<p>Just want to ditto my appreciation of Mythmom’s eloquent post.</p>
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<p>I agree with this statement, which reflects the best research on the subject. </p>
<p>But I also want to consider whether maybe citizenship education (practice in reading and debating issues and reading good books on policy) should be done by high school graduation, and that maybe postsecondary technological education (or other kinds of education that boost workplace skills) may be better for many learners than what currently constitutes “college” education.</p>
<p>I am wasting my time on this minor-league Arthur Laffer why?</p>
<p><a href=“%5Burl=http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1063148015-post23.html]#23[/url]”>quote</a> I am wasting my time on this minor-league Arthur Laffer why?
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<p>Via College Confidential’s [College</a> Books & Reviews: Recommended Reading](<a href=“http://www.collegeconfidential.com/college_books/]College”>http://www.collegeconfidential.com/college_books/):</p>
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<p>And from Roger Dooley’s (yes…that [Roger</a> Dooley](<a href=“http://www.collegeconfidential.com/roger_dooley.htm]Roger”>http://www.collegeconfidential.com/roger_dooley.htm)) [review](<a href=“http://www.collegeconfidential.com/college_books/going-broke.htm]review[/url]:”>http://www.collegeconfidential.com/college_books/going-broke.htm):</a></p>
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<p>Does anyone have an affirmative case for why college costs should continually increase faster than the rate of general inflation year after year after year?</p>
<p>I don’t know much about economics, but here’s my theory. If I misuse some terms forgive me. </p>
<p>College is quickly becoming a necessary credential, which drives up demand. We subsidize college through federal grants and loans, allowing for greater access to college and driving up demand even further. Now we’ve made student loans non-dischargeable, which has driven up demand even more. That in itself would cause college tuition prices to inflate quickly in a small amount of time.</p>
<p>But there’s more. The average American’s buying power has diminished considerably. It’s harder to notice because the average American household has two sources of income and smaller expenditures like food, clothing, and technology are cheapened by globalization and technological advances. Other expenses, like healthcare and college tuition have kept in lockstep with buying power.</p>
<p>College demand is being driven up while our buying power is going down. Seems fair.</p>
<p>Before dismissing people as cranks, it is generally a good idea to look at their publication lists. </p>
<p>Vedder has a point, particularly in view of the literature showing that a) colleges increase their tuitions in ways that allow them to sop up increased federal spending on higher education and b) that there are now negative money returns to bachelor’s degrees in a number of fields. </p>
<p>The big return for a college degree tends to be diminished if graduates with science, technical, and engineering degrees are excluded and people are sorted into similar cognative groups.</p>
<p>The terrible state of US K-12 education means that a higher ed degree of some sort helps in the job market, but in many cases a less expensive one gets people in the door providing a much better financial return 10 years later when people are more concerned with the quality of one’s performance and where one graduated from no longer matters.</p>
<p>I wanted to point out that an educated, thinking citizen does not equal a citizen with a college degree. There are many ways in which we educate ouerselves.</p>