Ilya Somin makes the case against government subsidies for college tuition at the Volokh Conspiracy. His point is that the higher-than-inflation increases in the cost of college over the past forty years are justified by the even greater increases in expected returns on a college education. According to a 2002 Census Bureau study, a college graduate, on average, earns $1,000,000 more than a high school graduate over his/her lifetime.
Top Posts
Categories
- Academia
- Advertising
- Art
- Cars
- Cats
- Children
- Distributive Justice
- Dogs
- economics
- Education
- Equality
- ethics
- Europe
- foreign policy
- Health
- History
- Humor
- justice
- law
- liberty
- Literature
- mathematics
- Music
- national security
- Organizations
- philosophy
- Politics
- Rationality
- regulation
- Religion
- Rhetoric
- rights
- science
- Sports
- terrorism
- Truth
- Uncategorized
- war
Blogroll
Archives
- February 2013
- December 2012
- October 2012
- September 2012
- August 2012
- July 2012
- June 2012
- May 2012
- April 2012
- March 2012
- February 2012
- January 2012
- December 2011
- October 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- September 2010
- August 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- December 2008
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
Meta
I guess a laptop computer should cost about $15,000 instead of nearly $1000 then.
The laptop is at least determined by real market forces outside the college – and particularly by the recent past’s nano-breakthroughs requiring less and less materials in its making (chips and boards mostly). But I think there’s good merit to the argument that subsidies increase the unfounded expectations of bureacratic and labor-intensive institutions, by distorting its true supply/demand price determination – thus contributing to the inflation trend of tuition (and thereby making it ever more necessary to add subsidies to continue making it affordable to many students … in an upward spiral).