From the Academy: Who Should Pay for Higher Education?

Colleges and universities, both private and Public’ often approach bankruptcy today. More private institutions may collapse altogether; and while state institutions doubtless will limp along somehow, most of them soon may find it very difficult to extract from legislatures enough money to meet even a “minimum” budget. We have been trying to confer the higher learning upon far too many young people, and the cost per capita has become inordinate.

Ordinarily, in such a society as ours, commodities are paid for by those who obtain them. It is otherwise in the higher education: Tuition fees, even at famous private universities which charge their students thousands of dollars, meet only a small part of the total cost of maintaining universities.

RK

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Russell Kirk

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Colleges and universities, both private and Public’ often approach bankruptcy today. More private institutions may collapse altogether; and while state institutions doubtless will limp along somehow, most of them soon may find it very difficult to extract from legislatures enough money to meet even a “minimum” budget. We have been trying to confer the higher learning upon far too many young people, and the cost per capita has become inordinate.

Ordinarily, in such a society as ours, commodities are paid for by those who obtain them. It is otherwise in the higher education: Tuition fees, even at famous private universities which charge their students thousands of dollars, meet only a small part of the total cost of maintaining universities.