The College Cost Disease
Preview

Paperback

The College Cost Disease

Higher Cost and Lower Quality

9781781953389 Edward Elgar Publishing
Robert E. Martin, Emeritus Professor of Economics, Centre College, US
Publication Date: November 2012 ISBN: 978 1 78195 338 9 Extent: 208 pp
College cost per student has been on the rise at a pace that matches – or exceeds – healthcare costs. Unlike healthcare, though, teaching quality has declined, and rapidly rising costs and declining quality are not trends easily forgiven by society. The College Cost Disease addresses these problems, providing a behavioral framework for the chronic cost/quality consequences with which higher education is fraught. Providing many compelling insights into the issues plaguing higher education, Robert Martin expounds upon H.R. Bowen’s revenue theory of cost by detailing experience good theory, the principal/agent problem, and non-profit status.

Copyright & permissions

Recommend to librarian

Your Details

Privacy Policy

Librarian Details

Download leaflet

Print page

More Information
Critical Acclaim
Contents
More Information
College cost per student has been on the rise at a pace that matches – or exceeds – healthcare costs. Unlike healthcare, though, teaching quality has declined, and rapidly rising costs and declining quality are not trends easily forgiven by society. The College Cost Disease addresses these problems, providing a behavioral framework for the chronic cost/quality consequences with which higher education is fraught. Providing many compelling insights into the issues plaguing higher education, Robert Martin expounds upon H.R. Bowen’s revenue theory of cost by detailing experience good theory, the principal/agent problem, and non-profit status.

Reputation competition dominates higher education. Students and their parents, and public opinion in general, associate higher tuition with higher quality and greater accolades; price is used as a proxy for quality only when consumers are uncertain about quality prior to purchase. Higher education services are the most complex types of ‘experience goods’; a service whose quality can only be determined after a purchase has been made. Applying formal economic theory to higher education, Robert Martin examines how and why attempts to control costs are controversial and the damaging effects these controversies have on institutions’ reputations. Arguing that the college access problem cannot be solved until colleges and universities find a way to control their costs, this book brings to the fore the leading ideas that will bring about much-needed budgetary reform in higher education.

Governing boards, administrators and faculty members should find much to think on and learn from here; parents, students, alumni and taxpayers will find the research and conclusions alarming, though eye-opening.
Critical Acclaim
‘The College Cost Disease is indeed a useful reading, not only for the students of economics of education, but also for others interested in quality and also that the costs of higher education would immensely benefit from.’
– Jandhyala B.G. Tilak, Journal of Educational Planning and Administration
Contents
Contents: Preface 1. Cost, Quality, and Anomalies in Higher Education 2. Statistical Measures: Teaching Productivity, Cost, Financial Burden, and Quality 3. Reputations and the Chivas Regal Effect 4. The Principal/Agent Problem in Higher Education 5. Commercialization: The Devil Made Me Do It! 6. The Gresham Effect, Lemons, and Teaching 7. Inside the Black Box Glossary Bibliography Index
eBook for individuals
978 1 84980 617 6
From $44.76
Click here for options
eBook for library purchase
978 1 84980 617 6
View sample chapter and check access on:
eBook options

Available for individuals to buy from these websites

Or recommend to your institution to acquire on Elgaronline
  • Buy as part of an eBook subject collection - flexible options available
  • Downloading and printing allowed
  • No limits on concurrent user access, ideal for course use

Latest publications

My Cart