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This comment is like a bad parody of the excuses in the article. 1) So are all the stats that say that students are paying more, and are graduating with more d

by guelo 12y ago

This comment is like a bad parody of the excuses in the article. 1) So are all the stats that say that students are paying more, and are graduating with more debt, lies? 2) Blaming poor people is the latest trend in elite apologias. Same with the real estate bubble, it's the poor people that blew up the economy! 3) Student orgs, TAs and tutors are a totally new thing that didn't exist before tuition exploded, oh wait.

adminprof 12y ago
I was referring specifically to private research universities, which maybe account for 1% of students. Public universities have gotten more expensive, and there have been a lot of students enrolling in for-profit colleges. There's plenty of ways you can count the numbers.
waps 12y ago
As for 2) But while nobody's publicly saying so, it is true that the (not really) "poor" homeowners are responsible for the 2001 crisis. The cause of the crisis was, after all, that >2% of homeowners (mostly poor ones) stopped paying their loans because (partly it was no longer in their financial interest to do so). Which cause banks to sell CDOs that were valued on the assumption that this would never happen. Which caused some banks to get stung with CDOs. The great crime of the elite was to offer loans to people bigger than what they could reasonably pay back. Nobody forced anyone to take the money, or hid the fact that it needed to be paid back. Too large a percentage of people just didn't abide by contracts they signed. And they failed to abide by those contracts for the exact same reason banks try to get out from under obligations : there were losing a little bit of money. I don't think people are blaming the poor. People are blaming homeowners who overextended themselves, or simply walked away from their loan obligations. And this is justified. They caused the crisis. Yes they were pushed into it. Does that excuse it ? I don't know.

by guelo 12y ago

adminprof 12y ago

I was referring specifically to private research universities, which maybe account for 1% of students. Public universities have gotten more expensive, and there have been a lot of students enrolling in for-profit colleges. There's plenty of ways you can count the numbers.

waps 12y ago

As for 2) But while nobody's publicly saying so, it is true that the (not really) "poor" homeowners are responsible for the 2001 crisis. The cause of the crisis was, after all, that >2% of homeowners (mostly poor ones) stopped paying their loans because (partly it was no longer in their financial interest to do so). Which cause banks to sell CDOs that were valued on the assumption that this would never happen. Which caused some banks to get stung with CDOs. The great crime of the elite was to offer loans to people bigger than what they could reasonably pay back. Nobody forced anyone to take the money, or hid the fact that it needed to be paid back. Too large a percentage of people just didn't abide by contracts they signed. And they failed to abide by those contracts for the exact same reason banks try to get out from under obligations : there were losing a little bit of money. I don't think people are blaming the poor. People are blaming homeowners who overextended themselves, or simply walked away from their loan obligations. And this is justified. They caused the crisis. Yes they were pushed into it. Does that excuse it ? I don't know.