This is a bizarre way of thinking
Unfortunately it's kind of typical.
The Washington Post has an article about the rising tuition at the University System of Maryland.
Ehrlich has said he would rather see campuses cut costs than raise tuition. But the debate gained intensity after the governor's closest ally on the University System of Maryland Board of Regents announced this month that he would like to see tuition double at public institutions in Maryland over the next five to six years.
Richard E. Hug, Ehrlich's chief political fundraiser and one of the governor's first appointments to the university board, said raising tuition to a systemwide average of more than $9,000 a year would make public colleges less reliant on state government, pay for a huge infusion of student financial aid and enhance the prestige of the state's flagship institutions.
Look at the expected "benefits" of higher tuition costs, at least in Mr. Hug's view. Less reliant on state government, okay. Not like you have a lot of choice there anyway. But paying for a huge infusion of student financial aid is a strange way of justifying the creation of the need for a huge infusion of student financial aid.
But the killer to me is the last one. You increase the prestige of the schools by making it more expensive…not but immproving facilities or hiring the best professors or anything like that. Merely making it more expensive will make it more prestigious.
This is probably true--the fact is, Harvard graduates aren't learning a lot that's different than, say, Brooklyn College graduates. Maybe a social gesture or two. Still, this comes pretty close to acknowledging that "highly selective" schools select on basedon economics as much as anything else.
