William Dickens wrote:
>
> I see Bill already answered my question.
>
> >>>Not the way you think. See my response to yours.
>
> I should also add that the social costs of tuition are much higher than
> the private costs for public universities, making it even more likely
> that the social return is quite low.
>
> >>>I happen to believe the public good argument for education, but even if I didn't,
>you know as well as I do that you can't attribute the entire cost of the university
>to its educational product. A big chunk is paying for research. Take that out and I
>doubt the costs would be so high. After all, no reason why a college education would
>have to cost that much more than HS unless you want all Profs to be researchers. - -
1. Budget/students is an overestimate. Much less clear that
unsubsidized tuition is an overestimate. So what cost are you willing
to assign to teaching? In-state tuition? Out of state tuition? If
students would have lived at home otherwise, you should also count room
and board, minus parental grocery savings.
2. You can think of a lot of research as consumption for faculty. If
you have to give them that consumption to make them teach, then you
should count the costs of research when you calculate the return to
education. There is a bit of a granularity problem (one more student
may not require any more research), but if you encourage 1% more kids to
go to college, you're going to have to pay for roughly 1% more research.
--
Prof. Bryan Caplan
Department of Economics George Mason University
http://www.bcaplan.com [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"He wrote a letter, but did not post it because he felt that no one
would have understood what he wanted to say, and besides it was not
necessary that anyone but himself should understand it."
Leo Tolstoy, *The Cossacks*
