Will the college bubble burst from public subsidies? - Michael Barone, North County Times

When governments want to encourage what they believe is beneficial behavior, they subsidize it.... Subsidies create incentives for what economists call rent-seeking behavior. Providers of supposedly beneficial goods or services try to sop up as much of the subsidy money as they can by raising prices. After all, their customers are paying with money supplied by the government. Bubble money, as it turns out. Sooner or later, bubbles burst.... Many college and university administrators may assume that the gravy train will go on forever. That's what Las Vegas real estate developers and homebuilders thought in 2006. My sense is once again well intentioned public policy and greedy providers have produced a bubble that is about to burst.