More on the Ponzi, er, higher education system

It seems like every single day there is yet another analysis of the utterly wasteful strategy of mandating college degrees for all.  If it looks, quacks, and walks the same way, isn't it about time we recognized it as a ponzi scheme?

Today's edition is from Matt Yglesias--far from a Tea Party nutcase he is.  Yglesias provides this chart (it is off the same set of data that I had blogged about last September):

See how much steeper the tuition increases are compared to even that other great ponzi scheme called housing?  Now, of course, the public tuition going up is a reflection of reduction in state allocations.  But, we can use the private tuition as the baseline index, which itself is enough.

So, as state allocations decrease, what do we do?  Increase federal grants, of course!  But then the more the feds subsidize, the more that "benefit" is immediately captured by the public institutions which jack up tuition and fees, instead of the benefit going to the poor student.  More on this here.

Against such a backdrop, faculty are already thinking about salary increases.  Welcome to the bizarro world.  Over at the Chronicle of Hr. Ed. is a lively debate on whether discussions about faculty salaries do more harm than good.  As far as I can tell, there is not any serious comment about the squeeze that we are applying on students :(

Increasingly I wonder whether students themselves realize they are being screwed.  My hunch is that they don't, or even if they do they feel like they have no choice in this matter.  oh well ...

update: this from the faculty union on campus:

Just a quick reminder that Monday (4/25) is Higher Ed. Rally Day at the state capitol steps.  Please join students and faculty for a rally which will convey our needs and goals to the Governor and the Legislature.  It startsat 12:30 on the steps and will last approximately an hour.  See you there.

So, where will the additional money come from?  Hmmmm ....