student debt

Gordon Fitch gcf at panix.com
Wed Mar 28 09:27:56 PST 2001


Doug:
> >Chronicle of Higher Education - web daily - March 28, 2001
> >
> >Report Says Congress Must Act to Minimize Students' Mounting Loan Debt
> >By STEPHEN BURD
>
> >College leaders argue that maintaining the current loan limits hurts
> >students. The yearly loan limits have not kept up with college costs,
> >they say, and therefore students have had to turn to more-expensive
> >private-label loans to help pay their college expenses.

Wojtek Sokolowski:
> College costs seem to defy the law of gravity. In most other production
> establishments, increasing output and taylorising the production process
> decrease per-unit cost; whereas in colleges - these increase per-unit cost.
> ...

If the principle product of the academic system is to replicate the class system, which it seems to be, then high tuition costs are actually a desirable attribute of the product, something like high rents which keep undesirables out of one's building. In effect, customers pay more _in_order_to_pay_more_. The price can rise freely as long as the customers keep lining up, especially because the ostensible products (education, learning, training, competence) are not major (or even minor?) concerns.

It would save a certain amount of trouble to sell class position directly, the way they used to sell commissions in the British Army, but people don't seem to be ready for this.



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