25 January 2008

Public Education vs. Ivy

The US Senate is looking into the high tuitions and huge endowments of the nation's most expensive schools. Princeton University's endowment is $2.2 million per student. The NY Times quotes Senator Grassley: “Tuition has gone up, college presidents’ salaries have gone up, and endowments continue to go up and up,”

Spread over a couple recent issues, Business Week has carried a dialogue about the appropriate balance between public and private. First, BW ran a feature asking whether the "wealth of the Ivy League" was dangerous to higher education. The provosts of the Big1T1en wrote back pointing out that their schools combine to educate 1 out of every 8 PhDs in the US. If only they could count.

New Jersey's response has been to see if college education can be squeezed into three years instead of 4.

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