Over the last several months, the news has been full of examples of institutions of higher education, led most recently by Harvard, changing their tuition policies as a way of reconsidering the negative effects of the exorbitant cost of college education in the United States. Is anyone else disappointed by the relative silence of Catholic institutions of higher learning on these matters? Catholic higher education ought to be in the forefront of public conversations about dismantling the career-and-imagination-crippling heaps of debt with which we are burdening more and more of our students. And it does not require a rich institution to lead the conversation. In principle, Catholic higher education (or, please, at least Jesuit higher education?) could commit to dealing with the "ethics of Catholic debt" without needing to be able to throw a multi-billion-dollar bandage on it in the near term. There goes another opportunity for American Catholics to appeal to the goodwill of the country and take up leadership on an issue that involves Americans of many social classes. Or maybe it’s not too late? UPDATE: See my article on the rising costs of Catholic education in NCR. Tom Beaudoin
Catholic Higher Education - Losing Out on a Crucial American Moment?
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16 years 4 months ago
Today's New York Times has a story about Yale coming to a similar decision and announcing new financial aid policies, probably as a result of pressure to keep up with Harvard's new policy.
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