“We’re Frighteningly in the Dark About Student Debt” – But Even More in the Dark About What We Are Buying

We’re Frighteningly in the Dark About Student Debt – NYTimes.com.

I commented as follow: (Please note the “fixes” to the poor writing I submitted.)

We are loaning money to naïve – and by definition – uneducated “consumers” so that they can “buy” an education. Yet the “sellers” in blocking block all attempts for either the “purchaser”, or the lender learn about the product.

Clearly, assessing a college education is harder than appraising a house, yet blocking all true assessments of education is a catastrophe for all of us – except for the colleges. If a house falls down, it can be rebuilt much more easily than a poor education can be made up for. (Remember the story about “…teach a man to fish…”) Yet, we regulate housing much more effectively than we do education.

Not seriously assessing a college education leads to what the great sociologist, David Riesman, observed, in 1980 (3 years before the first US News “ranking”).

“…advantage can..be taken of [students] by unscrupulous instructors and institutions…the student estate often does not grasp its own interests, and those who speak in its name are not always its friends..”

He goes on to note that many (if not most) colleges cater to student “wants” instead of needs, which can be quite different – and the colleges, professor, and administrators that do this know exactly what they are doing.

I know this from first hand experience. I am a retired professor, and I cannot overstate just how prescient Dr. Riesman was. Buy Buyer beware.