Most people agree that college tuition is growing out of control. It has grown far faster than the rate of inflation and incomes in the past couple of decades. I saw this increase firsthand: between about 1997 and 2005 at the U of M, undergraduate tuition went up substantially, more than 50%. Funding this increase in tuition has been an increase in debt: almost $1 trillion, more than outstanding credit card debt. It’s a spiral that feeds upon itself.

What generally isn’t mentioned, though, is that this debt is incredibly easy to get. Since they are backed by the federal government, and can’t be discharged through bankruptcy, federal loans are pretty much available to anybody who applies for them. Federal loans won’t cover the full cost of expensive colleges, though, which is where private loans come in. Thanks to a change in the 2005 bankruptcy law, private loans were essentially made equivalent to federal loans in terms of being unable to discharge them in bankruptcy. Private lenders said this would allow them to offer loans to a broader spectrum of borrowers, which is undoubtedly true. However, it seems like the pendulum has swung too far in terms of easy money for students, especially considering that once you take it out, you can’t get rid of it. I was shocked at how simple it was to get a $30,000+ private loan for law school when I was planning on attending: a few minutes on an online website, and I had the money. Taking out a similar loan for a car, I think, would not be nearly as easy.

Easy credit and rising prices is something we’ve seen before, and many people see this as the next bubble. So what can we do about it? Like other bubbles, it’s going to take the tightening of credit to head this off. The question then becomes how.

I’m going to go out on a limb and argue that subsidized loans from the federal government need to go away. I’m all for opening up access to college for those without the means to attend, but I think that Pell Grants, which are grants and not loans, are the way to go. Giving people subsidized loans that tie them to large repayments for 10, 20, or 30 years is not terribly helpful.

Instead, I think we should go to a model where loans are priced in a free market based on a number of factors. The prime factor, I think, should be that degree. There is no reason that the cost of a degree in, say, Political Science (my undergrad degree) should cost the same as a degree in Chemical Engineering, but with egalitarian tuition and identical subsidized loans for everybody, this is what happens. By making some degrees cheaper than others, namely those that have lower interest rates because of better job prospects after graduation, higher salaries, and so forth, students will be nudged into degrees that employers are looking for.

This is a controversial idea, of course, and it would probably be fairly hard to put into practice. Lower overall borrowing costs for students in some majors could encourage colleges to raise tuition for those majors, erasing the benefits of the lower price. Other issues could also be priced into that loan, which could make it harder for people to finish college: for example, poor grades in during the first couple of years could drive up the rates for a student, making it more likely that the student would fail to graduate (the converse could also happen, though, rewarding strong students with lower rates).

I don’t know if this would be a workable solution in the end. It could simply have too many moving parts to be able to adequately implement. Nevertheless, I do think we need to start thinking about how we can reform how we pay for college while getting students into the majors that employers are looking for.

• Current Mood: Tebowed
• Currently Listening To: "The Show Must Go On", Pink Floyd

Popular as it is, however, I never would have expected riots over the firing of a coach who turned a blind eye to child abuse. That’s what this boils down to: people at Penn State knew what was going on, but instead of going to the authorities and risking a blemish on their record, they tried to ignore it. The program was more important than protecting these victims. Not only back then, but even today according to some people.

This does beg for a comparison with the coverups in the Catholic Church. While there is no excuse in either situation, at least with the church, I can almost imagine how some people who invested their lives and very definition of self in their religion would want to defend it. But college football? Really? Their lives are over because a coach was fired?

I don’t care about Joe Paterno’s legacy or the lives of those players who are now worried about whether a game is going to be played. The only people who merit concern are the victims who were ignored.

• Current Mood: Headache

This time around, no such comments popped up on this story; it could be because of blog moderation or the makeup of MPR’s audience. In any case, it was nice to see a story without somebody trying to argue that life in the long run would be better for this kid if he had seen failure instead of success in this football game. This is just one story, however. We’ve seen a lot of arguments from a self-describe majority in this country (a majority I happen to be a member of, more on this in a later post) that is harping a message that life is a struggle and we should be thankful for scraping by and anybody who complains about this just needs to suck it up, because life doesn’t owe you anything.

I wasn’t raised to think this way: I believe we are all in this together, and helping others instead of competing with them is an alternative that isn’t zero-sum. So it’s nice to see these kinds of stories once in a while, and for just a brief moment forget that there are people in this world who see life not as something to be enjoyed, but a struggle to be endured.

• Current Mood: Morning
• Currently Listening To: "Mood", Miles Davis
• Currently Reading: "The Design of Everyday Things", Donald Norman

I like this one because you can just barely see a bottle rocket heading into the sky:

• Current Mood: Slow
• Currently Listening To: "Summer in the City", The Lovin' Spoonful

I’ve thought less about the content of the speech and the objections thereof, though, and more about something that, to my knowledge, has not been touched upon very much by the media. There is an important reason why Obama should talk to school kids in this manner, but a lot of people completely missed this message (and as you’ll see in a moment, the fact that they missed this message is terribly telling).

I’m a white guy. All throughout my life, when parents and teachers told me I could do anything, I had no reason to doubt them. After all, whenever I turned on the TV or read history books or opened a newspaper, I saw plenty of white guys leading the way. Presidents, CEOs, news anchors, sports greats, politicians…they were all pretty much like me in a superficial, first impression kind of way, despite the fact that white guys make up a minority of the U.S. population (and an even tinier minority of the world population).

For a lot of students who aren’t white guys, though, statements like “You can do anything with your life if you stay in school, maybe even become president!” could ring a bit hollow; given the much more obvious lack of real-world evidence that this was true. It’s not that hard to see how some people, seeing the gaping chasm between platitude and reality, would grow a bit cynical. Toss in a bit of history (it’s only been a couple of generations since the firehoses, women have been able to vote for less than a century) and it’s clear that you can’t just talk the talk, you’ve got to have some evidence that you can walk the walk.

And this is exactly why Obama’s speech was not only appropriate, but a fantastically important event. Not just because of who he is, but because he is one of the largest examples of how barriers are breaking down everywhere: let’s not forget that a woman had a very credible shot of becoming the Democratic nominee and then president, and a woman was a vice presidential candidate for only the second time on a major ticket. When Obama says that staying in school, setting goals, and working hard can lead you to great things, a lot more kids will be able to identify with him, and hence with that message.

It’s sad that so many people overlooked this important take on the issue. However, the people that control our discourse are the same people who never would have doubted that they could do anything they wanted when they were kids; in their minds, how could any child think differently? While they may not see the importance of this message, fortunately plenty of others do.

The comments are a good, if ridiculous, read too. People still don’t seem to get that health care is not a free market. Nate hits all the salient points, but people still don’t get that unlike buying a car for example, when it is possible for people to decide that something is too expensive, few people are going to pass on a heart bypass procedure because it “costs too much”.

• Current Mood: Hot
• Currently Listening To: "Eclipse", Pink Floyd