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Economist Debates: The cost of higher education
This promises to be a fascinating debate, and as moderator I
hope to gain an insight into some questions I have come up
against repeatedly while covering education for The
Economist.
First, a couple directed to those who want individuals to pay.
If you believe in meritocracy, what can, or should, be done
about the different aspirations of children born into different
social classes? And what to do about the debt aversion of
those whose families have no history of investing in
education? I once talked to some young men doing a very
highly regarded apprenticeship scheme who told me they
would never have considered higher education. They didn’t
want to be “old” before they started to work—and, as they
saw it, to live; you should have seen their faces when I told
them I had spent eight years at university (I have a PhD).
And they were adamant they did not want to start out in life
with debt—this despite Britain’s generous state-financed
bursaries for poorer students and subsidised loans for all.
And now a couple of questions for those who think the
taxpayer should pick up the tab. What about the overconsumption
that is bound to follow when education is
subsidised? If taxpayers pay for university, the young people
who go may be receiving something they do not appreciate,
and would not have bothered with if they had had to pay.
Many who are keen on subsidising education think, not
without reason, that some people do not know what is good
for them (and the rest of us), and hope, by cutting the price
of education, to lure potential wastrels into lives that are in
the end better for them and more all-round useful for others.
Is such paternalism justified? And what of the motivation of
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