This, of course, still understates the ultimate economic burden of education, its "opportunity cost"--the output that could otherwise be generated by those in school.

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Until we demand more reason and responsibility from not only students but those at the top as well, the debt burden will only grow and the value of a higher education will only diminish.

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And while the U.S. received high honors in some areas--first, for instance, in research collaboration between businesses and universities and third in number of patents per capita--it ranked 48th in science and math education, 53rd in the burden of government regulation and 23rd in Internet bandwidth.

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No better than to hear it directly from the man at the top, and one who leads a team at Penn that, like a few other institutions, are leading the way to greater access and affordability to provide kids a great education at a fair price, without the onerous burden of thousands of dollars in student loans.

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At least those who favor abolishing the U.S. Department of Education can claim the colleges themselves favor a massive reduction in the regulatory burden.

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From a fiscal point of view, more children are not necessarily a blessing: their education is a burden on the public finances.

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The Institute for Public Policy Research also backed the move, arguing that younger people were facing record unemployment and cuts to benefits like education maintenance allowance, and it was "time for older people to share some of the burden of deficit reduction".

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