On this dormant thread we discussed how the lack of investment by States in State institutions might ultimately lead to a decline in ownership of cars. Kevin Drum analyzes a recent report linking the rise in tuition rates to declines in youthful home ownership:
As tuition and student debt go up, homeownership rates go down. The authors say that a $1,000 increase in college tuition and fees leads to a 0.24 percentage point decline in the homeownership rate for college students later in life (ages 28 to 30). Thus, the $3,578 increase in tuition from 2001 to 2009 is responsible for a decline of about 0.84 percentage points in homeownership rates among college students from 2009 to 2015. That’s about a tenth of the total decline.
A different analysis suggests the effect may be even bigger: 0.48 percentage points for each $1,000 increase in college tuition. That comes to 2.74 percentage points, which is about a third of the total decline in homeownership rates.
In other words, tuition increases can explain somewhere between a tenth and a third of the decline in homeownership among those with some college education.
So if your favorite metric for success is home ownership, then perhaps pushing down tuition rates should be on your agenda.
That brings up a topic I’d like to explore someday – the selection of metrics to measure the success of society. Does life expectancy really make sense? Do abortion rates really matter? Does infant mortality measure the callousness of society – or a society that makes every effort to save every life, even those that are unsaveable? There is often a nuanced backstory to these metrics, the same metrics that are often used like clubs to beat up competitors, be they other societies or other systems.
