How Higher Education Became an Obscenely Profitable Racket

Student loan lenders are skimming tens of billions in profits guaranteed by the taxpayers.

"Legal" rackets have two essential components: a public-relations "cover" that obscures the racket and the mechanism that extracts the wealth from the "marks." The Higher Education Racket qualifies on both counts:

1. The PR cover is "you all need a college diploma, and we're here to make that happen." Yea for more education!

2. The extraction mechanism is student loans. Here's a chart that shows what happened relatively recently: your federal government began guaranteeing obscene profits to student-loan lenders and debt-serfdom for tens of millions of "marks" i.e. students....

New Analysis Shows Problematic Boom In Higher Ed Administrators: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/06/higher-ed-administrators-growth_n_4738584.html

In all, from 1987 until 2011-12--the most recent academic year for which comparable figures are available—universities and colleges collectively added 517,636 administrators and professional employees, according to the analysis by the New England Center for Investigative Reporting.

"There’s just a mind-boggling amount of money per student that’s being spent on administration," said Andrew Gillen, a senior researcher at the institutes. "It raises a question of priorities."

The ratio of nonacademic employees to faculty has also doubled. There are now two nonacademic employees at public and two and a half at private universities and colleges for every one full-time, tenure-track member of the faculty.

The number of employees in central system offices has increased six-fold since 1987, and the number of administrators in them by a factor of more than 34.

Full title: How Higher Education Became an Obscenely Profitable Racket That Enriches the Few at the Expense of the Many (Student Debt-Serfs)

The student loan program is also directly responsible for the constant increases in tuition costs. It is also directly responsible for the obscene bloat in useless and/or culturally destructive course offerings such as the entire “studies” system of indoctrination.

2 posted on 05/12/2017 9:27:13 PM PDT by Grimmy (equivocation is but the first step along the road to capitulation)

Oh, come on. Everybody knows how important Gender Equality In The Nuclear Age is. Or, Striving For Black Equality After We've Got Those Crackers Already Dancing To Our Music.

See? Higher Education costs are worth keeping graduates in servitude. At least till the liberal rats force us to bail them out.

3 posted on 05/12/2017 9:32:11 PM PDT by LouAvul (The most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will.)

Nuh uhh!

(learned me my debatin’ skills in that there kollege skool)

4 posted on 05/12/2017 9:48:22 PM PDT by Grimmy (equivocation is but the first step along the road to capitulation)

Big opportunity for Trump to reduce the cost of school and introduce anti-fascism reforms at the same time.

College tuition increases have been insane over the past 40 years, far far above the CPI. Extreme administrative bloat, fat faculty salaries, and ever-escalating student and family expectations (for cushier dorms, endless non-academic activity programs, etc.) are the primary culprits. The flabby bloat is facilitated by the reckless public aid and student loan programs, of course, which allow college bureaucrats to avoid all responsibility for reining in costs.

6 posted on 05/12/2017 11:46:11 PM PDT by Enchante (Searching throughout the country for one honest Democrat....)

7 posted on 05/12/2017 11:47:36 PM PDT by Enchante (Searching throughout the country for one honest Democrat....)

8 posted on 05/12/2017 11:50:20 PM PDT by Enchante (Searching throughout the country for one honest Democrat....)

Enslave and indoctrinate. Quite the racket.

Socialism Is Legal Plunder - Bastiat

In 1966 I attended Northeast Louisiana State University in Monroe, Louisiana, now called University of Louisiana Monroe.

In 1966 the administration occupied one wing of the Chemistry Department with about 20 or 30 offices. The student population was 7000. In 1985 when I went back for a second degree the student population was about 12000. The administration had its own building of three stories and was easily 10 times greater than in 1966.

10 posted on 05/13/2017 3:31:12 PM PDT by cpdiii ( Deckhand, Roughneck, Mud Man, Geologist, Pilot, Pharmacist. CONSTITUTUTION IS WORTH DYING FOR!)

My tuition at a large state supported college in 1975 was $460.00 per semester, for a full load of freshman Engineering courses. I never thought to ask for loans - didn’t need them.

Haven’t checked, but I’ll bet it’s more than 10x that amount today.

It had more than doubled by my senior year.

11 posted on 05/13/2017 9:18:26 PM PDT by Some Fat Guy in L.A. (Still bitterly clinging to rational thought despite it's unfashionability)

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