The Debt Crisis at American Colleges

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Jun 18, 2007
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Student-see, student-do.


Big Education, big business and great marketing. Unfortunately, like many other countries, many of these soft or useless degrees get these kids nowhere fast.

How do colleges manage it? Kenyon has erected a $70 million sports palace featuring a 20-lane olympic pool. Stanford's professors now get paid sabbaticals every fourth year, handing them $115,000 for not teaching. Vanderbilt pays its president $2.4 million. Alumni gifts and endowment earnings help with the costs. But a major source is tuition payments, which at private schools are breaking the $40,000 barrier, more than many families earn. Sadly, there's more to the story. Most students have to take out loans to remit what colleges demand. At colleges lacking rich endowments, budgeting is based on turning a generation of young people into debtors.


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The Debt Crisis at American Colleges - Andrew Hacker and Claudia Dreifus - Business - The Atlantic