Why I’m Giving $1.8B for College Financial Aid

This is a fine thing to do with $1.8B and that amount could be used in worse ways. Still:

Together, the federal and state governments should make a new commitment to improving access to college and reducing the often prohibitive burdens debt places on so many students and families.

There may be no better investment that we can make in the future of the American dream — and the promise of equal opportunity for all.

At the moment, zero incentivizes colleges to reduce costs. If they can get a student in the door, the federal government will ensure that student loans are available and that the college gets paid no matter what happens to the student. Regulators, in the meantime, work hard to ensure that colleges and especially universities face little competition.

So we get an array of problems: we are all, in a way, paying for the party: https://jakeseliger.com/2014/04/27/paying-for-the-party-eliz.... Already prestigious schools like Hopkins compete primarily to raise their own prestige, rather than improve access. Why do most such schools admit fewer students per capita than they did in 1950? Why are they so interested in discriminatory children-of-alumni admissions?

While I don't want to look a gift horse in the mouth, I've been involved in post-secondary education for too long, and read too many books on it (Tyler Cowen's The Great Stagnation is recommended, as is his book The Complacent Class), to think that "more money, same system" is the answer. We need comprehensive, systemic reform, starting with the accreditation bodies, before we pour more money in.

I don't buy that the probability of a new grad being successful is independent of the name of the school from which they received their degree. Sure, maybe the link isn't as strong as it's made out to be by hiring practices but it can't be nonexistent.

First off, this is a great thing for Michael Bloomberg to do so props to him, but I think there needs to be a much broader discussion about moving away from college as a sort of 'eye of the needle' mechanism for upwards mobility in the United States.

I'm German so my perspective may be biased, but over here you can pick up an apprenticeship, a dual university/work program and still earn comparable wages to college graduates, and if you enter a family business, potentially even more as they are starving for the next generation to take over.

In the US there seems to be a huge gap between prestigious universities degrees and the fear of ending up working for Starbucks your entire life. Expanding access to universities is fine, but a university education is not for everyone, and should not be a prerequisite for a good shot at life.

I know a lot of people in Engineering jobs at Facebook, Valve, Amazon, Google with no degrees who dropped out of College in their first year. The stigma that you need paid education is gone from at least tech jobs, which judging by your mention of Silicon Valley those may be what you're talking about.