Universities forced to face addiction to foreign students’ money • Hacker News Board

Re: Universities forced to face addiction to foreign students’ money

#131

Post by JoeAltmaier » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 1:15 PM UTC

mschuster91 wrote: post #125

killjoywashere wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we can't seem to do anything any more? I disagree. We do some amazing shit. Elon Musk runs circles around ULA. My own research, as a far smaller example, has scaled up nicely despite the fact that in the old model it should be virtually impossible to do any research in the career track I'm in. Tech doesn't help people who are bored (boring?). But it is like hydrazine for people who need to get serious shit done on…

> Elon Musk runs circles around ULA. That is because there has been a severe lack of competition until SpaceX arrived. Let's be honest there is no real alternative to Airbus and Boeing for airplanes, and it has been the same situation for space before SpaceX. Or, to express it better: Why should ULA have tried to divert to agile processes or try out new ways of doing things when the status quo reliably keeps jobs in…

Sounds cynical. But I assure everyone its not. Government contracts are a gravy train. I mentioned to my high school friend that my contracting overhead in the Midwest was about 25%. He said "In Washington contractor overhead is 200%" Why? To make the owners of the contracting companies rich, of course.

Re: Universities forced to face addiction to foreign students’ money

#132

Post by amiga_500 » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 1:15 PM UTC

KoftaBob wrote: post #119

amiga_500 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did we used to do this in the 1970s where the state paid for it all? We now live in a world where you don't need a secretary, because you can type up documents yourself, you can instantly send written communication via email. You can publish agendas, and other campus wide information instantly on a website. You can automate. You can distribute notes to your students for free instead of endless photocopies. Why gi…

Because the thing that tech hasn’t solved yet is misaligned incentives. No amount of advanced technology will counteract an organization or industry thats incentivized to be inefficient. Especially in the case of universities which are largely “non profit”, as are the majority of hospitals. Without shareholders to push for increased efficiency and price competition, the leadership has little reason to care about that…

How did they function for centuries before, when shareholders were not demanding increased efficiency?

College in the USA is expensive because of the credit available. That is how prices are set.

Re: Universities forced to face addiction to foreign students’ money

#133

Post by mschuster91 » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 1:18 PM UTC

washadjeffmad wrote: post #95

neumann wrote: post #13

I work at a University in Australia and have been on both sides of academic and professional. This unravelling was on the horizon for everybody, maybe not so soon, but definitely in the viewport. In an effort to drive up income streams there has been a slow erosion of Australian education (more at some universities than others) to cater for the international (Chinese and Indian predominantly) market. There are all so…

Something I've noticed is that universities in the US no longer seem to advertise their primary mission as education, but as providing the "college experience". Brochures are rife with amenities and activities like you're picking out a resort or extended summer camp where you can safely figure out who you are, make friends, and be protected until you're set free, job-pass in hand. These advertisements are also primar…

> I only wonder how much of this process was a result of student demands for more parental oversight and involvement

Rather, parental demands like "we're paying for this, we want to know what's going on"...

And to be fair that position makes sense when parents put up hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Re: Universities forced to face addiction to foreign students’ money

#134

Post by s_dev » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 1:19 PM UTC

mannykannot wrote: post #74

s_dev wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the housing crisis disappeared overnight because of this virus Thats a bit disingenous and hyperbolic. It is true that more apartments are available (00's) due to Corona but the housing crisis is far from over.

It may be mistaken and exaggerated, but did you really intend to write that wickerman is being disingenuous?

He's misrepresenting Dublin intentionally to contrive the point that AirBnB and student accomodation are entirely the cause of the problem.

It's far more nuanced and complex -- involving tax laws, property dev incentives and planning laws and policy. None of which he mentions.

Re: Universities forced to face addiction to foreign students’ money

#135

Post by sirsar » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 1:24 PM UTC

amiga_500 wrote: post #103

red_admiral wrote: post #96

Good article, but I want to clarify a point since it could leave the impression that it's universities themselves driving this growth race. In the UK at least, we used to have a model where universities were funded by the government (through tax, of course) but the government also set hard limits on how many students you could enrol, with penalties for going over. The current model which Tony Blair in effect started…

How did we used to do this in the 1970s where the state paid for it all? We now live in a world where you don't need a secretary, because you can type up documents yourself, you can instantly send written communication via email. You can publish agendas, and other campus wide information instantly on a website. You can automate. You can distribute notes to your students for free instead of endless photocopies. Why gi…

Higher education is merely one face of Cost Disease; we've seen similar trends in medical care, transportation (especially US subways), primary education...

Slate Star Codex [1] has a good overview, but doesn't provide a solution (instead only providing some good evidence that rejects some hypotheses).

As far as I can tell, the single biggest driver of Cost Disease is labor, but not salary: it takes more people to deliver the same services. This in turn is driven by market failure:

- The signaling component of higher education is zero-sum, and infinite loans and foreign capital mean not enough few consumers make college decisions based on cost

- US states have shown insufficient teeth in enforcing caps on construction budgets; overruns are expected meaning the bidding process cannot actually cause cost savings. And the days of private light rail companies competing against each other are long, long gone.

- Primary education's cost growth has been concentrated in areas that are not teaching - administration and bureaucracy. There is, of course, no meaningful cost competition at all in primary education.

