Viewpoint: Kevin Carey

“Everyone currently in the four-year higher-education business has a host of strong incentives to raise prices and hardly any incentives to lower them. Unsurprisingly, prices often go up and almost never go down. Colleges won’t kick the habit of raising prices until the things they care about—money and reputation—are seriously threatened by competitors. Therefore, federal policymakers should help create those competitors by helping establish many brand-new colleges and universities. Because these new providers will have the imprimatur of United States government approval, they will be able to compete for students who want degrees backed by sufficient reputation. This will be bitter medicine for many existing colleges and universities. Some will adapt and even thrive by becoming more efficient and productive. Others will not, and die out. But a collapse of the old system is going to happen one way or another soon enough.”

Kevin Carey in The New Republic