Written by distinguished professor of economics at Ohio University and adjunct scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, Richard Vedder, this book is the most serious effort to date at quantifying the key trends in higher education today.  The author uses his economics expertise to develop and explain thoughtful analyses on pricing, costs, productivity, and, most importantly, the greater economic benefit of higher education.

This book is filled with a myriad of useful data that is used to quantify the primary thesis: the ongoing piecemeal legislative fixes, such as increased appropriations and tax incentives to individuals, will not correct a reinforcing cycle of tuition increases that have been double the rate of inflation over the past 25 years. One of the real challenges to higher leaders is that it is very counter-intuitive to think that providing more subsidies actually makes higher education more expensive, but, this book shows this linkage through basic, but powerful economic analysis.

Perhaps the most striking revelation in the book is that there is a significant negative correlation between increased state spending on higher education and the expected economic gains of a state.  The author explains that this finding was a complete surprise to him and therefore scrutinized it with several different approaches.  In the end, the evidence appears undeniable. 

The ultimate recommendation of the author is to put the decisions on funding in the hands of the consumers, initially through a phased progressive voucher approach with an eventual evolution to migration to a privatized system of higher education. But perhaps the greatest contribution of this book has been to introduce some quantitative analysis on the societal benefits of higher education. If we can measure the phenomenon we are better able to make and assess improvements. 

We recommend reading in conjunction with The Future of Higher Education by Newman, Couturier, and Scurry. Both books agree on a perspective of the unique role of every higher education institution, that is, every institution must understand and stake out its own unique mission. The two books together provide complementary insights and recommendations on how institutions should best prepare to stake out their uniqueness as market forces continue to evolve.