Check, please...

Back to the education beat: this article in the New York Times detailing the rapid growth of the fee sends a pretty interesting warning to colleges and to students. Anyone who has been in school in the last decade has been victim to the university created fee (yes, it's more apparent at publicly supported schools, but don't mistake easy visibility as a symptom).

It's good to hear that students striking back. Transparency wouldn't be a bad idea here. Imagine going out to dinner and finding a $1 chair fee tacked on to the bill. But as a solution, that doesn't go far enough. The increasing privatization of education seems to have not only turned down this road years ago but to have strapped a brick to the gas pedal. Consider the evidence together: financial aid scandals where schools are taking money to steer students towards high cost private loans, a sort of payola scandal to help with high -cost study-abroad programs, and renewed distress at ever growing fees.

I'm reminded of those discussions and charts that show what funds for the war could have done if spent on other things (here's one if you're curious). While I don't want to mire this down in that discussion, all of these symptomatic financial problems beg the question: what would happen if we Valued (capital V intentional) education the way we all say we do during election years?fin