[analog31]

Indeed, I don't think there's a social or economic reason why higher education should be a scarce good. Likewise health care.

There was a recent article suggesting that Stanford should just replicate itself in multiple states. My own preferred route would be bottom-up: Start by bolstering the community and technical colleges, then the regional public colleges, and finally large state universities.

The "elite" private colleges have a dilemma, which is that they have to basically curate their student populations, because any simplistic admission filter will turn the college into a freak show and destroy its own brand. A college that consists of nothing but valedictorian concertmaster robotic-club-leaders, concentrated in three or four "hot" majors, would even have a hard time retaining faculty.

I propose letting them do exactly that -- a decade of no-holds-barred private college admissions -- and then figure out what we want to do about higher education.

[whimsicalism]

Princeton != Higher education writ large.

Exclusive educational institutions like Princeton are inherently a scarce good.

[analog31]

Indeed, and in fact, I'd like to see the press stop reporting on elite schools as if they represent "education." That attention distorts the rest of the education system. I also understand that something scarce is inherently scarce, but don't believe its scarcity is something that the public needs to support. Let 'em do whatever they want, and tax 'em up the wazoo.