The health clubs are a (misguided?) response to austerity. Public universities are competing to bring in out of state students because they pay higher fees, while many instate students cannot afford to come. Here, however, the students pay for the health club with hefty fees. I do not know if that is true everywhere.
On Wed, Oct 12, 2011 at 9:37 AM, David Shemano <[email protected]> wrote: > Jim Devine writes: > > "the inflation in the education sector is not due to demand (as David says). > It's more a supply-side phenomenon, the difficulty of raising the > productivity of service labor in a time when service wages have to keep up > with those in other sectors -- along with a tremendous rise in overhead > (insurance, medical, and legal costs, especially). To some extent, > college-cost inflation is a matter of "you get what you pay for": colleges > provide many more services to students than they used to. We had a gym; they > have a health club, etc." > > I absolutely 100% disagree. Colleges have health clubs instead of gyms > because, as a result of government policy manifested in the student loan > program, there are billions of dollars being allocated to the educational > sector, which manifests itself in huge capital improvements and a > proliferation of administrative jobs. No student loans, no health clubs. It > is a simple shift in the demand curve, not the supply curve. As long as > students are willing to incur the debt, which they currently are because of > the signaling effect and they can worry about repayment in the future, the > colleges will be happy to "accentuate the college experience" with better > food and resources and then charge the student. The government has created a > pool of money and the colleges are going to get it. The students get a > marginally more luxurious four years and then 25 years of stress. > > David Shemano > > > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l > -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 530 898 5321 fax 530 898 5901 http://michaelperelman.wordpress.com _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
