Student loan forgiveness and free college are bad ideas.

[Crawtator]

Yes and no. There are ways to get out of it, like being on disability, of course a family I know where they could get out of it this was doesn't because the tax bill then is crazy.

Well, being on disability doesn't mean that you can necessarily discharge the student loans, either. It's actually a complicated topic (I'm a bankruptcy attorney and we have seminars on this every year or so). In fact, student loans are one of the few creditors that can garnish social security checks. Couple this with the fact that different circuits determine "undue hardship" differently and you quickly get bogged down.

But I was really confused by the last statement. Why would there be a higher tax bill? Are you speaking of the forgiveness of debt tax (Form 1099-C)? If so, a Form 982 could be filled out post-discharge to remove that from taxable income.

 

[Francesca R]

I do not know if your analysis explains the situations at private colleges and universities but it is does not reflect the dynamic at state institutions (which typically charge tuitions 1/3 or less that of comparable private institutions).

It doesn't apply to substantially publicly funded places no. In those the price of tuition is regulated lower. As you note this causes financial distress to show up somewhere else.

(In the UK universities are almost all partly publicly funded and fees are capped)

 

[Giordano]

Do you happen to know if it is an absolute cutback in support, or a cutback relative to costs? In other words, is the state providing less money, or is it the same amount of money, while costs increase?

It is a mix of both. Here it is expressed as percent of support per student.
https://calbudgetcenter.org/blog/state-support-for-a-uc-students-education-hits-a-20-year-low/

It is in inflation adjusted dollars, which is good for comparison, but note they suppressed the zero, which is bad. Nonetheless the University gets half of the state support we got in 1991/1992 (I think that is 2/3s less in actual money rather than in percent of support per student) and a third less than we got as recently as 2007/2008.

 

[Giordano]

Okay, here's a summary of how dollars flow at the University of California and some areas that might account for increases in tuition. I think it is probably is very similar to what happens at any other state college/university:

1. As mentioned above state financing has dramatically decreased over the past decades. We currently have half the state support in adjusted dollars than we did in 1991-92 and a third less than we did as recently as 2007-08. https://calbudgetcenter.org/blog/sta...a-20-year-low/. Tuition increases were instituted to try to recover some of that lost state funding, although constraints on the increases (understandable taxpayer/parent anger) means that we and most other state universities and colleges are nonetheless in deep financial holes. https://www.mercurynews.com/2017/01/26/uc-hikes-tuition-despite-student-appeals-to-hold-it-flat/

2. Professor salaries range from $66,100 to significantly beyond $175,800 depending on rank. https://www.ucop.edu/academic-personnel-programs/_files/1920/1920-adj-scales/t1.pdf Generally faculty enter at the lower ranks and are considered for an increase in rank every 2 to 3 years. Beyond $175,800 is called off-scale, is relatively rare, and requires special reviews. I can't judge if we are being overpaid but these salaries are significantly less than many other professions (e.g. MDs or lawyers), are intentionally based on and comparable to other state universities, and are well below many private universities. I've had real problems finding how these salaries compare now versus past decades but no doubt they have increased in adjusted dollars. But also note below:

3. Many STEM faculty bring in grants that not only offset their salaries but provide significant net financial gains to the university and state. For example each National Institute of Health grant obtained by a faculty member typically brings in over $200,000 a year to support the faculties research (which pays salaries and tuition for graduate students working in their labs, salaries for post-docs and other staff, equipment, supplies, etc). Note this is taxable (income and sales tax) so the state makes added money off these taxes on the salaries, supply purchases, and equipment purchases noted above. In addition an extra ~$100,000 or more gets paid from each NIH grant directly to the university itself. The university sees this "indirect cost recovery" as compensation for their cost for faculty to do research (i.e. electricity, the building of buildings, custodian support, etc). Of course the faculty suspect that this is an artificially elevated number that feeds dollars into the university in general well beyond their costs. But who knows? STEM faculty also teach, which of course helps justifies the tuition charged to the students.

4. The research of STEM faculty often contributes to the state in terms of helping solve state needs (i.e. medical research, agricultural research, etc.). Taking (3) and (4) together the one complaint I don't like to hear is that we should being doing less research and more teaching.

5.Humanity faculty usually don't have access to substantial grants. But for example virtually all freshman take introductory English composition. So the English department contributes massively to meeting the educational needs and to justifying the tuition base.

