It was just announced today that French Economist and MIT graduate Jean Tirole won the 2014 Nobel Economics Prize.  His research has helped society to understand many social and economic issues.  The most important of his contributions as cited by Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences is on market failure when only few players are in the market.  In other words, even when one of the important assumptions of perfect competition is not met, then the industry or market is said to be inefficient.  On October 6, 2014, exactly a week before the 2014 Nobel Prize was announced AAEA has brought and discussed the issue of industry/market failure that is happening in the US higher education.  Industry failure can be avoided, minimized or improved through the “right” regulator’s intervention.  The Association has mentioned the needs to step up both academic and financial accountability and assessments efforts on Title IV eligible higher education institutions that have received federal (aid) funding.  The existing and implementation of current regulations can be improved significantly.  The negative effects of fruitless regulation are pretty clear, the society as a whole is worse off.   Even the US colleges themselves are facing financial trouble as recently reported through Gallup and Inside Higher Ed survey.  Students and their families have to bear all the student loans which will reduce their future purchasing power.  Not including in such a case of students who cannot finish their degree because of their campus and program closures.  The multiplier effects of such a disposable income reduction are significant on the ability of loan borrowers and their family on meeting their basic (consumption) needs such as housing, foods and others.  Keep implementing ineffective regulations will make things turn from bad to worse.  It is pretty interesting to see, after this blog was made public, Mark Cuban confirmed what the Association has long hypothesized on the potential of student loans impacts on the US economy.