Going Broke by Degree: Why College Costs Too Much (Hardcover)

~ Richard Vedder (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

The dramatic rise in university tuition costs is placing a greater financial burden on millions of college-bound Americans and their families. Yet only a fraction of the additional money colleges are collecting—twenty-one cents on the dollar—goes toward instruction. And, by many measures, colleges are doing a worse job of educating Americans. Why are we spending more—and getting less? In Going Broke by Degree, economist Richard Vedder examines the causes of the college tuition crisis. He warns that exorbitant tuition hikes are not sustainable, and explores ways to reverse this alarming trend.

Vedder's research demonstrates that America’s universities have become less productive, less efficient, and more likely to use tuition money and state and federal grants to subsidize noninstructional activities such as as athletics. These factors combine to produce dramatic hikes in tuition, making it more difficult for Americans to afford college.

Vedder believes that competition from for-profit universities (the fastest growing sector in higher education), computer-based distance learning, and nonuniversity certification of skills can be a powerful force for needed change. He suggests that possible solutions to the tuition crisis include modifying tenure, increasing teaching loads, paring administrative staffs, increasing distance learning, and cutting costly noneducational programs. He also suggests even more dramatic changes, including transforming state grants to universities into student voucher programs, as well as other steps to increase privatization of state universities.

About the Author

Richard Vedder is distinguished professor of economics at Ohio University and an adjunct scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Trained as an economic historian, much of his work has dealt with the history of American labor markets and issues such as immigration, internal migration, slavery, and unemployment. After serving as an economist with the Joint Economic Committee of Congress, Mr. Vedder focused on public policy issues dealing with labor markets and governmental budgetary policy. In the past decade he has worked on issues relating to education at both the primary/secondary and university levels.

Mr. Vedder’s previous books include The American Economy in Historical Perspective, Unemployment and Government in Twentieth-Century America (with Lowell Gallaway), and Can Teachers Own Their Own Schools? He has authored over two hundred scholarly papers, which have appeared in The Journal of Economic History, Agricultural History, Explorations in Economic History, and numerous other academic journals. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Investor’s Business Daily, the Christian Science Monitor, and the Washington Post. The winner of numerous teaching awards, Mr. Vedder is a popular public speaker, having lectured on public policy issues across the country and in Europe and Asia. He has advised numerous political leaders on tax and fiscal policy or education issues. Mr. Vedder is a graduate of Northwestern University and the University of Illinois.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 259 pages
• Publisher: AEI Press; illustrated edition edition (June 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0844741973
• ISBN-13: 978-0844741970
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #434,624 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good book, but heavy on statistics., April 29, 2005

By	Brian J. Wilton (Pullman, WA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Richard Vedder's collection and analysis of information regarding college costs and quality is an excellent exercise of statistical work. If, however, you're not familiar with stats, or just don't like them, you may want to find another book on the subject.

To simply forward Vedder's conclusion, the rising cost and dropping quality of college education is due to, ironically, alumnus donations and government subsidies, and lack of market stimuli (although higher education is protected from these for the sake of improving quality).

Although the use of tables, graphs, and other statistics is very pronounced- sometimes too easy to get lost in- there are occasions when there just isn't the specific number that would tie everything together. There is a point where Vedder is attempting to describe a regression line, and mistakenly describes a kind of logarithmic function, by using a percentage of a variable instead of a percentage of a constant (the constant, even if you notice it's missing there, doesn't appear to be anywhere else). It also seemed to illustrate a very important point, and it's regretable that the point is so hard to grasp.

This example is the worst I could find in the book. Such as it is, Vedder's book is good if you're interested or patient enough regarding the number-crunching; most of it is coherent and makes sense easily enough. His theories rest solidly on the evidence, and his perspective will resonate with those of you who believe the government is too wasteful and/or corrupt to be handling the schooling of the young.

Probably, the best use for this book will be as a source of numbers in debates concerning higher education, as Vedder goes to considerable length to crunch them for the reader.

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Bringing accountability to higher education, July 19, 2004

By	Edward P. Meehan - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Dr. Vedder's book and insights reaffirm the issue facing both our system of higher education and our state and local governments - how to pay for the growth of our post secondary education system and prepare students to become productive and qualified workers.

