Student Loan Meltdown Next?

this diary at Daily Kos and the discussion thread are thought-provoking. there's very little denial any longer that the banking industry is in serious trouble due to lax lending standards in the mortgage market over the last seven years. could the student loan market face a similar fate? student lending has already been the subject of scandal. now that we're facing a possible recession and the soft job market that this entails, how high will the default rate go?

putting all of this aside, the real issue is the cost of higher education. i've encountered several interesting theories regarding the iron clad law that the cost of higher education shall rise much faster than the rate of inflation. one theory is that education is labor intensive and because there are few ways in which the process of providing an education can be automated, the cost of doing so rises faster relative to the cost of doing other jobs. if there were a way for one educator to effectively teach ten times as many students, it would be possible to charge less per student.

a theory proposed in the diary i linked is that colleges and universities raise tuition and fees simply because they can. this theory posits that providing ready and easy access to educational loans has made it easier for colleges and universities to raise prices. perhaps legislation should be passed allowing educational loans to be discharged in bankruptcy. or are low wages for jobs not requiring a degree the real problem? if high school graduates could skip college and go directly into the job market and enjoy a satisfactory standard of living would colleges and universities face lower enrollments and be forced to compete for students, resulting in lower educational costs?

so, what can be done? should it be harder to borrow money for school? should we collectively pay for the cost of higher education so that students don't have to pay for their educations out of pocket? one objection to this that i find compelling is that using taxes to pay for everyone's education forces those who don't go to college or graduate school to pay for the people who do go. since college and graduate degrees translate into higher earnings this means that a relatively privileged minority will be subsidized by the less privileged majority.

College Student In Utah Carries Concealed Weapon On Campus

yes. you read that right. he started doing this after the Virginia Tech massacre. he may feel safer, but i wonder what his classmates would think if they knew. another one for the WTF files.