Much has been written about the rising cost of college tuition over the last year but Nick Gillespie, the editor of Reason is having none of it.

He outlined his position in a new piece at the Daily Beast.

Why Students (and Obama) Should STFU Already About College Costs

It’s back-to-college time, which means it’s the season for bitching and moaning about rising college costs, lack of access to higher education, and the pressing need for even more taxpayer-funded subsidies to the leaders of tomorrow. In just the past few weeks, we’ve been subjected to breathless reports that “college tuition costs” have risen 500 percent since 1985 and a mini campaign swing by President Obama touting more free money for students and a federally sanctioned knockoff of college guides already provided by the Princeton Review, U.S. News & World Report, Washington Monthly, Barron’s, and countless other sources.

Enough already. The plain facts are that college is still well within reach of most Americans, the wage premium for a college sheepskin remains huge, and student loans are not a new form of indentured servitude. You wouldn’t get any of that from grandstanding politicians always looking for a new way to rob Peter to buy Paul’s vote, an educational establishment that’s always on the hunt for new revenue sources, and a news media that alternates between the credulity and ignorance of, well, a first-semester freshman.

According to the latest figures from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), total tuition, fees, room, and board at four-year colleges for the 2011–12 academic year came to $23,066 on average. For state schools, the cost was substantially less (about $16,000 per year), and for private schools, it was substantially more (about $34,000 per year). In inflation-adjusted dollars (as opposed to the unadjusted figures favored by alarmists), that’s about twice as much as costs were in 1985. As a recent New York Times headline put it, “College Costs: Rising, Yet Often Exaggerated.”


 
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