MORE ON THE COLLEGE BOARD REPORT. Just to add a bit to Ezra's post: As James Surowiecki recently explained in The New Yorker, the cost of college rises faster than inflation because it is so labor intensive that the technological advances that reduce the costs of production in other industries do not have nearly the same cost-saving effect on higher education. And government subsidies of higher education and tuition, like the Pell Grant, have failed to keep pace, when they should be increasing in response to this problem. There are plenty of common-sense proposals out there, including some that would actually save the government money, like switching to direct student loans (rather than government guaranteed loans from private corporations.) American students have not generally been nearly as active in organizing around these issues as their European counterparts, though the folks I work for are trying to change that.
--Ben Adler
