Does High Tuition Cause Entitlement?

A reader from Maine suggests so:

I am not an economic determinist; I don’t believe that all social phenomena can be attributed to economic causes. However, the fact that Lukianoff and Haidt don’t once talk about the consumerist revolution in American higher education is astounding. That is, undoubtedly, the #1 reason for the rise in “vindictive protectiveness.”

When money becomes the one and only value within institutions of higher ed, then the people who pay that money—or the people who act as the proxy for that money—will have the final say on what they feel is appropriate to encounter in class. This means edutainment, lessons built around emotional management—not rational or critical discussion about the messy reality of the world. Administrators would sooner censure an “offensive” teacher than lose one tiny part of their budget.

Add to this the reality of a job market that simply cannot absorb new college grads, and a massive debt bubble, and you have the right pieces for the construction of an escapist pleasure dome—a place for students to avoid the impending doom they feel about a vicious world.