Repairing higher ed.

• Position: List - Brief article

Ohio University economist Richard Vedder is the director and founder of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity. A prominent opponent of government subsidies for higher education, he is the author of Going Broke by Degree: Why College Costs Too Much (AEI Press). reason asked Vedder for three ways to fix higher education.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

1 Government needs to get out of the way. We overly subsidize higher education. The rationale for government subsidies is 1) giving everyone a chance to succeed and 2) promoting economic growth. The evidence indicates that neither justification is valid. The correlation between economic growth and college attainment is at best neutral, and government involvement...