Andrew Manshel omits a key part of the “squeezing.” The people who are being squeezed dry are often wealthy grandparents. If they want to simply give money to grandchildren, gift taxes kick in at $13,000 each, but the tax code allows them to spend without limit on college tuition. That’s one of the reasons why the cost of college keeps escalating — schools know that America has a lot of wealth they can tap for what is in essence a big-ticket luxury item.

What’s going on is that a great deal of accumulated capital is being drawn into non-profit educational enterprises that devote a considerable amount of that money to the care and feeding of professors who are doing their utmost to undermine the system of laissez-faire that made their fine lifestyle possible. That is a bad turn. We could even say it’s unsustainable.