The Elite Enterprise: Department of Education, 1992 DOE

In 1987, less than a decade after the Department of Education was founded, Secretary of Education William Bennett published a New York Times op-ed. Bearing the name “Our Greedy Colleges,” Bennett writes how contrary to their intended goals, increases in government student aid works only to allow colleges to increase tuition and ultimately upcharge not just the students but the tax payers as well. This idea, aptly dubbed the “Bennett Hypothesis,” is up for much scholarly debate, however its premise is very clear: college has always been expensive, is currently expensive, and is getting more expensive.

In this committee delegates will step into the Department of Education of 1992 in the midst of a great higher education boom. Universities have grown at an astonishing rate with more Americans in college than ever before. This rate of expansion is only rivaled by that of college tuition which had more than doubled in the decade prior leading to a massive expansion of student loans, aided in part by the passage 1992 Higher Education Act. This is all without mentioning the rise of more commercial academic research, from the 1980 Bayh-Dole. Delegates in this committee will be placed in the driver’s seat as the modern American university system begins to take form and help to define the trajectory of some of the United States most powerful institutions. What is in store for the universities of the future? Will tuition always keep higher? Will the government exit the industry or redouble its efforts? Will the love of learning subside to practical, commercially viable, teachings? Will Harvard beat Yale this year? And, of course, is a higher education even worth it anymore?