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Plus, states often restrict supply. I have one collaborator at a smaller public uni that is trying to add another PhD program, but the bigger public unis in the state have been able to throw up all sorts of barriers, forcing them to try to show that there is sufficient "need" for such a program (which is essentially impossible to do); really, they're just preventing competition in self-interested fashion. "Best I can do is subsidize demand and restrict supply," is the meme that keeps on giving.
Double plus is that universities are basically the only industry in which the government basically mandates that they're able to nearly perfectly price discriminate, allowing them to capture the vast majority of the surplus. Can you imagine literally any other industry in which the federal government says, "Well, in order to engage in this commerce, individuals need to provide extremely detailed personal and family financial information to the supplier, so that the supplier can optimally tailor an individual price as close as possible to the individual's willingness to pay"? For literally any other industry, this would be absolutely unthinkable... an obscene corruption scandal.
I was thinking of price discrimination just yesterday; before a certain American department store made their prices universal and non-negotiable, retail cashiers were expected to haggle with their customers. If this had continued into the socialism era, we might have seen cashiers giving lower prices to the low class and demanding much higher prices for daily goods to the suit-and-tie class.
Woolworth?
Wanamaker’s.
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