The other factor being that public institutions are not participants in a educational "free market".

They do not adjust their tuition to take advantage of supply. They increase the tuition to make up for the decline in state funding combined with faculty salary increases (seniority and COL raises).

Unlike private institutions, whenever a state college increases the tuition there is usually pushback from politicians and the state residents. In my particular state they have to account for the resident grant program which gives each high school graduate a small amount of money to spend towards attending a in-state institution and the state educational investment fund where residents prepaid for a four-year education.

You would have a valid point if it weren't for all the for profit "continuing education" mills that charge exorbitant tuition while promising jobs. That is were the bulk of the loan defaults are being generated.

Your supply and demand model doesn't account for cost. Public colleges are still more affordable than the private institutions (accredited non-profit ones) and return the most value for tuition spent. They still need to raise tuition to offset operational expenses which include labor and capital investments like facilities and equipment.

Areas around schools (not on the school property itself) are being turning into constitutional free zones. They have taken the "think of the children" argument to the extreme. In Massachusetts, you can't walk to a friend's house in a Storm Trooper costume because you are carrying something that looks like a gun near school grounds. In Alabama, they are creating a law to ban abortion clinics within 2000 feet of school property so that they can take advantage of all the school property located around towns to close the last remaining clinics.

1. The news report said that the man was walking down the street of he neighborhood near school grounds. If it is like my old neighborhood, there is an elementary school right in the middle of the neighborhood with homes surrounding it.

2. A plastic toy gun doesn't qualify as a dangerous weapon so the above law wouldn't even apply.

A sane person or police officer would check out the situation and simply said there is nothing to worry about.

I know right?

Yep. He took off his sunglasses and said "The crook doesn't have a wing or a prayer" and music from The Who started playing from his iPhone.

Welcome to the US where everything is given as two artificial choices. Seriously... I was approached a couple of days ago and asked if I believe laws should be based on the Bible? When I said no the person quickly accused me of wanting a "muslim theocracy (his words)". I guess the current constitutional republic wasn't one of the two choices he considered for his argument.

I'm not big supporter of either party. I'm like most of the US and just vote for the lesser of the two evils.

It was Virginia's AG that did not do his job.

They swore an oath to uphold the state's constitution and their laws regardless of their personal beliefs. Virginia's AG usurped the authority given to the state legislature and failed to act on their behalf. His job is to represent law makers to the state supreme court and higher.

I don't agree with the ban but you can't overlook someone's failing as an AG simply because the outcome was favorable to your side. Roy Cooper was correct, since in my state the AG would face impeachment for refusing to act on behalf of the legislature.

College was affordable before federal loans

By what standard? Cost of college has always been high. Federal loans made college more accessible. If your theory is based on generated demand then you have discounted the fact that a seat not filled by a in-state resident will be filled by an out-of-state or foreign student who pay more tuition anyway.

The amount of student loan debt is at an all time high and I blame allowing student loans to be used to finance attending for-profit "educational" companies that amount to little more than $40K paper mills. The reason the default rate is high for those institutions is because the employers already understand that those "degrees" aren't worth the paper it is printed on. This doesn't stop the "institution" from insinuating (or outright stating) that you would be guaranteed a job.

Make it to where only public (i.e. state owned) 2-year and 4-year institutions can receive federal student loans and we will see both the rate of default and the number of debtors lower.

I believe federal student loans should only allow payouts to public (i.e. state) 2-year and 4-year institutions.

Closed culture often tries to destroy open culture. SCO/Microsoft vs Linux is a good example.

That's not a very good example since Linux is still here.

I'm not surprised that Tony Abbott would have a conspiracy theorist like Maurice Newman as an advisor. He always struck me as being the real life version of Snidely Whiplash from the Dudely Do-Right segments of the "Rocky and Bullwinkle Show".

It should be possible. You could use a program like ControllerMate. I use ControllerMate to give the mouse wheel on my Nostromo a different function than the mouse wheel on my Razer Naga. Also ControllerMate allows me to redefine the keys on the Nostromo while leaving the keys on my keyboard unaffected.

This is like doing 6 episodes of Dallas after 30 years. Pointless.

Except Dallas resumed for three whole seasons.