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Why Is College in America So Expensive?

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Re: Why Is College in America So Expensive?

#241

Post by throwawayjava »

rossjudson wrote: post #235
throwawayjava wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he meant "the school must pay back the lender if the student can't pay back the loan after ten years" I.e., our institutions of higher education should be forced to bail out our banks when the banks issue risky loans that don't pan out. This is definitely good idea because divorcing banks from the downsides of their risky loans has worked out so well this century /s

Yes. Apparently I'm having trouble writing today.

My rebuttal was probably a bit too sassy. Sorry.

I agree with the idea that higher ed should have "skin in the game", which is I think what you're trying to find mechanisms to achieve?

But I think the best way to achieve our overall goals (affordable and appropriately accessible higher education) is to force it to be democratically accountable by publicly funding nearly all higher education (maybe except $300 or $500 a semester just to force some "skin in the game" from students).

The "appropriately accessible" part is what makes this so difficult. The highly educated and deservedly successful petite bourgeoisie is going to have a tough time hearing that their second child who needed multiple tries to make it through "College" Algebra and could never make it through even a ridiculously watered-down Calc I course don't belong in universities at all...

Re: Why Is College in America So Expensive?

#242

Post by dnomad »

chimeracoder wrote: post #211
dnomad wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's obvious nonsense to anybody who's taken even a moment to understand what those numbers mean. Here's a very, very simple chart that shows population with tertiary education [1]. The US is not significantly above other countries where education is paid for by the government. What's more is that those numbers are very generous to the US because, as everybody knows, most private colleges in the US are shit. So calle…

> Here's a very, very simple chart that shows population with tertiary education [1]. The US is not significantly above other countries where education is paid for by the government. As you can plainly see in the data, the US has significantly more graduates than each of the counties I listed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tertiary_... > What's more is that those numbers are very generous to the…

> It's appalling that people can drop this kind of drivel on an HN thread and let it stand.

It's not drivel if it's backed by actual data [1][2]. This always seems to come as a complete surprise because it's difficult for many people to grasp how profoundly unequal America is. America has most of the best colleges in the world and they produce probably the most dynamic minds out there... but on average the system is comparable to Poland.

[1] http://www.oecd.org/skills/piaac/Country%20note%20-%20United...

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/29/upshot/americans-think-we...

Re: Why Is College in America So Expensive?

#243

Post by mcguire »

secabeen wrote: post #131
bhupy wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure - in America, healthcare is far from a free market because: 1) We don’t pay our own healthcare bills, we pay for our healthcare through insurance. As a result, there isn’t a pricing system in place, much like there is for other critical goods and services with price-inelastic demand like food and housing. This is caused by regulations that require employers to provide health insurance for their employees, and mo…

The other big cost is supply control by the AMA and other physicians associations. In other countries, being a Dr is a prestigious job, but not one that often pays mid-six figures. It's going to be challenging to get into a new, cheaper system without fighting the existing population of well-compensated physicians.

I believe you are asserting that you are claiming that medical care in the US is more expensive because there area restricted number of doctors. The US has roughly 2.3 pretty 1000 people; the "High income OECD countries average" was 2.86, which seems comparable, especially since small countries necessarily have more per capita.

Re: Why Is College in America So Expensive?

#244

Post by AvocadoPanic »

fzeroracer wrote: post #105
jaxtellerSoA wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As bizarre as it sounds, I think if you stripped subsidies and the effect of near-universal availability of student loans out of the equation But the lefties will cry "You're discriminating and making it harder for poor people to get an education". So it will never happen.

Or, we can go the tried-and-true European route of making higher education free instead of all this stupid experimentation for the sake of a 'free market' which results in disaster for some of our most vulnerable citizens.

Sure, but a good whack of the 'free' countries have attainment rates half of the US.

I'm ok with that but which half of the current cohort gets booted?

Re: Why Is College in America So Expensive?

