College fact of the day

What do families actually pay for college? On average, the answer was $20,902 in 2011-2012, which is down from $24,097 in 2009-2010.

That is from Timothy Taylor.  That is not deflation due to higher productivity, but rather mostly the result of a series of substitutions, including living at home and switching to two-year colleges.

File under “Further reasons why the current revenue model is unsustainable.”

Elsewhere, Mark Edmundson, a U Va. English professor, writes:

Internet learning promises to make intellectual life more sterile and abstract than it already is — and also, for teachers and for students alike, far more lonely.

Boo hoo!  Poor you!  Poor me!  Poor Alex, que triste!

File under “The Empire Strikes Back.”