A recent podcast from NPR's Planet Money had someone on arguing that the sticker price for private colleges is soaring, but the average actual cost (after grants and scholarships) is actually tracking inflation. If you believe that, then there's no bubble in college tuition prices. Why do colleges raise their sticker price? First, they can do price discrimination, charging rich people more to subsidize poor people. Second, (I didn't know this) giving a kid a $20K scholarship is a great marketing tool to get them to come to a school. Apparently, it works.
"and then there was the 60 Minutes piece, hosted by Morley Safer which focused on PayPal founder Peter Thiel‘s attack on the college bubble. The piece was, of course, strongly biased. It was a venerable old dinosaur hosting a venerable old dinosaur in order to defend a venerable old dinosaur."
