Turns Out All American Colleges Are Actually Giant Daycare Centers (Duh)
In another "shocking news to no one" research project, The Delta Cost Project discovered definitive proof of what everyone in world has been thinking since the 1950's. The report, "Trends in College Spending 1998-2008 [PDF]," concluded that colleges and universities from all over the country are literally throwing money at high end student centers and methods of increasing "comfortability" for students (and we mean literally, like administrators are actually having huge money fights). The story has been picked up by news-soup extraordinaire The Huffington Post who linked it to a New York Times article trying to explain the, ya' know, frivolousness of American higher education.
Best quote:
"'This is the country-clubization of the American university,' said Richard Vedder, a professor at Ohio University who studies the economics of higher education. 'A lot of it is for great athletic centers and spectacular student union buildings. In the zeal to get students, they are going after them on the basis of recreational amenities.'"
File this your "everything you think about stuff is probably true" folder.







I remember reading this story in the Globe last year and thinking "Hey, wouldn't it be nice if this sort of thing took off." Guess not.
Best accompanying photo ever.
What kind of bizarre frat hazing ritual involves 4 dudes dressed as gay Teletubbies and guy in a doctor costume?
@nic the good kind
You've never lived in a co-ed hall of residence, have you?
Mark Edmundson said the college/country club thing in Harpers about ten years ago, in "On the Uses of A Liberal Education." If Professor Vedder didn't cite his source, he should be kicked out for plagiarizing.
I've waited for thirteen years to have a mental image of Eddie Vedder as a professor in my head. Thank you for this day Webb.
The English have known this for centuries. Punting on the Isis anyone?
Punting on the Isis? Is that some new slang for being buggered in a cold shower?
It replaces "going to the wall" at Eton.
Ours was called 'Camp Emerson.'