Category: Education

One of the reasons the cost of college has risen is that colleges have undertaken big capital projects to build luxurious dorms, fitness centers, and other similar amenities. The reason they do so, it is often claimed, is that they need to compete for student applicants. When students are trying to pick a college, cool… Continue reading Are rich kids driving up the cost of college?

Matt Yglesias has a piece today on the importance of teachers that he openly described as trollish. The basic idea of the piece is that if you accept the viewpoint that socioeconomic conditions are more important for educational achievement than teacher performance, then you must also think that it makes sense to cut teacher salaries… Continue reading Matt Yglesias on transfers versus teacher salaries

The educational achievement of a child involves many inputs: parents, household situations, neighborhoods, nourishment, and of course schools. As a result of the education reform movement, all non-school inputs are currently sidelined. If a child performs poorly, we are made to believe that school-side problems are to blame. It must be failing teachers, failing school… Continue reading Another way to spend money on education

As a frequent writer on student debt and college cost issues, I have become acquainted with a standard set of misleading and useless statistics. Here is a handy guide to the most frequently used. $1 Trillion Student Debt In spring of last year, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau estimated that US borrowers collectively held $1… Continue reading The misleading world of student debt and college cost statistics

I am reading through the latest Jacobin release right now. In it, Chris Maisano has a piece on student debt titled “The Soul of Student Debt.” The basic gist of the piece is that charging for college forces students to make economic calculations about their degree and future career. That is, students have to pick… Continue reading Chris Maisano on student debt