<p>Which is to Amherst’s moral credit. One of the stranger aspects of the issue is that the elite and most costly schools have noted the adverse effects of high education costs upon certain populations, and are moving to counteract those effects. </p>
<p>They may do this to counteract bad pr, as some of these same schools had been caught in the NYS AG investigations of kickbacks and etc. Or they may do it because some of their academic stars, such as Dr. Warren, have raised awareness about the issue. But they are making these reforms. </p>
<p>The state schools are caught in a moral vise, insofar as cutbacks in direct federal and state support has made them increasingly reliant on the edudebt industry. That condition in itself has also ensured that tuition costs have risen, as there is little impetus for fiscal discipline. Even worse, it has been a condition which has widened a conceptual gulf between the state schools and the populations which they were established to serve. </p>
<p>Because of their new reliance on redistributed corporate money* (loans), too often state universities have forgotten or rationalized away the social costs of such a system upon their own students. And this problem is even less morally excusable when such gems as unneeded trophy buildings are considered. </p>
<p>*We do have to realize that in much of the US student financing system, what is loaned by these companies is effectively backed or even provided for by public money. So it is a massive form of resource redistribution, as is very evident from the recent millions given to these companies to ‘ensure liquidity’, and the billions they have made from the government and students. So it is at its core a form of resource redistribution flowing upwards. From a system which was originally established to benefit the common. </p>
<p>As such it will be much more difficult for the state schools to begin and expand the very necessary reforms begun at the Ivy’s. The tragedy is that the population served by the state schools is in the greatest need for such reforms.</p>