[specialist]

Supply and demand sorts out the details.

Maybe.

I place more weight on incentives. Design of the markets. Checks and balances. Transparency and accountability.

need 500 administrators...?

The insufferable waste I witnessed in higher ed is no different than any where else I've worked. Biggest factors are scale and bureaucracies.

As terrible as higher ed is, I'm certain I don't want it to become more business like, assembly line efficient. Whatever magic is to be found in higher ed is because its weird, chaotic, diverse.

As for the mortgage interest deduction, how wouldn't it boost housing prices?

Second order effect.

[KKKKkkkk1]

And one of the most magical things about US higher ed is that it just swallowed 400,000 loans funded by taxpayers without as much as a burp.

[hiram112]

Spot on. It's becoming increasingly clear that the student debt bubble will blow up, no differently than the housing bubble.

And just like the housing bubble, the clever ones are going to end up getting Uncle Sugar to pay off their loans, while a large majority will end up 'doing the right thing' to their own disadvantage. Of course, the big banks and financial entities that own these loans will come out just fine.

Then we can move on to the next staple to financialize, perhaps unborn generations since there's not much left.

[specialist]

Higher ed already got their money. The banks got stuffed.