College funding and states rights

As I mentioned last night, I read this article about how college presidents are showing unwillingness to accept federal aid to reduce costs for students. Now the article is not actually scientific, the author draws his conclusions based on a series of conversations with college presidents, and he admits it, but I'll accept the premise for now anyway.

The reasons given range are pretty dumb though, and not really something that I want people in charge of education to be holding.

The problem as stated is that state budget cuts are driving the cost of tuition up, there are a number of plans out that that involve the federal government stepping in to make up for it, but a major concern is that the money might come with strings, examples cited in the article included Obama's probably not that great idea to tie funding to the wages of graduates, and for some reason scrutiny on how they handle sexual assault and harassment.

While the specific type of oversight could indeed be a concern, rejecting the idea of funding because it might be a problem doesn't seem to be the right solution to me, and honestly, some oversight might actually be good, there is a reason the government wants to pay attention to their sexual assault policies, and that is colleges have to be dragged kicking and screaming into enforcing the largely inadequate ones they already have, let alone improving the damned things.

So if they don't want oversight, what do they want? From the article it seems they are happy to stay the course as no alternative was proposed outside of "let the states decide". I have a response to that as well.

Fuck you.

Seriously, states rights is always brought up by people who know they are doing something wrong, if not illegal, then at least immoral, in an attempt to prevent a body that might have the power to make them stop from interfering. The states have proven time an time again that they cannot be trusted to make the right choices for the public, for examples look no farther than the vicious marriage equality fights and the ongoing battles over Obamacare and Planned Parenthood funding. To say nothing of gun laws, minimum wages, union protections, etc.

The college presidents in this article sound exactly like any other business owner who gets caught taking advantage of a vulnerable portion of society, they immediately trip over themselves and insist that no one needs to do anything about it.

But who honestly believes the states are going to increase funding in such a way that costs actually drop, or even stop rising? Arizona cut their funding by almost fifty percent per student during the recession, costs obviously skyrocketed, we are out of the recession now, if the funding was going to come back, it would have, but there isn't money in it.

The college loan industry is probably the biggest reason for any of this, the financial system gets literally billions of dollars a year from their loans, and if costs drop, then people won't need them anymore so obviously it isn't going to stop.

I do have sympathy for an administrator trying to make ends meet on a shoestring budget, but these particular ones appear to be either willfully ignorant or profiting themselves from the situation because it is clear to anyone with an ounce of sense the states aren't going to step in to fix it. Of course, the federal government is almost as unlikely to do so either, but at least there is the illusion of progress there, and who knows what congress will be like over the next couple terms.

I think I want to talk more about this bizarre fear that some have of the federal government, but it's late and I'll do it another day.