Yesterday, in conjunction with the Pope Center for Higher Education Policy, Cato held a debate on how to control spiraling college costs. It was a terrific discussion, and I encourage everyone to check it out. It also got some coverage in the Chronicle of Higher Education, though nothing beats taking in the whole thing for yourself!
Concerning the latter point, I’d like to respectfully suggest that at least one person who saw only the Chronicle’s piece imbibe the whole event, as well as what follows in this blog entry. Unfortunately, it appears that the Chronicle article got her a tad apoplectic, and I think she might have written some things she didn’t really mean.
On her blog, Sara Goldrick-Rab calls me an “ideologue,” accuses me of being totally ignorant of empirical research on aid and college prices, and even calls me “unoriginal” because in 1987 then‑U.S. Secretary of Education William Bennett asserted what I did yesterday: that government aid to students enables colleges to keep raising prices. Oh, and she matter-of-factly declares that “after more than 20 years of this nonsense it’s time to call the idea what it is– just plain stupid– and stop giving ink to the people who repeat it.”
Hey, wait! I need that ink…
Now, I might very well be an ideologue (if by that you mean someone who doesn’t pretend to approach every issue as if I’ve never given it, or anything else, any previous thought), and I might even be a pretty ignorant guy – nobody’s perfect, right? – but that doesn’t change several, glaring problems with Goldrick-Rab’s assault on my character and on the Bennett Hypothesis.