The Rip-Off That Is Occupational Licensing
1st August 2013
Occupational licensing rules allow trade schools in some states to force students to attend them, enabling the schools to charge students lots of tuition for training that is not worth remotely what it costs. At Slate, columnist Matthew Yglesias writes that “beauty schools are ripping off their students. Terrible licensing rules deserve some of the blame.”
Economists call this ‘rent-seeking’ and it depends on special interests using the power of government to force people to do it their way. And yet people like Yglesias are always first in line when it comes to demanding more regulatory power for government. Sometimes the term ‘clueless’ is wholly inadequate….