A couple of days ago a message popped up on my Tivo informing me of a new service, “Blockbuster on Demand.” Ah, Blockbuster. That takes me back, to that period of about four years when all of the mom and pop video rental stores had been driven out of business but Netflix hadn’t yet arrived, so the only way to rent a movie was to drive to the nearest Blockbuster, spend ten minutes trying to find a place to park, discover that your first eight choices were unavailable, wait in line for fifteen minutes, and be informed by a surly, inattentive clerk that you owed the Blockbuster corporation 27 dollars in late fees and other assorted charges. Blockbuster on Demand? I would empty all the money in my wallet into the Weber grill in my backyard and set it on fire before giving a penny to Blockbuster.
This is what happens when organizations use their monopoly status to mistreat customers. Sooner or later the world changes, your monopoly is gone, and you pay the price. There are clear implications for education. If there’s one thing that’s pretty certain, it’s that people will have more education choices in the future than they’ve had in the past. It will be hard for older organizations that have built up years of ill will to compete. You see this manifest in the urban charter school market, where parents will send their students to any charter school, even the bad ones, rather than the regular public school system. And while higher education is technically a national market, in reality the large majority of students have traditionally chosen among one or two local institutions. The bill for all those late fees is coming due.
Lowering Student Loan Default Rates: What One Consortium of Historically Black Institutions Did to Succeed 
College and Career-Ready: Using Outcomes Data to Hold High Schools Accountable for Student Success
03/11/10 | Kevin Carey is quoted on the rising costs of education in The Economist.
03/10/10 | Chad Aldeman's False Fronts paper is quoted on Accuracy in Academia.
03/09/10 | Ben Miller is quoted on Federal Family Education Loan defaults on The Huffington Post.
03/09/10 | Ben Miller is quoted on loan origination on the Firedog Lake blog.
03/07/10 | Kevin Carey calls for a Race to the Top in higher education in a column in The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Blockbuster can’t even compete with the Internet even when going out of business. The Blockbuster at 17th and P in D.C. is liquidating its inventory, but a previewed copy of Watchmen goes for $9.99 plus tax. You can get the same thing used online for $5.95. A copy of the Wrestler is $9.99, Amazon has it for $5.50 used.