<p>Quick responses as this is now the busy time of year…</p>
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<p>The 540+ billion is an investment, however it may have been better to have provided that via grants or reducing tuitions and costs in academia. Rather than having students and families have that burden transferred down upon them-really the main beneficiaries of the current system is the large investor class. As already noted the non-profits are on their way out, if they aren’t run under by looming governmental pressures they will be run down by the lobby pressures of the larger controlling companies. And incidentally what these companies are doing is not that much different from what the Rockefeller’s, Gould’s and Fisk contingent did in the 19th. By controlling industry choke points they control the industry. There is a reason for the massive donations to select committees, such as SMC’s control of USA funds, and the recent attempts to control the NASFAA. </p>
<pre><code>That’s one of the reasons the elites are beginning to work with tuition reduction programs, the burden on families regarding loans and educational costs is at a breaking point. Now if the Ivy family’s can’t do it anymore, gods help the lower middle and working class families.
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<p>If the states and feds did some serious work with constraining unneeded collegiate expenditures such a method could at least begin at the state schools. </p>
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<p>Inside academia I see nothing which could justify the 6% yearly increases in tuition which have been afflicting students and families since the end of the last decade. And despite the appalling amount of money students are borrowing, which supposedly supports education…in most schools we do not see it applied to the classroom. Some facilities are as bad as anything I was working with out in the 4th world. </p>
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<p>Cutting profs pay, at the state schools it already has begun on a large scale although some do not see it outside of academia. How its being done is by the growing use of adjuncts. The adjuncts (All the various deities bless them because their employers won’t) are a preeminent example. The problem is such tactics will eventually drive capable people away from collegiate teaching. </p>
<p>And excepting the star profs, at most schools profs are not really paid all that well especially considering the costs of their education. In Colorado that’s enough of a concern that many of the professorial class are wondering if it is possible to continue in their trade, or to enter it. </p>
<p>Adjuncts, are much more desperate so they will take even 1 class wonders, which in some cases pay little more than a newspaper route. And increasingly we’re seeing a less qualified pool of adjuncts because the credible people simply cannot afford to play this game. </p>
<p>The professorial contingent doesn’t have an equivalent to the NEA, or AMA but if they had…they too would be asking for loan relief, or at least more reasonable ways of dealing with some of these companies. (And incidentally there is a rising level of censorship in state schools to preclude profs from warning students about the pitfalls of some aspects of the SL industry. Too much money’s involved and some schools do play in too many poisoned waters) </p>
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<p>US standards of living, not as good as we’d like to believe. And having worked outside the US, yes there are places better off then we are here in the US and some much, much worse. But this is supposed to be "America’ so a decline in living standards does tend to bear a much heavier loss insofar as national persona.
In regards to education costs. The Brits are not the best example to use, insofar as their educational funding system is also in trouble.</p>