It's not just special, there are social pressures that totally distort rational thinking. People (parents, teachers, advisors) tell kids to go to the best school they can. There is a ton of hype about attending the "Right school for you" etc. There are rankings and all sorts of other stuff.
Schools distort true cost through murky financial aid processes. Then the gov't continues the scam by calling loans "financial aid."
Plus the customers are 17 year olds whose most expensive purchase before this was saving up for that really cool concert that one time. And now they are borrowing tens of thousands (sometimes hundreds).
It's also impossible to judge the worth of college.
It's just a mess. We shouldn't be giving kids and young adults that much rope to hang themselves with.
The government should institute price controls for anyone using federal loans. 30k tuition is a total scam.
I don't think we disagree in principle, but in detail.
I fundamentally disagree that
"Schools distort true cost through murky financial aid processes. Then the gov't continues the scam by calling loans "financial aid.""
That argument says that there is essentially free money just by charging more, no increase in services. If that where true the amount of money to be made would force more colleges to be opened.
Couple that with the fact that public colleges are much cheaper than their private counterparts and community colleges are cheaper still and I don't know exactly where this argument comes from.
There is a lot of high cost options which loans unfortunately do cover, but to blame the price distortion on the availability of the loans seems backward.
Private K-12 schools are just as outrageously priced with no loans available to fund them.
I think there is a stigma (depending on your area maybe justified) around public educational institutions, which allows profiteers to do their thing.
Instead of fixing the underlying problem, we throw money at it. Which is the American way.
Schools distort true cost through murky financial aid processes. Then the gov't continues the scam by calling loans "financial aid."
Plus the customers are 17 year olds whose most expensive purchase before this was saving up for that really cool concert that one time. And now they are borrowing tens of thousands (sometimes hundreds).
It's also impossible to judge the worth of college.
It's just a mess. We shouldn't be giving kids and young adults that much rope to hang themselves with.
The government should institute price controls for anyone using federal loans. 30k tuition is a total scam.