All of these carry the caveat that we used to be able to get these things for cheaper, and e.g. primary education was never traded on a free market. So what happened? Was it inevitable, and merely took time?

If anyone has other ideas, please let me know. I would love to vote against cost disease and call any politician who will listen, but I don't fully understand the problem, let alone have a solution to offer.

[1] https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/09/considerations-on-cost...

Re: Universities forced to face addiction to foreign students’ money

#136

Post by aikinai » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 1:25 PM UTC

save_ferris wrote: post #107

washadjeffmad wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something I've noticed is that universities in the US no longer seem to advertise their primary mission as education, but as providing the "college experience". Brochures are rife with amenities and activities like you're picking out a resort or extended summer camp where you can safely figure out who you are, make friends, and be protected until you're set free, job-pass in hand. These advertisements are also primar…

> no longer seem to advertise their primary mission as education, but as providing the “college experience.” This was already really noticeable when I enrolled in undergrad 12 years ago at a large public university. I think part of it has been driven by student demand for more parental oversight, but I also think the marketing is what got so many students to take out debt in the first place. So many of my undergrad c…

I think it is the best four years of life for many (maybe most?) Americans at least. But I think that speaks to exactly what people are saying in this thread. It's not about education anymore, it's evolved into a four-year time-of-your-life experience that through a fluke of history gets supported by guaranteed loans.

Re: Universities forced to face addiction to foreign students’ money

#137

Post by KoftaBob » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 1:30 PM UTC

amiga_500 wrote: post #132

KoftaBob wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the thing that tech hasn’t solved yet is misaligned incentives. No amount of advanced technology will counteract an organization or industry thats incentivized to be inefficient. Especially in the case of universities which are largely “non profit”, as are the majority of hospitals. Without shareholders to push for increased efficiency and price competition, the leadership has little reason to care about that…

How did they function for centuries before, when shareholders were not demanding increased efficiency? College in the USA is expensive because of the credit available. That is how prices are set.

It is mostly due to the credit available, I totally agree.

Re: Universities forced to face addiction to foreign students’ money

#138

Post by barry-cotter » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 1:33 PM UTC

nvarsj wrote: post #69

lucozade wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have to subsidize education for the very rich or rich foreign nationals Not a penny of your tax goes to subsidising their education. The charitable status of private schools means that the money used for their education isn't taxed twice. I agree that private schooling tends to exacerbate divisions. The majority of state school provision in the UK is atrocious. I have more concern that very little is being done a…

> The majority of state school provision in the UK is atrocious. I don't think this is really true anymore. I agree state schools were truly awful in the 80s/90s (my partner who went to state school didn't even learn times tables). Quality of state school has improved tremendously over the last 20 years, and I'd say it's very good these days. Especially as middle class families are priced out of independent schools.…

> These are for-profit institutions with huge bursaries that avoid paying almost all taxes.

If it doesn’t have beneficial owners it’s not a for-profit. Eton is in the same position as Oxford as far as having owners who receive profits from it goes. Neither do. They’re run with some regard to the idea of a mission, on inertia with the biggest impact coming from current staff.

That’s not saying they’re perfect, or that they should be allowed to continue to exist. Plenty of UK citizens hate them and the class they represent and want them destroyed. If they get a government elected that wants them destroyed they will be. Nothing lasts forever.

Re: Universities forced to face addiction to foreign students’ money

#139

Post by alexpotato » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 1:34 PM UTC

Something similar happened back in the late 1960's.

Eisenhower had pumped tons of funding into universities to help us catch up to the Soviets after Sputnik. This was primarily for what is now called STEM but benefited each university as whole.

Fast forward to the late-1960's and the costs of the Vietnam War plus social programs under Johnson led to huge cuts in funding to universities.

To make up the shortfall, admissions rates at many schools, including the Ivy League, went north of 50%. Coupled with the fact that being in college was an exemption from the draft meant that total enrollment skyrocketed.

This whole situation was made to clear to me when I was in high school and attended a UPenn information session. The rep from UPenn asked "are there any UPenn alumni in the room?" and numerous parents who graduated from the late 1960s to the early 1970s stood up. I remember thinking "Wow! Admissions rates at UPenn now are below 10% so these parents must have really been sharp!".

Finding out about the funding cuts and admissions rates changing drove home that an institution's reputation can change dramatically over the years; sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worst. It also highlighted how outside incentives can dramatically change the internal processes of a large school/company etc.

Re: Universities forced to face addiction to foreign students’ money

#140

Post by prpl » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 1:35 PM UTC

washadjeffmad wrote: post #95

neumann wrote: post #13

I work at a University in Australia and have been on both sides of academic and professional. This unravelling was on the horizon for everybody, maybe not so soon, but definitely in the viewport. In an effort to drive up income streams there has been a slow erosion of Australian education (more at some universities than others) to cater for the international (Chinese and Indian predominantly) market. There are all so…

Something I've noticed is that universities in the US no longer seem to advertise their primary mission as education, but as providing the "college experience". Brochures are rife with amenities and activities like you're picking out a resort or extended summer camp where you can safely figure out who you are, make friends, and be protected until you're set free, job-pass in hand. These advertisements are also primar…

I specifically remember talk about the college experience in brochures in 2001-2003. It may not have been the focal point, but I remember MIT specifically focusing on their specific flavor of it (particularly the dorm experience), as well as brochures from private liberal arts colleges.