Rising Education Costs

[Martin Hash]

The cost of a college diploma has skyrocketed because it violates the free market system. America's universities have always been a hotbed of gate-keeping, rent-seeking, self-interested job security & pretentious pandering but in the current crisis, the problem can be traced to government intervention, specifically, the government student loan guarantee policy, because students wouldn't be able to get the unbankruptable loans for worthless, fashionable degrees without this bizarre incentive. The political machinations used to obtain this boondoggle appeal to both the education business industry & socialist mentality, so there is no one arguing against it, and the unnatural demand creates an artificial shortage of brick-n-mortar didactic teaching institutions. This has also led to degree inflation: jobs that used to require a Bachelors degree or lower now require at least a Masters.

The government student loan guarantee program fails because it distorts the adversarial relationship required for Markets to function properly. Students, who by definition don't yet have wisdom, are agreeing to lifelong servitude in exchange for exaggerated promises of success & misleading career advice, and the public employee unions exploit the opportunity via increased tenure & other ridiculous institutional devices that can't be pressured by market forces, so they continue to fester. The sooner America moves to alternate forms of learning, such as on-line self-paced, the better.