Richard Vedder has seen a lot of change in higher education over his long career — most of it bad. It’s so bad, he thinks, that our colleges are killing themselves with their blatant politicization and high cost. He argues his position in today’s Martin Center article.
Vedder lists five reasons why our colleges are in deep trouble, starting with tuition. He writes, “The tuition fees of colleges today are nearly triple what they were a half-century ago after correcting for inflation. [Editor’s note: Cheers to UNC for freezing tuition for the seventh year in a row.] Since the 1980s, the rise in tuition fees has exceeded the growth in family incomes, meaning college has become less affordable. While air travel and electronic gadgets have all become more affordable, college attendance is now a bigger financial burden.”
Other reasons Vedder gives for the perilous state of our colleges include the fact that degrees no longer guarantee “good” jobs, the loss of an academic environment conducive to free thought and expression, the fact that new ways of demonstrating ones’s capabilities are coming to the fore, and that credential inflation seems to have peaked.
Vedder doubts that higher education as we know it will be able to survive for long in these conditions. Good riddance.