[programmarchy]

Absolutely. It's predatory lending in many cases. There is a choice on behalf of the students, but they are often completely ignorant about finance and the job market. The K-12 education system is failing to equip young people to understand and deal with the real world, so I see that as a root cause of these problems.

[nerfhammer]

And what's the deal with universities pursuing stupendous multi-billion dollar endowments and never lowering tuition?

It's like a competition between universities to see who can get the biggest war chest. Lacking any market concerns they're just looking for some variable to maximize just to keep themselves occupied. It seems largely orthogonal to any social purpose a university is supposed to have.

[closeparen]

Endowments are there to provide "passive income" for the university and not to be spent. One of the main things interest on an endowment funds is financial aid. Endowment size is a pretty decent proxy for how generous a financial aid program is.

Spending down an endowment could provide lots of free tuition... for a few years. Universities (like the Church) think in centuries.

[Fomite]

Pretty much this. Whether or not my alma mater could go to a "need blind" admissions policy was entirely a function of whether or not the endowment was in the right shape.

IIRC they managed it in 2007 and then...in 2008...well, that went away.