Reich thinks that college education is “a public good” because there’s no other mechanism to ensure that the American people are well-enough educated to preserve or increase our standard of living. That claim seems to come from a much different place than today’s worries that only higher education can ensure broad-based social equality. But, actually, Reich’s concerns point the way more clearly than most to the connection between elite cultural obsessions with productivity and equality. Together, the two of them represent an unnamed culprit in the college cost crisis. The sharp downturn in governmental education subsidies has played a meaningful role in spiking costs, but it’s an artifact of shifting policies and the shock of the economic crisis. Beyond those exogenous factors, the shared culture of academic administrators makes for an endogenous factor that deserves far more scrutiny than it has received.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamespoulos/2012/05/22/the-elite-culture-thats-to-blame-for-the-college-cost-crisis/
