Yet it is disingenuous for anybody (especially an economist) to believe that reputational incentives do not matter. Had the conclusions not pleased the Capital Group, it would probably have found a more compliant expert. And the reputation of not being “cooperative” would have haunted Mr. Litan’s career as a consultant.
And Mr. Litan’s defense that people should judge the content of his work and not its funding is also invalid. This is O.K. for a peer-reviewed journal, but not for Congress. Lawmakers hold expert hearings because they lack the expertise to evaluate certain technical subjects. They rely on the integrity of the process.

Unlike cheerleading, ultimate frisbee and flip cup, one feature of US higher education that has struggled to cross the Atlantic is the concept of small, campus-based, liberal arts colleges.
These tiny private institutions may seem completely different from the UK’s typically large, research-intensive, state-funded universities. But, with its focus on both teaching and research, holistic admissions processes and flexibility for students, the liberal arts model is catching on all over the world.

The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation has a vertically integrated monopoly on every aspect of the disease in the United States. It sanctions fundraising events and local awareness-building chapters. It dominates outreach to patients, facilitates generous media exposure and touts successes of large fundraisers. It approves - and even ranks - care centers and physicians across the country in the only network of cystic fibrosis health-care providers. It runs a research subsidiary, which directs the largest array of cystic fibrosis research projects and clinical trials in the world. The resulting standardization and lack of competition has bred a stagnant environment and an entrenched business mindset that silences new perspectives.

Florida Coastal charges nearly $45,000 a year in tuition, which, with living expenses, can lead to crushing amounts of debt for its students. Ninety-three percent of the school’s 2014 graduating class of 484 had debts and the average wasalmost $163,000 — a higher average than all but three law schools in the country. In short, most of Florida Coastal’s students are leaving law school with a degree they can’t use, bought with a debt they can’t repay.

A report issued late last month by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau supports this view. Even though the economy and labor market have improved, student loan borrowers are experiencing high distress levels compared with borrowers with other types of consumer debt, the government report found. More than one in four student loan borrowers are delinquent or in default on their obligations.

After a series of blockbuster hearings held 25 years ago on abuses in the higher education industry, Congress created a system to protect undergraduates from risky student loans.
But two weeks ago, the Education Department released a trove of new data suggesting that the system is failing and that, at some colleges, the saddling of students with loans they cannot afford to pay down is far more dire than anyone knew.
The loan crisis hits hardest at colleges enrolling large numbers of students from low-income backgrounds. These undergraduates have to borrow for college, then often have difficulty finding well-paying jobs after graduation — if they graduate at all.

Student debt in America now totals $1.2 trillion, up more than threefold over the past decade.
Surprisingly, the less students borrow, the more likely they are to struggle with repayments—presumably because debtors with six-figure obligations tend to have postgraduate degrees and steady jobs, whereas those with more modest loans tend to be college dropouts. Non-payment rates also vary by institution. Students at for-profit schools fare the worst: nearly 20% default within three years of leaving college.

The career training and for-profit college industry has been accused in recent years of preying on the poor, veterans and minorities by charging exorbitant fees for degrees that mostly fail to deliver promised skills and jobs.

In the rarefied world of multimillion dollar gift-giving, Paul Smith’s College, named for a 19th-century hotelier and tucked in the forests of northern New York State, carried little cachet. So when Joan Weill, the wife of the Wall Street billionaire Sanford I. Weill, proposed a $20 million gift that would lift the struggling college’s fortunes, its officials saw national prestige on the horizon.