Congressional Issues 2008
MORALITY AND CULTURE
Higher Education

The 111th Congress should:

• eliminate all programs of aid for higher education
• eliminate all federal regulations of content and administration of higher education

Universities are dramatically biased against the principles of a free economy and the moral values of the Founding Fathers. Parents should not feel pressured to spend tens of thousands of dollars for children's diplomas, when such money might be better invested in apprenticeships, small business capital, or a first home. Congress should amend government hiring policies to de-emphasize university education, and abolish student loan programs.

• Funding: Is it Constitutional for the Federal Government to be involved in university education?
• Value: Is a university education worth it, even if it's Constitutional for government to fund it?
• "Academic Freedom": What rights do students and teachers enjoy?

In light of the staggering cost of college education today, it may seem unbelievable that my father in the early 1950s was able to finance his own education with a summer job waiting tables. Like most in his generation, eight weeks of work per year allowed him to graduate debt free. In contrast, the debt burden now heaped on today’s college graduates is so oppressive that the financial challenges are becoming a palpable psychological strain on an entire generation. The irony is that without easy access to student loans, which have been touted as a means to ease college affordability, tuitions never could have risen so high in the first place. Sadly, it is not students who have benefited, but the educational establishment that receives the proceeds. Colleges collect huge sums of money up front while students get saddled with staggering balances. Peter Schiff " Why Not Let Markets Set Prices?"

Funding

• Ozarks Virtual Town Hall - April 26, 2008 - Student Loans
• The Student Loan Fiasco: Made in D.C.
• Financing Higher Education: What Is the Role of the State?
• $12 Billion: Coming to a Community College Near You | Cato @ Liberty
• Pope Center for Higher Education Policy
• The Academy in Crisis: The Political Economy of Higher Education
• North Carolina's 'reverse Robin Hood scheme'
• Higher Education Act Reform
• The Cost of Remedial Education
• The Black Hole of Higher Education
• The GOP and Education
• Politically Correct Thinking and State Education
• Truth About the G.I. Bill, The
• Insanity of Title IX
• The G.I. Bill
• UNCLE SAM, ROCK 'N' ROLL, AND HIGHER EDUCATION
• How Government Endangers Independent Education
• THE THREAT TO INDEPENDENT EDUCATION: Public Subsidies and Private Colleges
• The Title IX Fraud
• Clinton's college-aid hikes would help schools, not students

The average state university costs over $11,000 a year: room, board, tuition, and books. The average private college costs over $27,000 a year. The Ivy League universities cost $150,000 and more, with costs rising faster than the rate of inflation. It gets worse. Most students take at least five years to earn a bachelor's degree. Some take six years. And over half never graduate. None of this is necessary. A self-disciplined student who knows about the seven loopholes of the collegiate system can earn a degree in three years or less, for $15,000 or less. [more]

Value

• The College Scam | John Stossel
• What Will They Learn? | Walter E. Williams
• Prestige Versus Education - Thomas Sowell
• College Costs: 40% of Students Entering a 4-Year College Fail to Graduate After 6 Years
• College: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: How to Avoid the Latter Two.
• Never Pay Retail for a College Education . . . for Your Child or for Yourself. || Special Report
• Is a college degree still worth it? - LATimes.com
• Truth and fiction on colleges
• Overeducated, Underemployed
• Not Everyone Needs to Go to College (Cato@Liberty)
• We accidentally marketed ourselves into a corner - Seth Godin
• Jobless Ph.D. for Hire: Will Teach Students Who Cannot Afford College
• Why Professors Hate the Market

• The New College Try
• Vocational education's failing grades
• No Class
• School's Out | Daniel H. Pink
• Poor Man’s Learning
• Where the Boys Are | Cathy Young
• Campus Outrage Awards
• Lower Education | Russell Madden
• Stupid Employer Tricks: Ten Ways That Employers Shoot Themselves in the Foot
• College For All? Experts Say Not Necessarily

Academic Freedom

• ifeminists.com > editorial > University Students Deserve Human Rights
• Journalism Students Taught to Shut-up
• Academia
• Higher Education (30)
• Higher Education
• Women in Academia (31)
• The Struggle for Liberty in Today's Academy
• Long-Term Consequences of Considering Race in College and University Admissions
• Reichstag Fires on Campus