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Myth and reality in the crisis of college affordability (2015)

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21–30 of 34 posts

Re: Myth and reality in the crisis of college affordability (2015)

#21

A large part of the rise in costs is due to the conservative political movement. For one thing, conservatives are very hostile toward higher education because they consider it a hotbed of marxist atheism. In fact, one of the founding books of the conservative movement, by William F. Buckley, focused on exactly this point. Secondly, conservatives believe in making government as small as possible, so they have been shr…

> they have been shrinking tax support for universities.

If your assertion is correct, then the rate of increase in traditionally conservative states - such as Utah, Texas, Kentucky - would be significantly higher than in liberal states such as California, New York, and Massachusetts.

Does the data support your assertion?

Re: Myth and reality in the crisis of college affordability (2015)

#22
post #2

Despite starting by talking about "college tuition" in general, this article looks at public colleges only. It doesn't even try to explain the tuition increases at private colleges, which if anything have been larger.

The public funding argument doesn't exist at private colleges. If private colleges want to charge through the roof, so be it. (Although perhaps we shouldn't be guaranteeing the loans if they're a luxury good)

Re: Myth and reality in the crisis of college affordability (2015)

#23
post #11

Some great programs are reasonably priced. One example that HN readers may find interesting is Georgia Tech's online graduate CS program. For roughly $7,000, you can get a CS degree from a top 10 school. http://www.omscs.gatech.edu/

That's for a masters degree though and while 170 per credit hour is quite cheap it would still mean a 21000+ bachelors at that price (just for tuition) which after all is said and done means ~6000 a year. Now for reference 11$/hr (which is actually very good for the sort of entry level retail job your average highschool student is going to get) at 40 hrs/wk (which entry level jobs never actually give you) translates to about 16-17k a year so to pay for school at that price you have to be able to live on 10k a year for all your housing/food/insurance needs. Which is easy in some places and won't even get you half a couch in other places. Also it's damn hard to work 40 hrs a week and attend college because courses are scheduled at near random through out the day and very few employers are that flexible.

Re: Myth and reality in the crisis of college affordability (2015)

#24

Access to free and easy money causes the price of assets to rise, and a college diploma is a great asset. Universities have been doing the same thing all businesses do: charge as much as the market will bear.

The article debunks this:

"The claim that increased student aid causes tuition to rise was originated by William Bennett, the secretary of education under Ronald Reagan, in a 1987 New York Times opinion piece.19 Numerous academic studies since have tested the Bennett hypothesis, and though a few have found some link between rising aid and tuition in at most one sector of higher education,20 the vast majority have “…found not a shred of evidence of an empirical relationship,” as David Warren wrote in the Washington Post.21 As Warren notes, three major federal reports in the last fifteen years have each surveyed the existing academic literature, and each concluded that no such relationship exists.

The most recent, conducted by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) in 2011, took advantage of a unique “natural experiment” to test the Bennett hypothesis: the substantial increases in Stafford Loan limits between 2007 and 2009.22 In 2007, the yearly loan limits, adjusted for inflation, ranged from $2,925 for freshmen to $6,125 for upper classmen. By 2009, they had risen to $5,750 and $7,825, respectively. All told, the yearly borrowing limit for all undergraduates increased by an average of $2,340. However, average tuition at public 4-year universities rose by just $540 over the same two years, in line with recent historical averages, leading the GAO to reject the possibility of a relationship between the two. Additionally, these increases in borrowing limits were the first since 1993, meaning that the inflation-adjusted value of the limit had declined for more than a decade during which tuitions rose steadily. All told, both the empirical evidence and academic consensus deem the Bennett hypothesis false."

Re: Myth and reality in the crisis of college affordability (2015)

#25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By taxes, I meant tax money that the state uses to subsidize public universities. The easy money of student loans is a federal program, not the state governments. And conservatives like it because then the big financial corporations that make student loans can make lots of money. And the more expensive education is, the more money they can make. So yes, conservatives think it is just great when higher education gets…

Let me explain this in a more organized manner. To start, conservatives have three basic values: democracy, the free market, and religion. The oppose marxism because it is totalitarian, socialist, and atheist. The opposed the old universities because they believed they were marxist. They like it that the new universities have become more expensive because that keeps people out of universities, or when they are in the…

What is a 'financial corporation'? Is there a non-financial corporation that exists? How have universities abandoned education to favor entrepreneurship? How were universities previously not like businesses, and how do student loans - which have existed for quite some time - make them be 'be like businesses'? If the axes for conservatism are democracy, the free market and religion, where do people who only care about 1 or 2 of those items fall? Since college enrollment is rising significantly, how is it keeping people out of universities?

Re: Myth and reality in the crisis of college affordability (2015)

#26

A large part of the rise in costs is due to the conservative political movement. For one thing, conservatives are very hostile toward higher education because they consider it a hotbed of marxist atheism. In fact, one of the founding books of the conservative movement, by William F. Buckley, focused on exactly this point. Secondly, conservatives believe in making government as small as possible, so they have been shr…

> they have been shrinking tax support for universities. If your assertion is correct, then the rate of increase in traditionally conservative states - such as Utah, Texas, Kentucky - would be significantly higher than in liberal states such as California, New York, and Massachusetts. Does the data support your assertion?

Didn't the "liberal" state of California elect one Governor Reagan on the campaign promise that he would crack down on hippies at Berkeley by cutting funding to the University of California system?

Re: Myth and reality in the crisis of college affordability (2015)

#27
post #11

Some great programs are reasonably priced. One example that HN readers may find interesting is Georgia Tech's online graduate CS program. For roughly $7,000, you can get a CS degree from a top 10 school. http://www.omscs.gatech.edu/

How do employers view this program? Are they starting to come around toward online degrees or are they still looked down upon?

Re: Myth and reality in the crisis of college affordability (2015)

#28
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't downvote you, but I think your conclusion doesn't match your anecdote. "We really need to increase public funding for education." Shouldn't the conclusion be to lower costs and not increase funding if it's increased 7 fold in a short period?

I agree. The universities shouldn't be wildly raising their tuition & fees annually.

And they do that because Gov't is willing to give people who have never had a job, no credit, who can't even rent a car, multiple annual loans for $35,000 Absolutely ridiculous, predatory and anti-capitalist.

Re: Myth and reality in the crisis of college affordability (2015)

#29

A large part of the rise in costs is due to the conservative political movement. For one thing, conservatives are very hostile toward higher education because they consider it a hotbed of marxist atheism. In fact, one of the founding books of the conservative movement, by William F. Buckley, focused on exactly this point. Secondly, conservatives believe in making government as small as possible, so they have been shr…

The Chinese are beating us because we let them, to the benefit of consumerism, but at the expense of workers. Yes it let's people buy plastic cooking utencils for $2.50 and cheap computer tablets and phones for $70, but it also means unemployment is up, manufacturing is terrible and wages are stagnant since NAFTA was signed.

Re: Myth and reality in the crisis of college affordability (2015)

#30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they have been shrinking tax support for universities. If your assertion is correct, then the rate of increase in traditionally conservative states - such as Utah, Texas, Kentucky - would be significantly higher than in liberal states such as California, New York, and Massachusetts. Does the data support your assertion?

Didn't the "liberal" state of California elect one Governor Reagan on the campaign promise that he would crack down on hippies at Berkeley by cutting funding to the University of California system?

You mean when he was elected in 1966?

I thought we were talking more recently than 50 years ago..

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