarships for students who cannot afford the tuition. One might think that the easier way to expand access for impoverished students is to maintain low tuitions, and indeed some colleges do just that. But it isn't the prevailing pattern. Perhaps that is because many colleges and universities grow to like the pleasures of living large. Large sports complexes, star faculty members, big science, and a shimmering image mean a lot to college administrators and a fair number of faculty members too. We seem to have devised a historical trap for ourselves. Most Americans believe a college degree is a prerequisite for a prosperous life; most accept that college is inherently expensive; most are grateful for the assistance that the federal government offers in meeting this huge financial burden; and most take a vicarious pleasure in the very institutional vanity that drives the price of college ever higher. Is there a way out of these mutually-reinforcing assumptions? I don't expect politicians like Senator Kerry and lobbies like ACE to break the cycle; nor do I think many parents are likely to forego sending their kids to expensive colleges and universities on the gamble that they will thrive without the college degree. There is some possibility that the current demographic bulge making this a fat time for college admissions officers is due for a steep fall off in 2014. If you can wait that long, market forces should have some effect on college prices. But maybe we have just decided that high prices for a college education are a good way to organize our society. Those prices are high enough to discourage large families and to provide a strong incentive for both parents to work. They also force a lot of people to work more years before retirement, and they amount to an early form of inheritance for children. Anything parents spend today on college bills will be subtracted tomorrow (along with interest) from the last will and testament. Never mind the old inheritance tax; college tuition is its functional equivalent. Somehow I doubt that we have reached these choices deliberately. They seem rather more like unintended consequences of an initially good idea. The G.I. Bill, perhaps the last gasp of the New Deal, turned out to be also the first breath of the Big Steal. — Peter Wood, a professor of anthropology at Boston University, is the author of Diversity: The Invention of A Concept.

To: LindyBill who wrote (42553)	5/6/2004 5:37:33 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 793757

Friedman Gets Buzzed Roger L Simon blog Jeff Jarvis fisks Tom Friedman's column today and reminds us to keep our priorities straight into the bargain: We have entered an era of apology. Democrats wanted Bush to apologize as Dick Clarke did. Reporters at the last press conference wanted Bush to confess to mistakes and apologize for them. Friedman wants Bush to apologize for what happened in that prison. Fine. But it's just a rhetorical charm bracelet. Forced apologies get you just as far as forced friendships. No, it's time instead for everyone -- Bush, Kerry, Iraqi leaders, European leaders, the U.N., Arab leaders -- to get priorities straight and remember that our priorities are alligned. If we let the stupidity of some guys in an Iraqi prison derail the cause of democracy and stability in Iraq over the niceties of friendship and apologies, then we're all a bunch of hopeless fools. Jarvis, stop making sense! rogerlsimon.com