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Will America’s universities go the way of its car companies?

economist.com

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Re: Will America’s universities go the way of its car companies?

#31

Post by showerst »

nanairo wrote: post #25

I must admit that I am always a bit prejudicial when I hear an business person (or a business magazine like this) talking about universities. They seem to view Universities as a business proposal: "How much do we invest? How much do we get out of it?", which it shouldn't be. Take this quote: "If colleges were businesses, they would be ripe for hostile takeovers, complete with serious cost-cutting and painful reorgani…

I upvoted you, but on the flip side, we currently have a large number of students who are coming out of college with low real-world value degrees and huge amounts of debt.

It's probably unsustainable to have 175,000 psych and history majors[1] graduating every year with 10-20,000 dollars in debt[2]. (Not to speak of all the business/marketing majors)

I'm not saying that colleges should turn into work-training programs, but there's a huge impedance mismatch between the cost of college, the skills conferred by the degrees that most people get, and the rewards for those in the workplace.

At some point, the average decent public university degree (in a non hard-science) will cease to pay for itself over the long term. Then the only people doing the humanities will be those of a class privileged enough to afford them, which is an outcome that I don't think anyone wants.

Even when you take into account the often generous financial aid packages in the US, costs are still spiraling compared to benefits, especially in the less lucrative degrees.

1: http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d09/figures/fig_15.asp 2: http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/general/2006-02-22-stude...

Re: Will America’s universities go the way of its car companies?

#32

Post by SilianRail »

whyenot wrote: post #24

Go to a state school. In California, the tuition for a California State University is about $5500 a year. If you can't afford that, you likely qualify for a CalGrant which is awarded based on need and are around $5400 per school year. For example, San Jose State University here in Silicon Valley, doesn't have the reputation that a top tier school has, but you can still get a very good education, in some ways better t…

Isn't California bankrupt?

Re: Will America’s universities go the way of its car companies?

#33

Post by geebee »

carbocation wrote: post #6
kmfrk wrote: post #4

But why are American universities placed so highly in the cited ranking if everything is ashambles as the article author claims? The university prices are obviously on an inflationary course, but how else do they compare to the world outside?

This happens because the rankings cited are a function of the academic output of the faculty. In contrast, this article is largely worrying about undergraduate-specific issues. In other words, I think you've identified a non sequitur committed by the author.

I agree, these are only vaguely related issues.

An undergraduate gets into Univ A and Univ B. Which one does he choose?

A highly promising young researcher is recruited as a faculty member by univ A and univ B. Which does he choose?

The difference between these questions also explains why some ratings place large, public research universities in the top few spots, and why in others (like us news), none of them crack the top 20.

Of course, top faculty and research can be a draw for undergraduates, so they aren't totally unrelated, but grad (especially phd) students are far more influenced by the second question as well.

Re: Will America’s universities go the way of its car companies?

#34

Post by utoku »

nanairo wrote: post #23
goodwinb wrote: post #10

Can you HNers think of a way to separate the teaching aspect of university from the research aspect? They seem to serve two different customers. Teaching is really for students to educate them and season them up for life. Research is for the government or business and makes the professor and university money. I think we can all remember a hard core research professor who could not teach a class worth a damn. On the o…

The model already exist: school vs. universities. It is just---and this is just my opinion---that as human knowledge became bigger and bigger, what the people at the edge, pushing the envelope do, is further and further from what a 1st year undergraduate does. Basically we would need another school in the middle for what is a BA/BSci for example, and use univeristy (and university professors) for masters and phds. As…

As a counter argument, from the wikipedia article on Richard Feynman:

Feynman gained a reputation for taking great care when giving explanations to his students and for making it a moral duty to make the topic accessible. His guiding principle was that if a topic could not be explained in a freshman lecture, it was not yet fully understood.

Re: Will America’s universities go the way of its car companies?

#35

Post by oiuygtfrtghyju »

whyenot wrote: post #24

Go to a state school. In California, the tuition for a California State University is about $5500 a year. If you can't afford that, you likely qualify for a CalGrant which is awarded based on need and are around $5400 per school year. For example, San Jose State University here in Silicon Valley, doesn't have the reputation that a top tier school has, but you can still get a very good education, in some ways better t…

> doesn't have the reputation that a top tier school has

Thats the problem: The deal isn't go to university and learn stuff. The deal is go to university and you will get a better job, the extra salary you make will pay back the tuition and lost years of income.

As more people go to uni the more the market segments - it becomes go to Harvard/Yale, you will pay 10x as much in tuition but earn 100x as much in salary. But go to nowheres ville U and your extra salary is 0.

The problem is that for this (and the previous) generation the extra salary no longer pays back the costs.

Re: Will America’s universities go the way of its car companies?