6. There are many more administrators now than decades before. And they get paid well. But perhaps there are more administrative needs too.

7. As in most places pension plans were not adequately funded and fixing this has become an increasing cost.

8. Here is an article than covers a lot of these topics (from a somewhat angry perspective that I think is somewhat overstated);
https://www.latimes.com/local/education/la-me-uc-spending-20151011-story.html

Okay. Enough boring stuff for now.

 

[Giordano]

One of the things that is also going on is that the collective marketplace for adult education is shifting away from "college". I.e travelling to a place with lots of rooms to spend four years listening to someone talk at the front of the room, and then taking tests to see who understood what he said.

It turns out that there are better, or at least more efficient, ways to learn employable skills.

Which ones do you think are promising?

 

[Meadmaker]

Which ones do you think are promising?

In my field (programming), intensive "boot camps" are very valuable and very cheap. It turns out that 90% of programming tasks really aren't that hard. A boot camp won't get you a top of the line, awesome, job, but a boot camp plus five years of real world experience where you make an effort to go above and beyond the minimum requirements will get you an education just as good as mine, at least in the programming aspect.

I've taken a lot of courses from Edx and Coursera over the last few years, and there's no way I would say that they are identical to their traditional counterparts, but some of them have been really good. Others, not so much, but none of them cost me more than 100 bucks.


For lots of fields, shorter, specialized, training programs make more sense.



For serious education, there is no way that anything is better than immersing yourself in full time study, with the aid of experts in the field, surrounded by a whole bunch of people also engaged in the same pursuit, i.e "college", but even there, there's plenty of opportunity to improve education and lower costs at the same time. The truth is that video lectures, forum based help, and expanded office hours are better than a traditional lecture and 20 students trying to get assistance in 2 hours a week of office hours. That is for introductory classes, or any classs where you could get by reading the book. Having a guy at the front of the room answering an occasional question is really not as good as having a video you can stop and play again, as well as having a forum where you can get assistance from professors, teaching assistants, and other students.


The best Edx classes were like that. I took a class that shadowed a real MIT class (Underactuated Robots, Professor Russell Teadrake), and I would say the difference between our version and their version is that we didn't have to do a final project. That, of course, is the most important part of the class......but then again there was nothing stopping me from doing the project. It just wouldn't get graded. Oh....the other difference was that my cost was a hundred bucks.

For some types of learning, computers are just better teachers. You want to learn a foreign language, get yourself a program with some exercises. For "real college" foreign language classes, do that, and meet an hour a week for pronunciation practice, and periodically take a proctored exam. You don't have to charge students 1,000 dollars for that class.

And, of course, internships and coop programs are even better in some ways than plain old college, for some lines of work.

 

[Tsukasa Buddha]

One problem I have with the current US system is the parental aid assumption. It is naturally a problem when you are a dependent and your parents won't or can't pay, regardless of what your FAFSA says.

Another is the weird gap that community colleges fill. One common idea is that the best ideal is to take two years there and then transfer. This often doesn't work out well. There is the obvious problem of schools accepting the course credits, and for the equivalent classes. Additionally, bachelor degree programs vary greatly, but many of them have complex prerequisite routes, with required classes only offered in certain semesters. You easily end up spending more time and money, and having to deal with half-time semesters. Universities make it difficult enough for people to navigate this that even traditional four year students often end up taking five.

On the other side of community colleges, there are more vocational degrees and programs. There are some good ones, but many ones that are more junk than any liberal arts degree. Their classes generally won't transfer anywhere. They are also a crapshoot as to whether your local college offers it, or if the classes are currently running. Some of them also have extreme hurdles. In order to study as a physical therapy assistant at mine, you had to take a number of specific prerequisite courses, have worked as an aide, have letters of recommendation, and have an interview just to even get accepted.

Then for professions that require doctorates prices are insane. For my state it is over $230,000.00 just for the graduate work for a veterinarian (i.e. not including the bachelor's degree). The vets I worked with were always talking about how they had no money. There are specific payment plans where it is assumed the amount will never be paid off. I loved the field, but that is an impossible position.

