Valid counter to the article's premise, and leads me to a dumb question: why haven't more colleges attempted to cut costs in recent years, as tuitions and student debt continue to spiral?
First, the market clearly does not reward cheap education. A lot of prospective students and their parents are enamored with pricey colleges either for the status or for the perceived value. This is probably a result of cultural expectations lagging behind actual reality by a few decades.
Second, all the intermediary parties have no incentives to control cost. Student debt cannot be discharged under bankruptcy, so why would the lenders ever say no to any debt? They don’t care that the college is overpriced by a factor of 10 and the student will never pay off their debt fully, they’ll still pay 6-11% interest for the rest of their lives, which is highly lucrative for the lender.
