VP Biden: Federal Intervention Has Increased College Tuition

Vice President Joe Biden admitted that college tuition rates have increased due in part to government subsidies and market intervention.

During a talk at Florida State University, Vice President Joe Biden admitted that government intervention and federal loans that provide subsidies for students to attend college have greatly contributed to the increase in college tuition.

In taking questions at the Tallahassee campus this week, Biden was asked by a student whether by manipulating variables in the free market and giving out government subsidies could perhaps be partially responsible for rising tuition costs, reports Real Clear Politics.

Biden replied:

“Government subsidies have impacted upon rising tuition costs. It’s a conundrum here. But if we went the rate your view of the free market route what we would have done is we would have not of done that. We would not have increased pell grants, for example. And there would be 9 million fewer students in college today.

“And there would be hundreds of thousands and millions of students who would not be in college who don’t get Pell grants because there was no ability for them to borrow money through Perkins loans and/or have the tax deduction.”

He then went on to admit that, in a pure free market, college tuition would have to be lower because there would be fewer people going to school.

“But the end result is we would probably have — we go for the better part, half a generation, of going 16th in the world maybe down to 20th in the world.”

Comments

Kevin

February 9, 2012 at 9:00 am

This issue is not unique to colleges. Government loans and grans completely severed the feedback loop between the students’ wallets and college tuition, in the same way that medical insurance has insulated patients from the true cost of healthcare. I’m not sure how to go about solving this issue, now though.

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Linda Brees

February 9, 2012 at 9:13 am

Maybe we can bring back the doctor visits-for-chickens program!

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Alan Trevithick

February 12, 2012 at 5:29 pm

Please have a look at newfacultymajority.info for some real context here-VP Biden makes it seem as though most college and university instructors are full-timers who command very high salaries and cost tax-payers and/or tuition-paying students an arm and a leg. This is a serious mischaracterization of the facts, as pointed out by Maria Maisto, president of New Faculty Majority, who writes that what has escalated is the “number of so-called ‘part-time’ faculty, who, together with graduate students, constitute over 60.5 percent of the teaching faculty (often 80 percent at community colleges).”
Whatever the causes of ever-higher tuitions may be, it would be a great mistake to point a finger at “instructional costs,” at least as these are represented by the wages and benefits of faculty.
For forty years now, while demand for higher education has risen, the faculty staffing to meet this increase has come in the form of adjunct or contingent faculty, who typically receive 1/3 or less than the pro-rata rate per course of traditional full-time faculty. Also, they enjoy either few or no benefits in regard to health insurance or retirement support. One could easily argue that adjuncts have long provided a hidden subsidy for students.
Working conditions for the now-majority faculty create hardships. Many adjuncts, for instance, work at either non-teaching jobs or at several different colleges. However, many adjuncts are indeed able to juggle schedules and venues in a way that affords an adequate if meager livelihood.

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