08-09-2016, 08:10 PM
When it's not your money paying for something you don't worry about the price. Consumers being shielded from facing the total cost just pushes prices higher since demand hardly changes. This problem is most evident in for profit schools. Tuition is set at the amount Federal Pell Grant, subsidized loans and state grants combined, so students go for free - maybe taking out a small subsidized loan. Increase the grants by 10% and students still owe nothing and schools raise their tuition by exactly 10%.
That's the unintended consequence of that strategy. That's not to say the intended outcome of helping students well off in every sense but financially get a better education from a better school hasn't been very successful in its own right. Maybe the benefits do outweight the negatives and continuing without changing how it works now is the best strategy.. But the problem it creates is evident. Making everything free further exasperates the biggest untended consequence that's already cause problems.
Eliminating all government help would make college cheaper than ever, but enrollment would plummet to lowest numbers in forever as well. Making it free would make it more expensive than ever but enrollment would be higher than ever.
Either way, the landscape would stray away from either of these paths in the long run. Enrollment would drop if students got no help, but eventually college grads would be a high demand and get higher pay, making the already cheaper tuition prices more worthwhile to pay. The opposite would happen if college was free. Too many college gads competing for the same job would lower salaries and other industries would be more attractive.
That's the unintended consequence of that strategy. That's not to say the intended outcome of helping students well off in every sense but financially get a better education from a better school hasn't been very successful in its own right. Maybe the benefits do outweight the negatives and continuing without changing how it works now is the best strategy.. But the problem it creates is evident. Making everything free further exasperates the biggest untended consequence that's already cause problems.
Eliminating all government help would make college cheaper than ever, but enrollment would plummet to lowest numbers in forever as well. Making it free would make it more expensive than ever but enrollment would be higher than ever.
Either way, the landscape would stray away from either of these paths in the long run. Enrollment would drop if students got no help, but eventually college grads would be a high demand and get higher pay, making the already cheaper tuition prices more worthwhile to pay. The opposite would happen if college was free. Too many college gads competing for the same job would lower salaries and other industries would be more attractive.
![[Image: Cz_eGI3UUAASnqC.jpg]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cz_eGI3UUAASnqC.jpg)
