"Today, It's Not Police Control; Its Economic Control"

"When I went to Berkeley, it cost me $62.50 a semester. That covered registration, lab fees, healthcare and a student body card. My tuition was free. (It was $600 for out-of-state students.) Today, in-state tuition is $12,872.
"There's been inflation, of course. But nothing that begins to explain this kind of huge jump. The increase also can't be explained by the cost of new stadiums and lavish buildings, which we intellectual alumni love to deplore. Nor is it due to teachers' salaries. Low-paid adjuncts do much more of the teaching today than they did when I went to school. Top academic administrative salaries, like top corporate executive salaries, have increased beyond inflation, it's true, but not by enough to account for a tuition increase from nothing to $12,000.
"My tuition could be 'free' in the 1960s because higher education was supported by state and federal funds. But since my school days, the rich have rebelled against paying taxes. With so much government support gone, the bulk of tuition must now be paid by students themselves. But student and parental salaries have stagnated at best, so a lot of that increased tuition is financed by borrowing. That gives moneylenders—the very same folks who oppose taxes—a lien on the future earnings of educated Americans."


Barbara Garson in the Los Angeles Times discusses the pressures on today's college students.