Policy Forum

Helping Students or Ballooning College Profits: What’s Federal Money Doing?

July 19, 2011 4:00 PM to 5:30 PM EDT

Hayek Auditorium

Featuring Vance Fried, Riata Professor of Entrepreneurship, Oklahoma State University; M. Peter McPherson, President, Association of Public and Land‐grant Universities; Grover J. “Russ” Whitehurst, Director, Brown Center on Education Policy, Brookings Institution; moderated by Neal McCluskey, Associate Director, Center for Educational Freedom, Cato Institute.

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President Obama wants the United States to lead the world in college attainment by 2020. Arguably the biggest obstacle standing in the way of that is rampant tuition inflation, which pushes prices to increasingly astronomical heights. Ironically, as a new Cato analysis by Professor Vance Fried lays bare, federal programs intended to make college more affordable are likely fueling this hyperinflation, enabling all colleges — both for‐profit and putatively nonprofit — to make big bucks off of undergrads. Please join us for a frank discussion about the effect of federal funding in higher education and how to make the ivory tower as lean and effective as possible.