Why Is There Not an Occupy College Movement & Antitrust Case Aganst Colleges?

In February I wrote a post titled, "Higher Education:  How Colleges are Wasting Our Money and Failing Our kids".  This is an update.  Below is an infographic from The Best Colleges:

My questions are:

1. Why is there not an "Occupy College" movement?  We know many of the Occupy Wall Street protesters are college graduates who have excessive debt.  Why are they blaming Wall Street?  As indicated in the infographic above, college debt is now $1 Trillion with a 511% increase since 1999.  Why are they not pitching their tents on college campuses?
2. Why is the Justice Department not bringing a price fixing suit against colleges?  In the C-SPAN Book TV video I used as the basis for my February post, the 2 professors said there is a group of about 10 universities that set the prices.  They are made up of the Ivy League Schools (Harvard, Yale, etc.) plus a few of the major independents like Duke and Stanford.  Then the other independent schools, state schools, and down to community colleges base their pricing on this standard.  How is possible?  I worked for a hose clamp manufacturer.  There was a rumor about our CEO and the CEO of our major competitor meeting in a restroom in an airport accidentally where they agreed to raise their prices.  Since these 2 competitors controlled a major segment of the market share, prices across the board were raised.  Colleges do it in the open and nobody says a word.  And the last time I looked inflation remains not existent.  On what are they basing their huge price increases?  Here is a chart on prices, note the curve:

 

I guess since there is so much broken in America now, no one is focused on college price gouging.  It's a shame we don't have a common sense super hero to address this, overspending in Washington, crazy judicial rulings, etc.

 

 

Comments

[Foxwood Online Marketing]

Excellent points Cath. Colleges justify their price increases by bringing up costs. One of the most significant is football. There are only a handful of colleges that make a profit on football. Not only do they have to have a huge stadium, but the numbers of players on the team, most of which get no scholarship funding, has significantly increased. The equipment, weight rooms, etc. are very expensive. You need to look no further for an example of how football has corrupted the university than the case of Penn State. There are schools that "educate" without football. Check out the 60 Minutes Interview for UMBC: http://vimeo.com/32059728
Historically the case would be difficult to make because the incomes derived from a college education offset the cost. Now, given the huge rate of price increase over the past few years, that can no longer be argued.

[Cath]

Yes! Great blog! Unfortunately, it would be difficult to prove price-fixing because higher education institutions routinely test pricing waters by leaking news in the press that tuition will go up "x" percent next fall to see if it will affect their ability to attract the "best and brightest" students. They get time for this because the admissions process is 6-12 months long. Other institutions' admissions officers watch, learn, and compare "privately" - it's not a colluded price-fixing activity.

Secondly, Americans seem to be sucked into the vortex of believing an educational degree is "better" at the most expensive institutions. Neither student prospects, nor parents, seem too interested in "employability" or the school's track record for getting its graduates jobs, beyond asking if they host career fairs. Most don't even ask about intern programs. They get no training or guidance about this once-in-a-lifetime, very expensive decision. I've worked for 6 universities and I've NOT found that an institution's tuition and it's degrees' marketability correlate across the academic programs; nevertheless, raising tuition rates does not seem to deter admission applications, especially at large schools. Technical degrees are still more marketable than liberal arts degrees, but as long as the school is accredited, the institution name or pricetag isn't nearly as important. Young students (and their parents) need to get smarter about this and stop believing it's ok to finish school saddled with mortgage-sized student loans.