by David Safier
Get ready for the conservative howls of anguish over federal intrusion. The U.S. Department of Ed is demanding explanations of tuition hikes from 530 colleges. The featured higher ed institution in the CNN article is ASU, with our other two universities in the next sentence.
The nation's largest public university, Arizona State University is among those listed, after it hiked tuition 38% from $4,971 in the 2007-2008 school year, to $6,844 just three years later.
All three of Arizona's public universities were on the list — not coincidentally, after the state government imposed some of the nation's harshest cuts on higher education. Since fiscal 2008, the state has slashed its university funding by 50% or $428 million. More statewide tuition hikes are on the way in the fall.
[Did you know ASU is the largest university in the country with over 58,000 students in 2010? If so, you knew more than I did.]
To be fair, ASU's 38% increase ranks 24th on the fed's College Affordability scale. Lots of California's universities had higher jumps. But of the 23 with higher percentage increases, only Georgia State and Georgia Institute of Technology have higher actual tuitions. At $4,300 to $5,000 per year, California's colleges are way cheaper than ASU's $6,800.
The price of college education has increased. Is it any surprise considering the amount of money the feds put into college loans and grants? Part if not most of the problems with private colleges has to do with the unintended consequences of federal subsidies to college students. If you make it easy to spend tens of thousands of dollars on a college education there will be people who offer an education whose utility is marginal (this goes for private and government colleges).
The solution is to eliminate government subsidies for college education not increase the regulation which will only perpetuate the current high cost providers and do nothing to increase the availability of low cost providers.
http://lewrockwell.com/north/north996.html