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The cost of education has risen about twice as fast as inflation over the past 10 years ... and so have government subsidies.

Even in 2009, President Obama set college tuition hikes in his sights. Alas, he didn't (hasn't) follow(ed) through.

I hope Ron Paul's suggestion re-ignites the debate to bring down tuition, and quit having the government pay for it.

Well said.

The only other comment I would make is that the government has made a stark change away from hard, technically inclined people to "soft," general-management types ... and by so doing, has lots its ability to properly manage the projects it seeks to execute.

Stories like yours above, where the DoD was paying 4x your salary for the services of one, are examples of where some government PM didn't know better. I suppose it's also possible that you were working on some super-classified system, for which the pay scale increases significantly.

I actually pine for the days when 50% of all government GS-15's have to have been prior contractors. Who better to manage the work than someone who has done it before? It has been spun as a bad thing in the press ("Oh Noes! Government official sends money to his prior employer!"), but in my experience, that happens because the government PM is experienced, knows what he or she wants, and the PM usually wrings out a good deal for the government in the process.

Take, for example, the program management of the F-35 fighter aircraft. The person in charge of managing a $300 BILLION weapon system had better have some serious acquisition chops.

A fantastic summary, but I quibble with the "no evidence of any significant release of radiation" quote for Fukushima. Two months ago, I would have said it was impossible for a reactor in Japan to contaminate the drinking water in Tokyo, but that's exactly what happened. To the detriment of the industry (and I'm a nuclear engineer), there was a significant release of radiation.

That said, in the grand scheme of things, it has not presented a harm to the general public that is greater than other risks: look at the poor folks in the spillways of the Mississippi. Or the coal ash spill from the coal-fired plant in Kingston, TN.

Three incidents like you describe above, over thirty-two years, is a pretty darned good safety record, with the 440+ commercial power reactors around the world. Why does nuclear have a bad rap? One possibility is it stems from fear since it all started with a few mushroom clouds, but whatever the reason, it seems awfully visceral.

I agree completely with HuguesT, above. The notion that universities are "just barely scraping by" is absurd.

College Tuition has been rising at about twice the rate of inflation over the past ten years. If you look at Harvard's endowment, they could easily pay every student's tuition based on extremely conservative returns on their 26 billion investment.

Colleges and universities are a racket. Few other industries, as a whole, have experienced the same kind of wholesale constant increase in funds like the education market.

Well, except for the defense industry, but that's another story.

To get back on topic, donating voting shares to MIT would have been a very interesting opportunity for students -- they would get to run the company, and learn all about the real-world application of technology. Alas, with dividends only, I'm not sure there's as much education going on as there could have been.

I agree completely with HuguesT, above. The notion that universities are "just barely scraping by" is absurd.

College Tuition has been rising at about twice the rate of inflation over the past ten years. If you look at Harvard's endowment, they could easily pay every student's tuition based on extremely conservative returns on their 26 billion investment.

Colleges and universities are a racket. Few other industries, as a whole, have experienced the same kind of wholesale constant increase in funds like the education market.

Well, except for the defense industry, but that's another story.

To get back on topic, donating voting shares to MIT would have been a very interesting opportunity for students -- they would get to run the company, and learn all about the real-world application of technology. Alas, with dividends only, I'm not sure there's as much education going on as there could have been.

The following are my news sites of reference:

World Nuclear News This site is fantastic.

Nuclear Energy Institute's site

Atomic Insights Blog

An Engineer In DC

But I'm a little biased for the last one ... that's me.