High college costs; educating values

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Every parent with a child in college knows that the costs of getting a bachelor's degree are rising dramatically, and that tuition is becoming more and more of a burden.

Why is college so expensive? In his provocative GoingBrokebyDecree:Why CollegeCostsSoMuch (AEI, $25, 232 pages), Ohio University economist Richard Vedder shows that colleges will charge as much as they can get away with.

The primary reason college bills are so high, Mr. Vedder writes, is that "the productivity of university personnel is almost certainly falling, and it is clearly falling sharply relative to the rest of the economy." Most businesses, after all, have to continuously improve if they're going to keep their current customers and win new ones.

Universities by contrast face "muted competitive forces," and college presidents have no incentive to economize. As a result, professors work fewer hours than those of a generation ago, and colleges have far more administrators than they used to have.

Typically politicians respond to high tuition prices by offering more grants and loans to students. But because the college and not the student controls the size of the loan, existing loan programs do not offer schools any incentive to be more efficient.

Far better, Mr. Vedder argues, for college loan programs to be transformed into vouchers that students can use at any accredited school. Allowing students rather than schools to control tuition subsidies would increase competition among universities -- and perhaps provide some schools an incentive to curb tuition rises or even cut fees.

Mr. Vedder also proposes sharply reducing the cost of college athletics, ending most affirmative action programs, and either eliminating tenure or offering newly hired professors the option of renouncing tenure in exchange for other benefits, such as first-class health insurance.

"Going Broke By Decree" is an important book that ought to be carefully read both by university presidents and by parents crushed by the rising tuition burden.

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Anyone interested in the history of conservatism should be grateful to Heritage Foundation fellow Lee Edwards. His books always have new information in them, based on examination of obscure archives and interviews with important conservative leaders.