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> Why do people always reach for central control, when we have the ultimate mechanism of price control as a core part of our society (competition). The USA has
by throwawayjava 8y ago
> Why do people always reach for central control, when we have the ultimate mechanism of price control as a core part of our society (competition).
The USA has 4,000+ colleges, most of which do compete aggressively for students. Huge marketing departments with regional and national reach. Radio ads. Television ads. Print ads. Marketing networks with college counselors. Salespeople who spend many months attending college fairs. Fancy dorms and other amenities. Carefully crafted discount rates applied in a way that tickles the applicant's ego in just the right way. Beautifully crafted websites. Massive landscaping budgets, the bulk of which is spent during recruiting season. Expensive logos and mottos crafted by marketing firms that spend a lot of time with study groups. And so on. Higher ed marketing is a big industry in the USA.
Competition alone does not drive prices down.
> What happens when the government tries to provide for us... they gaurantee your student loan: Skyrocketing cost of school
Well, maybe the government should actually provide education instead of providing financial products...
On that note, both European higher ed and US K12 would like to have a word...
IMO the problem in health and education is that we can't stomach the massive inequalities that show up in free markets (healthcare: let people die; education: only the rich and a few lower-risk borrowers get higher ed), but also can't commit to just socializing the whole damned enterprise. We need to abandon our morality or abandon our aversion to socialism; until we choose one, we'll be stuck with these extremely suboptimal public/private "solutions".
- frebord 8y agoCompetition ALONE is exactly what drives prices down. The endless supply of students with a government guaranteed loan is why they are not going down, why would they? It completely violates the most basic element of our economy. Fully socializing those things is a solution better than what we have now, but that is the point where those things stagnate (US K12) which is why I prefer the free market solution and still think it is perfectly capable of producing exponentially more opportunity than the car without an engine (socialism).
- mrep 8y agoYou do realize students have to pay back those loans right? I know many people including my girlfriend that only considered state schools or ones that offered significant scholarships because they didn't want to be 100s of thousands of dollars in debt.
- coryrc 8y agoThey don't have to. There are limits to how much of a person's income can be spent and some people choose low-paying careers, so their loans never get paid off. Government agencies and schools will pay off loans if you work there; an additional bailout financially-responsible people are missing out on.
- throwawayjava 8y agoCan you name a single country that has accessible, inexpensive, high-quality higher education system provided entirely by the private sector? The view that free markets are some sort of magical panacea for education or especially healthcare strikes me as an extraordinarily anti-empirical -- if admittedly hyper-rationalist -- position.
- catawbasam 8y agoThis. You have plenty of data points to choose from. Show us. Empty ideology just won't cut it.