For the route I ended up with as an adult student, after being disappointed with the above options, I got a associate "transfer degree" from my community college that certain state universities accepted to waive the two years of general education requirements. Then I started my Computer Science BS program at one of the state universities that offered a completely online degree, offered all the required degree classes every semester, and had a prerequisite structure that allowed me to complete the degree in two years with balanced full-time semesters. Each of those was an uncommon quality, and the combination was one of a kind. In addition, it was in my state so I got in-state tuition and a grant from the state in addition to the Pell Grant, which I qualified for because I am old enough to not have my parents' income count against me. (It still doesn't end up free, but the total is cheaper than bootcamps.) It was a risk to get the transfer degree, because the acceptance rate at this university was 50-60%, but it worked out and I'm on track to finish in December of this year.

As for if college degrees are worth it, in monetary terms the odds are heavily in their favor (perhaps not for veterinarians). Obviously there are careers that require certain degrees, but additionally the lack of one can still impose ceilings on advancement, even in tech (many of my classmates are currently employed in the field). If we wanted to reform to a different degree system structure, we wouldn't be able to control how the job markets would react. (I would expect it to also be nigh impossible with the fragmented nature of the current system, but we're being idealistic here.)

There is also the research aspect of universities, which ties into funding, teaching, and how vocational we want them to be.

Anyway, as to the OP, I agree it creates unfortunate hazards to forgive student debt as of right now. Perhaps, in total, benefits to society could outweigh them, but I am not certain. I certainly don't want it to happen while the current system is in place. As for changing the current system to free or near free, I think from real world comparisons there doesn't seem to be a terrible result. Attending university is difficult to get into, and the opportunity cost is very real for all the time it takes. Perhaps there would need to be a new "forever student" clause, but we already restrict Pell Grants.

 

[ponderingturtle]

I am referring to state colleges and universities, which are partially supported by the state government through tax dollars.

Or they used to be, now they get no more as a percentage of operating expenses than many private schools do through federal grants. State schools are not what they used to be.

 

[ponderingturtle]

You didn't say adjunct, you said professor. You're also specifically referring to a part time gig, of which the first thing I found was:

I am talking about the jobs that they actually hire people for not some theoretical job. Many schools have more than half their courses taught by adjuncts. Adjunct is the job you can actually expect to get for people who go into academia. It's what gets hired.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Well, being on disability doesn't mean that you can necessarily discharge the student loans, either. It's actually a complicated topic (I'm a bankruptcy attorney and we have seminars on this every year or so). In fact, student loans are one of the few creditors that can garnish social security checks. Couple this with the fact that different circuits determine "undue hardship" differently and you quickly get bogged down.

But I was really confused by the last statement. Why would there be a higher tax bill? Are you speaking of the forgiveness of debt tax (Form 1099-C)? If so, a Form 982 could be filled out post-discharge to remove that from taxable income.

I will have to let my friend know.

 

[rdwight]

Another is the weird gap that community colleges fill. One common idea is that the best ideal is to take two years there and then transfer. This often doesn't work out well. There is the obvious problem of schools accepting the course credits, and for the equivalent classes. Additionally, bachelor degree programs vary greatly, but many of them have complex prerequisite routes, with required classes only offered in certain semesters. You easily end up spending more time and money, and having to deal with half-time semesters. Universities make it difficult enough for people to navigate this that even traditional four year students often end up taking five.

How widespread would you say your criticisms are for community colleges at large and how many fall on the individual student actually taking the time to plan things out? The one's near me have partnerships with certain 4 year universities, which helps with the planning course load and transition, even offering the bachelor degree courses on campus with professors from those schools.

As for prerequisites, sometimes the blame is really on people who wait to register and find conflicting times, filled classes etc. Better planning won't completely deter this but I know it can limit it greatly as well.

For the route I ended up with as an adult student, after being disappointed with the above options, I got a associate "transfer degree" from my community college that certain state universities accepted to waive the two years of general education requirements. Then I started my Computer Science BS program at one of the state universities that offered a completely online degree, offered all the required degree classes every semester, and had a prerequisite structure that allowed me to complete the degree in two years with balanced full-time semesters. Each of those was an uncommon quality, and the combination was one of a kind. In addition, it was in my state so I got in-state tuition and a grant from the state in addition to the Pell Grant, which I qualified for because I am old enough to not have my parents' income count against me. (It still doesn't end up free, but the total is cheaper than bootcamps.) It was a risk to get the transfer degree, because the acceptance rate at this university was 50-60%, but it worked out and I'm on track to finish in December of this year.