With less than 20% of college costs being covered by tutition, on average, in the U.S. and graduation rates at 4 year colleges (over a 6 year period) in the 50% range and at 2 year colleges (over a 3 year period) below 30%, it is hard to see how the public can continue to subsidize a system that fails to acknowledge its obligation to educate students, not build organizations and infrastructures that are uneconomic.

Unfortunately these issues were clearly oulined in 1998 in "Straight Talk About College Costs And Prices", Report Of The National Commission On the Cost Of Higher Education, January 21, 1998.

Where the Commission said:

"This Commission, therefore, finds itself in the discomfiting position of acknowledging that the nation's academic institutions, justly renowned for their ability to analyze practically every other major economic activity in the United States, have not devoted similar analytic attention to their own internal financial structures. Blessed, until recently, with sufficient resources that allowed questions about costs or internal cross-subsidies to be avoided, academic institutions now find themselves confronting hard questions about whether their spending patterns match their priorities and about how to communicate the choices they have made to the public"

Over the next several years this is a topic that will start to show how little our politicans understand about one our country's most prized assets, and also highlight the fact that our university professors and administrators care much more about their own quality of life than that of their proported customer, the students.

11 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good Material, Too Technical, December 26, 2005

By	Loyd E. Eskildson "Pragmatist" (Phoenix, AZ.) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

The market for college tuition suffers from the same problems as that for healthcare - the large impact of third-party payors (eg. government, scholarship discounts makes consumers far more indifferent regarding costs than they otherwise would be. Vedder also should have mentioned that comparing quality has also been difficult in both markets, and that suppliers are rewarded for their errors ("rework" in healthcare, increasing time to graduation due to lack of course availability). Other problems include admitting those unqualified, and high drop-out rates.

One problem with the book is that Vedder concentrates too much on tuition costs. Tuition hikes are a result of both increased costs and shifting funding sources - since the latter is extraneous to any issues of spending, it simply confuses the issue. Vedder's efforts would be more useful if he had instead focused on trends in inflation-adjusted costs/fte.

"Research" is often cited as the reason for increased college tuition - however, Vedder points out that much of it is trivial, and those undertaking it generally receive grants to offset the costs. Regardless, at some point, for example, the additional studies of eg. King Lear garner vanishingly small returns.

Vedder's alternatives to publicly funded (high-costs universities) include private institutions (Vedder cites the University of Phoenix (UofP)- however, subsequent reports have found that the UofP has very high dropout rates and questionable marketing practices), community colleges, company-administered examinations (eg. demonstrations of Oracle or Microsoft expertise), and providing aid to students instead of schools (would hopefully better reward institutions providing better attention to student needs - eg. course offerings, and could encourage graduation by forgiving a portion for those graduating).

It is difficult to make a case that the increased education spending has brought improved college instruction - Graduate Record Exam (GRE) results have declined slightly over the years, the proportion of classes taught by adjunct faculty and teaching assistants has increased, the school year has decreased (Vedder, however, did not indicate how much it has decreased), and the percent of students taking five or more years to graduate has increased.

Trends in spending allocation: Instruction: 39% in '76-'77 - 34% in '99-'00. Research: 18.4%, 22.4%. Total staff/100fte: 18.5% to 20.8%. Faculty/100fte: 7 to 7.6.

Faculty as a PerCent of Staff: 48% in 2 yr. institutions, vs. 28% in 4 yr. ('99-'00)

Teaching loads have declined from about 9 hours/semester at major research universities, 12 at medium-quality state/private, and 15 at somewhat lesser known. This is a MAJOR cost issue, however, and Vedder does not treat it in sufficient detail or with clarity.

Summarizing, "Going Broke by Degree" is an important start, but only a start. The problem is worse than Vedder portrays, and his conclusions do not stress enough the issue of declining productivity. Too much of the book is filled with arcane economic theory that clarifies little. Further, he does not address important side issues - the vast amounts wasted on students admitted without proper preparation or who quickly drop out, and those who graduate but then take jobs that do not require a college degree.