Dr. Richard Vedder, Director of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity and Professor Emeritus of Economics at Ohio University, will speak at the National Press Club on Sept. 10.
His topic for the NPC Newsmakers program will be: Why are college and university costs escalating so rapidly? He will discuss the reasons college costs have continued to explode despite 50 years of ostensibly benevolent government interventions, according to an NPC news release.
In 1964, federal student aid was a mere $231 million. By 1981, the federal government was spending $7 billion on loans alone, an amount that doubled during the 1980s and nearly tripled in each of the following two decades – and amounts to about $105 billion today. Taxpayers now stand behind nearly $1 trillion in student loans.
Meanwhile, grants have increased to $49 billion from $6.4 billion in 1981. By expanding eligibility and boosting the maximum Pell Grant by $500 to $5,350, the 2009 stimulus bill accelerated higher ed’s evolution into a middle-class entitlement. Fewer than two percent of Pell Grant recipients came from families making between $60,000 and $80,000 a year in 2007. Now roughly 18 percent do.
This growth in subsidies, Mr. Vedder argues, has fueled rising prices: “It gives every incentive and every opportunity for colleges to raise their fees.”
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