I'm no fan of David Broder, the so-called dean of the Washington Establishment Press. In fact, he should have been put out to pasture long ago; his gasbag editorials have all the relevance of stale mustard.
This editorial, however, is the exception:
- College has become increasingly unaffordable to millions of middle-class and working-class Americans, and the rising barriers to attending are costing the United States in the international competition for a trained workforce...
Between 1982 and 2007, college tuition and fees rose three times as fast as median family income, after adjusting for inflation. In the past decade, there has been a 50 percent increase in the number of undergraduate borrowers and a doubling in the inflation-adjusted total of students' debts.
The affordability barrier to college is eroding America's standing in the world.
All this should make one thing clear...the current economic meltdown was caused by more than bad debt and lack of government oversight. Over the past few years, builders of houses, manufacturers of autos, makers of pharmaceuticals, distributors of oil and gas (as well as dispensers of higher education?) decided if the middle-class could not keep up with the price bubble for mere necessities, they could all freeze in the dark and walk to work (or school) and back.
And now those same crooks are asking for -- and receiving -- handouts from the government like welfare had just become respectable again.
Well, why not? In South Asia, begging is considered an honorable profession.