#245

Post by mcguire »

tobmlt wrote: post #167
fzeroracer wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I asked for an actual quantifier of how much of a 'free market' something is. That's the whole crux of my debate: In attempt to make something more of a 'free market' we cut regulations, which ends up hurting people and which companies take advantage of. Then prices go up, we assume the free market is not free enough, so we cut more regulations. Repeat until people are dying. A great example of such an issue is one w…

When you say: "we cut regulations, which ends up hurting people and which companies take advantage of" Think of this: Companies take advantage when no other company is around to out compete them. This is why it's so important not to erect high barriers to entry around a market. Instead, we have a lack of competition in health care in detail, throughout the whole industry. The reasons have to do with history. Its more…

Companies also take advantage of information disparities. I havea hard enough time finding a decent contractor and I'm capable of putting my own roof on.

Re: Why Is College in America So Expensive?

#246

Post by alexqgb »

leekyle333 wrote: post #121
fzeroracer wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The free market does not work in all situations. There's a reason why our healthcare is an absolute disaster compared to any other first world country, why our college is far more expensive, why our drugs cost more etc And it ain't because of cost control. Every time we loosen the reins a bit and let the 'free market' take the wheels, we see things get a lot worse for Americans as a whole. Especially when you have gi…

It is interesting to me that the three areas main areas in America that have become exponentially more expensive are healthcare, construction, and education. It's curious that they have the most government control.

A better view would focus what kind of government control. Are we talking about a government where legislators are entirely and exclusively dependent on the votes of their constituents? Or are we talking about a government that merely presents the facade of a democracy while actually being dominated by corrupt cartels who use its power to extract rents and squash competition?

Because I promise you, "government" behaves very differently in these two situations.

Re: Why Is College in America So Expensive?

#247

Post by sct202 »

denzil_correa wrote: post #134
noetic_techy wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except for Singapore: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/02/upshot/what-makes-singapo...

Doesn't seem like it. > Initially, Singapore let hospitals compete more, believing that the free market would bring down costs. But when hospitals competed, they did so by buying new technology, offering expensive services, paying more for doctors, decreasing services to lower-class wards, and focusing more on A-class wards. This led to increased spending.

Sounds just like the US healthcare and education systems.

Re: Why Is College in America So Expensive?

#248

Post by mmirate »

mcguire wrote: post #224
roenxi wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The Economy" is a (surprisingly effective!) system for allocating resources. It short-circuits a human instinct that social status and fairness should be the guide, and replaces that with "a persons economic contribution" instead. Now, it turns out that the difference in productivity between people is so great (think the old 10x-100x programmer) that allocating resources according to contribution creates so much sur…

What is the "economic contribution" of, say, the average software developer versus the average first grade teacher?

Ignoring that your average first-grade teacher is an employee of the State rather than of any kind of private entity ...

... it's a question of ephemeral facts. In a given area, companies who employ software developers, able to retain personnel who perform to those companies' subjective satisfaction, by paying them $X; and analogously for private schools in the same area it is $Y for first-grade teachers. How does $X compare with $Y, today, yesterday, and in all the millions of possible tomorrows?

In other words: the beauty of the free market is that we don't have to answer those questions normatively/prescriptively in any one central place.

Re: Why Is College in America So Expensive?

#249

Post by mcguire »

mbostleman wrote: post #83
Domenic_S wrote: post #3

I didn't see this discussed in the article, but IMO the main driver is the availability of student loans. When the government guarantees loans, you can lend whatever you want! The price of a TRIPLE occupancy dorm + 7 day meal access is $14,813.29/YEAR at UC Davis. The "meals", if they haven't changed in the last decade, are Sodexo garbage. And don't forget a "year" doesn't count the summer, or winter break.

The removal of normal economics is definitely part of it. The other part of it is general cultural assumption that if you don't have at least 4 more years after high school you will be destined for a 3rd world standard of living. Forget participating in the economy on your own and creating value - you have to work for someone else and to do that at a level everyone wants, you have to have to have a 4 year degree. I d…

Roughly speaking, you will.

https://www.bls.gov/careeroutlook/2018/data-on-display/mobil...

Re: Why Is College in America So Expensive?

#250

Post by mcguire »

AvocadoPanic wrote: post #244
fzeroracer wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, we can go the tried-and-true European route of making higher education free instead of all this stupid experimentation for the sake of a 'free market' which results in disaster for some of our most vulnerable citizens.

Sure, but a good whack of the 'free' countries have attainment rates half of the US. I'm ok with that but which half of the current cohort gets booted?

The ones whose families don't value education as highly: the poor.
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