Are you sure your experience is so unique or is it just a bit more difficult to accomplish? Is it something above and beyond what an 18 year old could consider, plan for and execute to keep their costs as low as possible? In a general sense I agree that college has become overly costly. At the same time, it is not really as difficult as people make it out to be to keep costs down.

I have friends from lower income families that received their associates at 0$ cost to them through grants at a community college. Some went through to get a bachelor at 4 year schools, others not, but their overall cost was not in any way the largest hindrance.

Compare that to those that choose out of state, private universities, and use loans to cover the costs. What reason should this behavior be encouraged through forgiving such loans or offers that for free to future students?

 

[Tsukasa Buddha]

How widespread would you say your criticisms are for community colleges at large and how many fall on the individual student actually taking the time to plan things out? The one's near me have partnerships with certain 4 year universities, which helps with the planning course load and transition, even offering the bachelor degree courses on campus with professors from those schools.

There are partnership programs, but in my state they are few and far between. Around a quarter of CCs have one, and only for a few degrees. Mine only has it with my university specifically for a rather junk liberal arts degree.

As for prerequisites, sometimes the blame is really on people who wait to register and find conflicting times, filled classes etc. Better planning won't completely deter this but I know it can limit it greatly as well.

While true, that isn't quite what I was getting at. There are sequences that necessitate 3 years, or more, to complete, and at most colleges specific courses aren't offered every semester. If you try to do 2+2 it doesn't work.

I feel like you are making an argument that that problem lies with student planning, but I researched and planned multiple routes at many universities. I definitely think students need to have a clear goal and plan from the beginning, but they can't create course schedules or curricula that aren't offered. It could be true that this situation is worse in my region than others.

Are you sure your experience is so unique or is it just a bit more difficult to accomplish? Is it something above and beyond what an 18 year old could consider, plan for and execute to keep their costs as low as possible?

It is a very narrow route, that maybe 50 18 year olds in my state could complete. And that is just the 4 year plan, not paying for it, as I said previously their parents' income counts against them in aid. I think the issue is institutions offering more pathways, rather than people not finding the narrow ones that exist.

In a general sense I agree that college has become overly costly. At the same time, it is not really as difficult as people make it out to be to keep costs down.

I have friends from lower income families that received their associates at 0$ cost to them through grants at a community college. Some went through to get a bachelor at 4 year schools, others not, but their overall cost was not in any way the largest hindrance.

Yes, my Pell Grant also covered my associate degree at my community college. But only after my parents' income no longer counted against me. Only a third of students get Pell Grant aid.

Compare that to those that choose out of state, private universities, and use loans to cover the costs. What reason should this behavior be encouraged through forgiving such loans or offers that for free to future students?

The plans being discussed only make state public universities tuition free.

 

[PhantomWolf]

Better than a proletariat that those like you would ram down everyones throat because the USSR worked out ever so well.

One of the reasons that the USSR didn't work so good (and admittedly not the only one, but economically it was one of the biggest) was because it was never allowed to have the chance to stand on the world stage and trade fairly in the International marketplace. From the start of the Cold War the US strategy was to starve the USSR economically to destroy it.

Now not saying that was a bad thing overall, the fact remains that the USSR was a totalitarian regime that the wold is better off without, however its fall wasn't due to it being a Socialist Country, but rather because the US cut off its economic ability to trade, and then bleed it dry with conflicts such as Afghanistan.

With the West opting to do little trade with the USSR once the Cold War started, it meant that to do trade the USSR had to spread its politics and create trading partners and allies. All of which is expensive, and when you have to spend money out of your economy to create those partners and allies, and you have nothing coming back in because you can't sell products, then the total pool of money in your economy shrinks and keeps on shrinking until you go broke.

Cuba might be a better example of what communist socialism can do, though even they have issues when it comes to being able to trade with other nations due to the US and its sanctions.

The reality is that we have not truly seem what a Socialist country can really do if it's allowed to exist without outside forces trying to destroy it, and we certainly have never seen what a full modern Socialist Democracy is a capable of doing because there has never been one, mostly because when those few that looked like they might form, the US stepped in and destroyed them before they could.

