CCAP in the News: January 11, 2010

Richard Vedder was one of the featured experts for the NY Times Room for Debate forum on January 3, which asked the question: Are They Students? Or ‘Customers’? Here were Dr. Vedders remarks:

Since student evaluations of professors became commonplace 35 years ago, students have played a greater role in campus decision-making. The growth in grade inflation, the near abandonment of Friday classes on many campuses, and the provision of country club-like facilities are three indicators that universities increasingly look at students as customers requiring pampering

As tuition costs soar and the pool of college age Americans starts to shrink, this trend will grow. As a consequence, however, universities are endangering their reputation as being rigorously committed to academic excellence.
Surveys show that typically students study, attend class and write papers fewer than 30 hours a week, for only about 30 weeks a year. While the typical American employee works 1,800 hours a year, the typical college student works half that amount on academics.

The “student as customer” philosophy has created an underworked and overindulged group of future national leaders, something that likely will prove costly in the long run.

Andrew Gillen was quoted in Charlotte Allen's January 5 Minding the Campus essay on student loans.

"Direct Loan is highly susceptible to politicization on the budgeting level. In the short term, all that borrowing [the $1 trillion] ought to pay for itself in the interest rates the government charges the students as they pay back the loans. In the long term, it's not realistic to expect high enough interest rates to prevail. There's always going to be political pressure for lower interest rates, which means that taxpayers will be taking up the slack."

"I think that having a federally run program makes some sense, as long as the government is limited to determining need based eligibility and setting the loan limits. Get rid of lender subsidies, let interest rates vary, and let the government subsidize students interest payments directly if it wants to. For private loans, drop the non-dischargeability and let the market determine the terms of lending."

Richard Vedder was quoted in a January 7 Washington Examiner article, stating:

There seems to be an obsession with getting people into college," when up to 50 percent don't graduate in four years, and those who do often find college skills useless in the job market

I'm not against higher education -- it's done wonderful things. But it's like anything else in economics -- it's subject to the law of diminishing returns