Written by: Beck
I read a story earlier that's been nagging at me all day. You see, the story isn't all that interesting in and of itself. Basically, it shows that
college tuition continues to rise at a greater rate than inflation. Frankly, it would be surprising if tuition costs held steady. In order to be even remotely useful, modern universities need to be on the technological cutting edge, and while general technology costs have dropped, the price of cutting edge never goes down.
But that isn't the point of this post. The point of this post is that lawmakers are idiots. Earth shattering, isn't it? But really, these people are stupid. Our elected officials--the people we voluntarily choose to lead us (that is the point of democracy after all, being able to choose your own leaders)--often have only managed to survive this long because they've lived lives where others are continually putting fresh food in front of them. As Speculator once said about a mutual acquaintance of ours, the only reason these people are still alive is because they live in walking distance of a grocery store. Sorry, am I beginning to repeat myself? My point is that we elect some dumb people. And here's how that all relates to the article linked above:
Anger over tuition inflation has caught the attention of lawmakers in Washington, where Congress is considering reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. Rep. Buck McKeon, R-California [ed: big surprise that this guy's from California, republican or no], recently proposed penalizing colleges for tuition increases. He withdrew the proposal in March, but pledged to reinstate it if the trend didn't slow.
That's brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Penalize colleges for raising tuition when the only way they can pay for things like, you know, penalties, is via tuition. Which they would then, you see, have to raise. Fucktards.