The university has become a rogue institution in need of root-and-branch reform

Victor Davis Hanson:

Two factors have so far shielded the American university from the sort of criticism that it so freely levels against almost every other institution in American life. (1) For decades a college education has been considered the key to an ascendant middle-class existence. (2) Until recently a college degree was not tantamount to lifelong debt. In other words, American society put up with a lot of arcane things from academia, given that it offered something -- a BA or BS degree -- that almost everyone agreed was a ticket to personal security and an educated populace.

Not now. Colleges have gone rogue and become virtual outlaw institutions. Graduates owe an aggregate of $1 trillion in student debt, borrowed at interest rates far above home-mortgage rates -- all on the principle that universities could charge as much as they liked, given that students could borrow as much as they needed in federally guaranteed loans.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at January 11, 2014 12:03 AM
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