 

[Giordano]

In my field (programming), intensive "boot camps" are very valuable and very cheap. It turns out that 90% of programming tasks really aren't that hard. A boot camp won't get you a top of the line, awesome, job, but a boot camp plus five years of real world experience where you make an effort to go above and beyond the minimum requirements will get you an education just as good as mine, at least in the programming aspect.

I've taken a lot of courses from Edx and Coursera over the last few years, and there's no way I would say that they are identical to their traditional counterparts, but some of them have been really good. Others, not so much, but none of them cost me more than 100 bucks.


For lots of fields, shorter, specialized, training programs make more sense.



For serious education, there is no way that anything is better than immersing yourself in full time study, with the aid of experts in the field, surrounded by a whole bunch of people also engaged in the same pursuit, i.e "college", but even there, there's plenty of opportunity to improve education and lower costs at the same time. The truth is that video lectures, forum based help, and expanded office hours are better than a traditional lecture and 20 students trying to get assistance in 2 hours a week of office hours. That is for introductory classes, or any classs where you could get by reading the book. Having a guy at the front of the room answering an occasional question is really not as good as having a video you can stop and play again, as well as having a forum where you can get assistance from professors, teaching assistants, and other students.


The best Edx classes were like that. I took a class that shadowed a real MIT class (Underactuated Robots, Professor Russell Teadrake), and I would say the difference between our version and their version is that we didn't have to do a final project. That, of course, is the most important part of the class......but then again there was nothing stopping me from doing the project. It just wouldn't get graded. Oh....the other difference was that my cost was a hundred bucks.

For some types of learning, computers are just better teachers. You want to learn a foreign language, get yourself a program with some exercises. For "real college" foreign language classes, do that, and meet an hour a week for pronunciation practice, and periodically take a proctored exam. You don't have to charge students 1,000 dollars for that class.

And, of course, internships and coop programs are even better in some ways than plain old college, for some lines of work.

Unfortunately I don't have enough time right now, but this is a great topic to discuss; there are a variety of different aspects worth thinking about. One is the idea of training vs education (which touches on my prior advocacy of the value of including liberal arts in anyone's education). Another is the importance of learning as part of a class/team of human beings versus from a computer or website. And obviously there are many mixes of these ideas that could be discussed.

I'll try engage in this discussion better when I can. But I do have one question right now. I've heard that many computer boot camps are somewhat ruthless, accepting a large number of trainees initially but quickly discarding individuals as soon as they appear to be faltering. By the end of the camp the organizers have the reduced pool of well-trained survivors who they then "sell" to their clients seeking coders. But the students who struggle don't have much opportunity to get help and support to back on board and are just pushed aside. Is this true?

If true this may work as a business model but does not reflect the theoretical goal of state funded education, which is to help as many individuals in the society as possible to succeed to the best of their potential.

 

[ahhell]

In my field (programming), intensive "boot camps" are very valuable and very cheap. It turns out that 90% of programming tasks really aren't that hard. A boot camp won't get you a top of the line, awesome, job, but a boot camp plus five years of real world experience where you make an effort to go above and beyond the minimum requirements will get you an education just as good as mine, at least in the programming aspect.

I recently heard about a company who's model appears to be teaching folks to code in exchange for percentage of their income when they start making more than 50k/year. I believe there is also a fixed maximum or time as well.

Strikes me as being a perfectly aligned set of incentives.

 

[Craig4]

I don’t deny the idea that technical specialties, such as medicine, law, etc., are essentially vocational in nature and can probably be successfully abbreviated in the USA as they are in some other countries. It’s not a trivial issue though how to do it. Don’t we want doctors to understand core biology, biochemistry, cell biology, etc? That’s what they learn in the 4 year undergrad programs before med school. Or do we train them just to recognize symptoms and prescribe treatments without knowing the stuff under the surface? Maybe helped by computers. It works in some other countries. Barefoot doctors are one extreme.

Same with law. Is knowing the technical aspects of the law enough? Or do we want our lawyers to also know history and sociology? Do we want them trained in technical fields that might impact on their skills in certain cases?

Perhaps we want different classes of these practitioners.

More broadly I think everyone should have 2 years or more of liberal arts education. And I don’t see higher education in general as only a feeder of trained workers into the vocational economy. It is a way of improving the quality of life of the students and the society.

Doctors in the UK understand core biology. They learn it in their medical school. In the UK you do have two classes of lawyers.

