US/education/higher/price
About
The cost of tuition at colleges and universities in the United States has been rising at a rate far exceeding that of inflation. There seem to be a number of drivers behind this phenomenon, including jobsolescence (fewer jobs to go around, so people are more desperate for an "edge" to give themselves or their kids) and reduced government funding for public higher education.
Entrepreneur Peter Thiel argues that higher education prices are in a "bubble", which will collapse at some point in the near future.[1]
Others argue that higher education prices are caused by low-interest student loans causing artificially-high demand for college education, leading to higher prices via the law of supply and demand. While this is certainly part of the mechanism, it doesn't explain what caused the political demand for low-interest student loans; it essentially pockets the question of what is causing the change.
Links
- 1996-03 Findings from The Condition of Education 1995 - #6: The Cost of Higher Education (PDF) by National Center for Educational Statistics, US Department of Education
- 2011-04-10 Peter Thiel: We're in a Bubble and It's Not the Internet. It's Higher Education.
- 2012-02-13 Editorial: The rising price of higher education
- 2012-09-10 Competition and the Rising Cost of Higher Education by Bill Destler, President, Rochester Institute of Technology
- 2013-03-16 The High Cost of Higher Education Explained in One Simple Graphic: infographic