Going Broke by Degree: Why College Costs Too Much

Location: The Heritage Foundation's Van Andel Center

The dramatic rise in university tuition costs is placing a greater financial burden on millions of college-bound Americans and their families. Yet only a fraction of the additional money colleges are collecting - twenty-one cents on the dollar - goes toward instruction. And, by many measures, colleges are doing a worse job of educating Americans. Why are we spending more - and getting less? In Going Broke by Degree, economist Richard Vedder examines the causes of the college tuition crisis. He warns that exorbitant tuition hikes are not sustainable and explores ways to reverse this alarming trend.

Vedder's research demonstrates that America's universities have become less productive, less efficient, and more likely to use tuition money and state and federal grants to subsidize non-instructional activities such as athletics. These factors combine to produce dramatic hikes in tuition, making it more difficult for Americans to afford college

RICHARD VEDDER is Distinguished Professor of Economics at Ohio University and an Adjunct Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Trained as an economic historian, much of his work has dealt with the history of American labor markets and issues such as immigration, internal migration, slavery, and unemployment. After serving as an economist with the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress, Mr. Vedder focused on public policy issues dealing with labor markets and governmental budgetary policy. In the past decade he has worked on issues relating to education at both the primary/secondary and university levels.