 

[Craig4]

Isn't that what tech school is? I have an associates in Cisco Networking\Computer Technology. That's about as specialized as you can make it and it took me 5 semesters to acquire. That's pretty much, by definition, what you're describing. Unless my sarcasm meter is off...

You get a diploma of higher education in academic subjects in the UK system. They are really vocational qualifications.

 

[Meadmaker]

But I do have one question right now. I've heard that many computer boot camps are somewhat ruthless, accepting a large number of trainees initially but quickly discarding individuals as soon as they appear to be faltering. By the end of the camp the organizers have the reduced pool of well-trained survivors who they then "sell" to their clients seeking coders. But the students who struggle don't have much opportunity to get help and support to back on board and are just pushed aside. Is this true?

If true this may work as a business model but does not reflect the theoretical goal of state funded education, which is to help as many individuals in the society as possible to succeed to the best of their potential.

I've never been to a boot camp, and have only met a couple of people who did go.

It certainly wouldn't surprise me if what you say is true, and it makes sense. They are definitely "training" as opposed to "education".

Of course, colleges drop people out who can't cut the muster, either. They just take longer to do it. (I suspect that some of the less scrupulous boot camps, and I'm sure there are very bad ones, manage to get a contract from their marks students that forces an up front, non-refundable fee, but allows the organizers to boot them out if they don't meet standards.

As an aside, an awful lot of people who go to computer boot camps are people who have already received an education in a college, but find themselves unable to find employment in their chosen field of study. One more aside, remember Ross Perot. He made his billions by hiring history majors. He would hire unemployable college graduates, and train them as computer professionals, paying them sub-standard wages until they worked off their debt for their training. If you left EDS too soon, you got a bill on your way out. (If EDS booted you, the debt was forgiven, so at least it wasn't a complete scam, but those people may as well have been indentured servants.)

"Boot camp" probably isn't much of a model for education to replace college, but I brought it up as an example of one form of job training that could be subsidized. There are some fields that are amenable to intense, short term, courses of study in a very narrow field. A "boot camp" graduate doesn't even have a well rounded knowledge of computer science, but he's employable and has a foundation.

I don't think you could train a veterinarian that way, although maybe a veterinary tech?

 

[Giordano]

One of the reasons that the USSR didn't work so good (and admittedly not the only one, but economically it was one of the biggest) was because it was never allowed to have the chance to stand on the world stage and trade fairly in the International marketplace. From the start of the Cold War the US strategy was to starve the USSR economically to destroy it.

Now not saying that was a bad thing overall, the fact remains that the USSR was a totalitarian regime that the wold is better off without, however its fall wasn't due to it being a Socialist Country, but rather because the US cut off its economic ability to trade, and then bleed it dry with conflicts such as Afghanistan.

With the West opting to do little trade with the USSR once the Cold War started, it meant that to do trade the USSR had to spread its politics and create trading partners and allies. All of which is expensive, and when you have to spend money out of your economy to create those partners and allies, and you have nothing coming back in because you can't sell products, then the total pool of money in your economy shrinks and keeps on shrinking until you go broke.

Cuba might be a better example of what communist socialism can do, though even they have issues when it comes to being able to trade with other nations due to the US and its sanctions.

The reality is that we have not truly seem what a Socialist country can really do if it's allowed to exist without outside forces trying to destroy it, and we certainly have never seen what a full modern Socialist Democracy is a capable of doing because there has never been one, mostly because when those few that looked like they might form, the US stepped in and destroyed them before they could.

The USSR was in fact enormously successful in education. Particularly given it began as a very agrarian and feudal society, was very poor, and Was decimated by the revolution, purges, and WW2. Yet it turned out among the very best trained scientist and engineers in the world. And basically with a free education too.

Cuba also is an example of a country successfully providing a strong education cheaply to a poor population that had little access previously.

Deep flaws and evils? Absolutely! But in many ways their commitment to and success with free education questions why the US can’t do better.

 

[Roboramma]

Of considerable interest to the topic of this thread is this book:

Why Are The Prices So Damn High

That's a link to the PDF, which is free.

Here's a blog post by one of the authors: https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/05/the-baumol-effect.html

To give the plot away, they explain rising costs in education (and healthcare, as well as all service industries) with the Baumol Effect. The case seems quite compelling to me.