I will not have much to say. We all know we need a total of $4.0 trillion and that will mean 1/3 from revenue and 2/3 from spending. The President asked for $1.6 bn of revenue which is 40%, and showed some spending cuts, but the Republicans are still focused on making the revenue number lower without putting up any spending cut ideas of their own. The President should not negotiate with himself.
The real reason to write tonight is The Economist article on the problems with higher education. There was some shocking data in this article.
The cost of a university education has risen by 5x the rate of inflation since 1983. The cost of a university education in 2010 requires 38% of median income up from 23% in the year 2001. And the standards for such degrees have been reduced to the point where I am not sure how to gauge what academic results really mean. 43% of all grades at 4 year universities are "A's". GPA's in 2006 averaged 3.11 up from 2.52 in the 1950's. AND a third of students to not take any courses requiring more than 40 pages of reading over an entire term.
This is appalling and I welcome reader input as to what can be done to change this. I don't think the Federal Government has any role in any of this and I don't think that for-profit education is an answer for this either.
Maybe, business should insist on 2 year degrees and hire those people before they hire 4 year people for whom they have no idea what standards they have been educated to. I hate to say that because I know I benefited from a liberal arts education, but then I had to read 40 pages a WEEK in almost every course.
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