The Education Quagmire....

[redcliffsw]

College:  Why It Is Not a Bubble

Massachusetts was the last state to abandon tax support of churches. That was in 1832. Within five years, it had begun state funding of education. A new established church replaced the old one. This established church spread in popularity.

Parents who are convinced that state funding is necessary for K-12 education generally believe that state funding of another educational establishment is mandatory: higher education.

Higher education is a gigantic industry. As with any bureaucracy that is funded by the government and which is granted a licensing monopoly by the government it exists above all to make sure that the funding and licensing continues.

Where religion is involved, people rarely change. College education is part of a religion: salvation (healing) by formal education.

Until there is a rebellion against tax-funding of all education, beginning with kindergarten, college costs will rise and performance will fall. The horror stories will continue.

We get what we pay for. We especially get what we pay for with our tax money. What you see is what you get: a self-policed monopoly, a self-serving bureaucracy, and entrenched resistance to change imposed by representatives of the people who are funding the system. "Academic freedom" has always meant the same thing, from Prussian universities in 1820 until today: tax-subsidized intellectual kidnapping of children.
-Gary North

http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north975.html