#36

Post by yummyfajitas »

yequalsx wrote: post #27
nanairo wrote: post #25

I must admit that I am always a bit prejudicial when I hear an business person (or a business magazine like this) talking about universities. They seem to view Universities as a business proposal: "How much do we invest? How much do we get out of it?", which it shouldn't be. Take this quote: "If colleges were businesses, they would be ripe for hostile takeovers, complete with serious cost-cutting and painful reorgani…

I teach at a community college. The price is quite low (and my pay). Society does not want to pay for knowledge. It does not see a benefit in having people who appreciate art, literature, culture, music, etc. It only sees a benefit from electrical engineering and other such subjects. It's a problem of society and it's short sighted goals.

There are two sides to a price calculation - the supply and the demand side. The price for teaching is low because the supply is huge - there is a vast pool of people who want to teach literature, and are willing to do it at very low prices. If a literature adjunct quits, the college can immediately go to the waiting list and find someone else willing to take the job for $5k/class.

In contrast, if I (a programmer) were to quit, my company could probably not find someone willing to take the job for $35k/year.

It would be very shortsighted if society overpaid for college teachers, just as it would be shortsighted if they overpaid for military contractors or the stock of bankrupt automakers.

Re: Will America’s universities go the way of its car companies?

#37

Post by JabavuAdams »

timwiseman wrote: post #28
yequalsx wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I teach at a community college. The price is quite low (and my pay). Society does not want to pay for knowledge. It does not see a benefit in having people who appreciate art, literature, culture, music, etc. It only sees a benefit from electrical engineering and other such subjects. It's a problem of society and it's short sighted goals.

No, it is that I do not want to be forced to pay directly or indirectly for someone else to appreciate art, literature, or music, especially not when there are kids down my block that are barely able to read and pot holes in the roads I drive on. That truly is not a high priority for a society with other more pressing problems. I am however quite willing to pay with my own money so that I and my family can learn to a…

You seem to think that these are independent issues. I.e. if we just throw more money at basic literacy, road-maintenance, and policing, then society will be better. If we throw money at art and cultural education, then we're losing out on money for the above.

The fact is that a lot of social problems stem from cultural problems. You can keep throwing money and teachers at those kids down the street, but it won't get them to read. Instead, you need to change their culture (and their parents') to one of scholarship.

I find this "don't spend my tax dollars on anything that doesn't directly benefit me" attitude to be mean-spirited, but more importantly, to be one of the cultural problems that helps to foster the ills you cite.

Re: Will America’s universities go the way of its car companies?

#38

Post by psranga »

timwiseman wrote: post #28
yequalsx wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I teach at a community college. The price is quite low (and my pay). Society does not want to pay for knowledge. It does not see a benefit in having people who appreciate art, literature, culture, music, etc. It only sees a benefit from electrical engineering and other such subjects. It's a problem of society and it's short sighted goals.

No, it is that I do not want to be forced to pay directly or indirectly for someone else to appreciate art, literature, or music, especially not when there are kids down my block that are barely able to read and pot holes in the roads I drive on. That truly is not a high priority for a society with other more pressing problems. I am however quite willing to pay with my own money so that I and my family can learn to a…

IMHO, this is shortsighted. Art is of almost zero practical use. Investing a tiny fraction of society's resources in art is a sign of a society that has evolved beyond the starvation stage.

Are you saying that all art should only be commissioned by rich private interests? No investment in art by the public? You would demolish the National Mall, Statue of Liberty and other such art works?

Or do you draw the line at hoity-toity works (as decided by whom?).

IMHO, it is super important that societies develop the "refined" sides of the brain to control our atavistic instincts.

Re: Will America’s universities go the way of its car companies?

#39

Post by lg »

dragoon wrote: post #20
carbocation wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I'm getting out of this is that you prefer the term "price discrimination" to "financial aid." The specific choice of words doesn't really matter to me if they're describing the same phenomenon. > Also, only a token number of low-income students are admitted to the top schools, due to "extracurricular" admissions criteria that are socioeconomic by design. This is why these universities can fearlessly offer need-…

Enough people with some degree of need are passing the "extracurricular hurdles" that 55% of Yalies receive financial aid. The vast, vast, vast majority of people in that 55% are not even remotely poor. Most are of upper-middle income and of even higher socioeconomic status (e.g. progeny of diplomats, famous art gallery owners, and esteemed professors who make a merely upper-middle income but are higher in social sta…

I can tell you from experience: people making upper-middle income don't get much aid from the ivies. If you're poor, it's free, and if you're rich, who cares, but if your family's income is in the low six figures, you're looking at big loans.

Re: Will America’s universities go the way of its car companies?

#40

Post by binaryfinery »

In the UK we said, "We don't need manufacturing, we have our scientists and R&D".

Then when our Universities and our R&D started to decline, we said "We don't need our Universities and R&D, we have our Service Economy".

Then when our Service Economy went offshore, we said "We dont need all our Service Economy, we have our Financial Services Economy".

Everything outside London is a wasteland. The average wage is subsistence living, if you make one at all. But the Alphas live in a magical city, where cocaine and girls are all easily affordable on multi-million pound salaries.

The UK once ruled the world. The US couldn't be following us down to ruin better if we'd given them a map.

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