Now that everybody is above average

Megan McArdle: "The signs of educational decline are now impossible to ignore - UC San Diego report shows students are not prepared for college, especially in math."

That’s what happens when you silence the alarm instead of responding to it: The fire burns out of control. It should be a warning to the growing number of politicians who think they can fix other problems — like soaring rents or rising electricity costs — by simply freezing prices. The prices are telling us that there’s too little supply to meet demand, or that something (such as renewables mandates or too few natural gas pipelines) is driving up supply costs. Freezing prices doesn’t fix that any more than a courtesy A gives students what they actually need to succeed in college.

This is the end result when your primary goal is to not hurt anybody's feelings.