The following story was first published by Capital and Main and published here in collaboration with The Huffington Post. Sign up here for email updates from Capital & Main.
Private universities like Stanford and USC are among the richest institutions in the world. So why is it that when they need money to build a new stadium or luxury dorm, they borrow the money instead of just spending from their huge endowments? The answer says a lot about inequality in higher education.
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What it all adds up to is an increasingly segregated higher education system, financed by wealthy people and educating wealthy people’s children while siphoning desperately needed funds away from public colleges and universities. Even though the U.S. spends twice as much per student on higher education as the average among advanced capitalist democracies, a disproportionate share of that money is going to those who need it least. No wonder the U.S. has fallen from number 1 in the world to number 12 for college attainment.
