Quote from wilburbear:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-...nts-rise-as-loans-corrode-college-ticket.html
Quote from piezoe:
When I read anecdotes reported as though they were data, and then read a statement such as: "As college costs have soared faster than the rate of inflation over the past four decades" Which is absolutely false, I tend to discount everything else.
The truth is that overall, college and university tuitions, have barely kept pace with actual inflation. Couple this with the reality that State and local subsidies of public institutions of higher learning have significantly declined, particularly over the past decade, and it is easy to see why public, and some private, colleges and universities are struggling to get by and maintain academic quality.
Is it any wonder that middle class families are struggling to meet educational costs, and why graduates can't pay off their loans? We are after all in the midst of the worst economic downturn and unemployment crisis since the 1930's. But the fundamental causes go back to years of misdirection in the economy and malfeasance and unbridled greed on Wall Street, to Alan Greenspan's --the chief regulator-- non-belief in regulation, to Phil Gramm's gutting of protections against banking excesses, to a mortgage industry rotten to the core cheered on by real estate tycoons, to a brakeless Fannie and Freddie, to excesses in commercial banking and in private lending -- including the private, government backed student loan industry. Add to this further mismanagement by a government that financed decades of continuous counterproductive, unjustified wars and unconscionable, secret illegal acts against sovereign nations all with borrowed money. Add in the economic damage done by an out of control, government protected medical cartel, and it doesn't take a genius to understand how we arrived at the current predicament.
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1877351_1877350_1877331,00.html