Assignment:
Why Does College Cost So Much?
This project is a training of your critical thinking skills and guides you through the process of thinking critically about an issue or topic. The set of questions asked in this task is intended to show you how to extract important information from some given sources and how to process them critically. The conclusion you reach through the analysis can be used as a guide of action. After you finish your answers, also pay attention to how the questions are asked in the first place, because normally when you analyze a particular problem you have to ask these questions by yourself. Now let's begin.
Watch the following two videos:
1. Economist Richard Vedder on Why College Costs So Much
2. Why Does College Cost So Much? - Education Summit
Answer the following questions on a separate Word document and submit it through email by Dec 14, 2017. Your answers to all the questions should be 3 pages in total, double-spaced with font size of 12. The title of your email should be "ECON 1 final project first name last name".
1. Richard Vedder in the first video argued that increasing public spending is one major reason that leads to higher cost of college, but Barmak Nassirian said that decreasing public spending is the cause of higher cost of college. First use the demand and supply framework to show how each of them could be right. Second, how can we resolve the contradiction between their arguments? What further evidence do we need to collect?
2. Richard Vedder mentioned that higher education institutions are "medieval organizations not disciplined by market forces", what does he mean? (i.e. what are market disciplines and why these institutions are not disciplined by the market?) Steven Knapp also mentioned that universities are "not cost effective", why is this the case? Why universities are not like firms in the competitive market?
3. Based on the information provided in the videos and your experience so far, do you think attending college worth the cost? Please give enough support to your position.
Additional Interesting Resources
1. Re-imagining college - what is four years good for? Ben Sasse at TEDxOmaha
2. Why college costs are so high and rising?
3. US Education Spending History from 1900