The term “college costs” is used so sloppily that I have no idea in most cases what anyone actually means by it. I’ve written before about the difference between 1) the sticker price of college (what colleges quote their prices at), 2) the net price of college (what the average student actually pays), and 3)… Continue reading What are college costs?
Author: Matt Bruenig
Does crushing debt discourage college enrollment?
The most confusing argument I see in the higher education funding debate is the one that basically proceeds by saying that 1) human capital is super-important and that 2) therefore we should publicly fund its development. Assume (1) is true. How does (2) follow? Usually arguments like this have a second premise. So for basic… Continue reading Does crushing debt discourage college enrollment?
Fascinating tumblr arguments
I try to keep track of as much of the left as I can. One part of the left that I enjoy observing — although have never really found myself able to engage with — is the social justice tumblr set. Broadly identitarian feminist in its basic orientation, this set has sprawled out a whole… Continue reading Fascinating tumblr arguments
Peter Frase on Reinhart-Rogoff debacle
Peter Frase has an excellent post about the Reinhart-Rogoff debacle and how it reveals the limits of wonk-journalism. In essence, wonk-journalists are those that sort of know how to read studies and translate them for the masses, but they cannot vet those studies, and the way that they present the studies gives them way more… Continue reading Peter Frase on Reinhart-Rogoff debacle
Poor people in the top 200 colleges
So I am playing around with the IPEDS Delta Cost Database, which is loaded with tons of data on thousands of higher education institutions in the United States. I noticed that their data allowed for a comparison that I have been curious about for a while now, which is how much institutions are getting in… Continue reading Poor people in the top 200 colleges