According to a Forbes.com article, college tuition has increased by more than three times the rate of inflation over the last 20 years, despite flat-lining U.S. wages. The average tuition at a private four-year school is up 6.6% yearly in 2007 to $23,712, according to the College Board. . .
And it could haunt students and America for years to come. According to the College Board in early 2009, total student loan borrowing more than doubled between 1998 and 2008. The numbers are staggering. We're talking about $85 billion in loans, as compared to $41 billion ten years ago.
WealthDaily
Privately funded student loans have risen, too, from 7% in 1998 to 23% of all student loans in 2008. It makes for quite a brew for cash-strapped Americans this year, who are already saddled with unemployment and loss of income. Sallie Mae, for example, had a delinquency rate of 9.4% in Q3 2008, as compared to a rate of 8.5% just a year earlier.
I'm willing to bet that rate gaps higher as the months go by.
The student loan market has been, is, and will be riddled with trouble. Expect higher default rates, as students can't pay back these loans. Still, we'll look to profit from their demise. _
College education is a multi-faceted scandal, crying for alternatives and correctives. Rather than a place to prepare students to meet life's challenges, universities have become dumbed down indoctrination centers and refuges from responsibility -- where students learn and teach dysfunctionality on a grand scale. An educational system fit for a crumbling civilisation, to be sure.
What are the alternatives? Independent certification agencies, which can certify knowledge and expertise across a wide array of professional, vocational, and academic / scholarly / research areas. Universities practise grade inflation, social promotion, affirmative action, and other non-meritocratic policies, which destroys the credibility of many university degrees in the eyes of employers and the public.
University has become bad, overpriced theatre. Farce, if you will. As the cost of university explodes, the value shrinks. All of society participates in this expensive and destructive farce.
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