A bubble in higher education:
With tuitions, fees, and room and board at dozens of colleges now reaching $50,000 a year, the ability to sustain private higher education for all but the very well-heeled is questionable. (emphasis added)Notice the emphasis on the word "private". Public universities and colleges have much lower tuition and fees.1 The rest of the article focuses on challenges to private institutions. Maybe Dan Drezner was right. Maybe the downturn is going to "hammer the schools with the biggest endowments." But I remain skeptical (see my comments on Dan's post).
1In-state tuition and fees at UConn for 2009-2010 are less than $10,000. Total in-state expenses (including dorm and meals) are just over $20,000.
Actually, I think they may end up being pulled closer together. Privates will have to spend more of their endowment (twice as much) than they had been while they were increasing the pot of money. See http://foundationcenter.org/pnd/news/story.jhtml?id=254100036