Author Profile

Richard K. Vedder

Richard K. Vedder is Senior Fellow at the Independent Institute and Distinguished Emeritus Professor of Economics at Ohio University; and he is the Founding Director of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity in Washington, D.C. A prominent voice in current movements for reform of higher education, Vedder served on the Secretary of Education’s Commission on the Future of Higher Education and is the author of Going Broke By Degree: Why College Costs Too Much.

Articles by Richard K. Vedder


Approaching Academic Armageddon

Over a mere two days recently (May 14-15), the major daily news outlets serving higher education, Inside Higher Ed and the Chronicle of Higher Education, reported the following: Data collected…


Why Do Colleges Make People Unhappy?

My friend James Creigh recently alerted me to a new study showing that relatively young (18-to-40-year-old) American women who consider themselves “liberal” are more than twice as likely to be…



The Bell Tolls for Higher Ed

Writing four centuries ago, John Donne memorably opined, “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.” He…




The Collegiate War Against Merit

A story in Inside Higher Ed last week revealed that two more Ivy League schools, Cornell and the University of Pennsylvania, have stopped publishing “dean’s lists” that recognize high levels…