Thomas Sowell Explains Rising Costs of College

Thomas Sowell has been running around explaining why the cost of college seems to rise so exponentially. His latest column on college costs examines why colleges have no incentive to reduce costs with all the lavish subsidies government throws their way and how research downgrades the quality of education undergraduates receive.

The criteria used by most accrediting agencies are based on inputs -- essentially spending -- rather than results for students.

Competition among academic institutions therefore seldom takes the form of lowering their costs of operation, in order to lower tuition. The incentives are all the other way.

Competition often takes the form of offering more upscale amenities -- posh lounges, bowling alleys, wi-fi, finer dorms.

Ah yes, the increasing country clubification of American campuses and how it leads to a vicious cycle of increasing student debt by increasing the cost of tuition to pay for things that have nothing to do with education.

My friend at U.Chicago put it best: Paying for college is like going to buy a fish and being told you have to buy a car and a lampshade.

Still, there are many who say that if we got rid of all those country club amenities, that we would somehow make ourselves less competitive at getting top notch students.

You've seen this argument before on this blog from many in the comment section. Many such students argue that if we somehow decrease the $230,000 plus dollars collected per annum for student activities students will be less inclined to come to Claremont McKenna. (One wonders what motivated their parents and all the alums who routinely give back...) Patrick Weisman, a friend of this blog on many issues, is quick to make this argument. I find it totally unpersuasive. Now as student fees rise again to pay for security for parties, we're seeing just another way that college is being more and more difficult for average folks to afford.

Yes, there will be a percentage of students who expect more amenities than colleges have erstwhile been unable to provide, but I would wager that those people will be in a small minority and will still come to college for the expected value of the degree alone, even if we were to do away with the parties and club funds entirely.

What should be the function of colleges after all, but education? Harvey Mudd seems to have understand this fact intuitively and world class thinkers are beginning to take note.

Sowell has written about how Harvey Mudd prepares more students for graduate work, an indication that supports the conclusion that Harvey Mudd gives its students a great education.

He mentioned this fact on NRO TV and wrote that,

You may never have heard of Harvey Mudd College but a higher percentage of its graduates go on to get Ph.D.s than do the graduates of Harvard, Yale, Stanford, or M.I.T. So do the graduates of Grinnell, Reed, and various other small colleges.

Harvey Mudd is no Claremont McKenna, to be sure, but Claremont McKenna can rank its students by other means: number of applicants to law school, business school, or dare I say? number of dollars in bank account 5 years after graduation.