As the article's title suggested, this is all about labeling. It does not have much to do with the desire of quality of the education. The article does reflect the nature of human being and problems of current academic and social system.
As pointed out by the article, what those students are after is the brand name of a better school. The motive is clear. A recognized brand name can, perceivably, land them a better job oppotunities - maybe especially true for government job where accountability is usually less enforced.
The lesson learned from this article is that these are human natures and these things happened globally. The equivalent in the United States is that the for-profit institutions are racing to provide brand names like BA and BS for their graduates ignoring the traditional implied quality of these brand names. These events have caused, say, the conservatives, to protect the BS-BA brand names - please refer to these articles: on Academic Vs. Nonacademic: a Call for Truth in Labeling
and on Report Calls for Tighter Rules on State's For-Profit Colleges.The root of the problem is simply that: there is no objective definition for these named brands. The only thing that is guarding them is the reputation - which, in a way, setup the consumer price barrier and contributes to the higher college going cost.
The situation is similar to that a brand named consumer product usually cost more. However, in the consumer markets, there are organizations that perform the objective test and report the quality of various brands. This objective platform allows companies to compete on the bases of the quallity rather than the brand name. This also lower the barrier for a small company to enter the race and intensify the competition. We may all familiar with the fact that competetion bring the cost down. But we probabaly forgot that this is only true if there is an objective check. Just look at prices in the fasion categories and those in the home appliance categories.
So. Can we see why colleges cost so much now?
- There are basic cost that can't be cut. But with competition, organizations are motivated to optimize the operation!