One thing that does not seem to get enough attention is how much easy access to credit fuels price inflation. At least if you have wage inflation to go with the price inflation people are not stuck with bills they cannot pay at a later date. This article seems to touch on the way debt has effected many of the countries businesses and orginizations in a negative way. This part seems especially relavant:
In recent years, Americans have grown accustomed to living amid the wreckage of various once-proud industries — automakers bankrupt, brand-name Wall Street banks in ruins, newspapers dying by the dozen. It’s tempting in such circumstances to take comfort in the seeming permanency of our colleges and universities, in the notion that our world-beating higher education system will reliably produce research and knowledge workers for decades to come.
Tempting — but wrong. Colleges are caught in the same kind of debt-fueled price spiral that just blew up the real estate market, and are selling information at a time when technology is pushing its value into the basement. In combination, these two trends threaten to shake the centuries-old foundation of the modern university.
Maybe higher education should accept its role as a farm system for the NFL and get out of the information business all together, Oh Wait, I think some universities have already done that.