Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Even during a crisis, colleges abuse their economic and reputational privileges

city-journal.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 112 posts

Re: Even during a crisis, colleges abuse their economic and reputational privileges

#51

Post by mattlondon »

firebacon wrote: post #31
martin_a wrote: post #14

One can only shake his head when you hear about how things work in America. Why are you so hostile against each other and/or the weaker/younger/non-wealthy people? In most of Europe, education is free. You'll obviously have to take care of your own cost of living, but there are no real fees where you come out of your education and have 100k in debt. Why do things in America work so different? It's not (yet) a third w…

The other difference of course is that in Germany, only a fairly small proportion of high school students is even allowed to go to Uni. People that were not placed into Gymnasium at age 8 are set on a course where, once they turn 18, do not get to go free Uni; they simply are not allowed to go to Uni at all! Also the problem of cost of living while studying isn't exactly trivial. Accommodation, food and participating…

> People that were not placed into Gymnasium at age 8 are set on a course where, once they turn 18, do not get to go free Uni; they simply are not allowed to go to Uni at all!

This is curious. Can you elaborate?

So if you don't do a gymnasium class (i.e. physical education I guess?) at 8, you are barred from going to uni at all, regardless of grades? So you might suck at the parallel bars or pommel horse as an 8 year old, but be an absolute mathematical genius but because you couldn't do 100 star jumps in 60 seconds you can't go to uni? Who decides if you can do the gym class? What is it based on?

This sounds very bizarre!

I only have UK experience (or at least how it was years ago - I might be out of touch): unis set subjects+grades they are prepared to accept and if you are predicted to get the grades (or already have got the grades) then you are eligible to apply regardless of what you did as a child. In the UK you do pay these days though - when I went it was about £1000 a year but it is more than that now (9k I think)

Re: Even during a crisis, colleges abuse their economic and reputational privileges

#52

Post by andrenotgiant »

0xddd wrote: post #49

I can't help but suspect some bias in an article that defines neoliberalism as "academic-speak for capitalism". No mention of public university tuition rising in response to cuts in state funding?

> After the 2008 recession, colleges made up for the drop in state support by raising fees. Tuition jumped nearly 30 percent nationwide from 2007-2008 to 2014-2015, while real median income fell roughly 6.5 percent, according to Paul Friga of ABC Consulting.

Re: Even during a crisis, colleges abuse their economic and reputational privileges

#54

Post by fastball »

eulenteufel wrote: post #50
firebacon wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other difference of course is that in Germany, only a fairly small proportion of high school students is even allowed to go to Uni. People that were not placed into Gymnasium at age 8 are set on a course where, once they turn 18, do not get to go free Uni; they simply are not allowed to go to Uni at all! Also the problem of cost of living while studying isn't exactly trivial. Accommodation, food and participating…

> You will need at least 1k-1.5k EUR net per month, which means earning 2k or more gross. I am currently living as a student with ~ 500 EUR per month from working a student job in Berlin. This is not the most comfortable life, but is certainly is doable. On top of that we have BAföG which, if your parents don't earn very much, can be enough to study or at least be a good support. While BAföG is still some kind of loa…

> I do think that a system where access to higher education is tied to formal graduation sounds fairer than a system where you have to be well off or very gifted to make it to uni.

Seems like a false dichotomy.

Re: Even during a crisis, colleges abuse their economic and reputational privileges

#55

Post by linguae »

As someone who has planned on returning to grad school this fall to finish my PhD in computer science in hopes of becoming a professor at a teaching-oriented university, I am worried about the future of the occupation of being a university professor, particularly from the standpoint of being able to do research. One of the things I wonder about the post-COVID-19 world is what's going to happen to research as a career, whether it's in academia or in industry. In computer science I've noticed these two trends occurring in the past 30 years:

1. Industry has largely moved away from funding long-term blue-sky research, increasingly shifting toward short-term, product-driven research projects. We have moved from places like Bell Labs and Xerox PARC where researchers had a large degree of freedom to places like Google today where researchers are assigned to product teams (see the paper "Google's Hybrid Approach to Research" which describes how research at Google is operated: https://research.google/pubs/pub38149/).

2. Academia has its own challenges: (1) the competition for a professorship due to the fact there are more PhD graduates than there are professorships, (2) the competitive environment for obtaining research grants from the NSF, and (3) the increased reliance on adjunct faculty members, who don't have tenure.

The economic effects of this COVID-19 pandemic will undoubtedly lead to universities reducing their hiring. Some universities may even face closure. The sudden shift to online teaching may also have permanent effects on the future of university education.

I believe that there are many opportunities for students that will become available if online education becomes the new normal, especially if online education leads to reducing the cost of a university education, which is a serious problem in the United States given the student loan crisis.

However, I'm concerned that a move toward online education will accelerate the trend of adjunctization occurring across academia and may even lead to the concept of tenure disappearing at all but the most competitive schools. I believe places like Stanford, MIT, and Harvard will emerge from the post-COVID-19 world just fine. I also believe that public research universities like UC Berkeley and University of Washington will emerge fine. But what about regional comprehensive universities such as the California State University system? What about small private universities that don't have the prestige of places like Caltech or Harvey Mudd? It's these types of universities that will face the most pressures to adapt to a world of compelling online educational choices.

I'd like to still be able to pursue a career in research, ideally with autonomy and the ability to pursue long-term projects, but between the trends that have been occurring for the past 30 years as well as the challenges of a post-COVID-19 world, I might not be able to pursue such a career.

Re: Even during a crisis, colleges abuse their economic and reputational privileges

#56

Post by watwut »

firebacon wrote: post #31
martin_a wrote: post #14

One can only shake his head when you hear about how things work in America. Why are you so hostile against each other and/or the weaker/younger/non-wealthy people? In most of Europe, education is free. You'll obviously have to take care of your own cost of living, but there are no real fees where you come out of your education and have 100k in debt. Why do things in America work so different? It's not (yet) a third w…

The other difference of course is that in Germany, only a fairly small proportion of high school students is even allowed to go to Uni. People that were not placed into Gymnasium at age 8 are set on a course where, once they turn 18, do not get to go free Uni; they simply are not allowed to go to Uni at all! Also the problem of cost of living while studying isn't exactly trivial. Accommodation, food and participating…

> The other difference of course is that in Germany, only a fairly small proportion of high school students is even allowed to go to Uni.

Among 25- to 29-year-olds in United States, the percentage with a bachelor’s or higher degree is 37 percent, and the percentage with a master’s or higher degree is 9 percent.

For Germany, the best guess I found was 32% in tertiary education. Which is lower, but not that much lower. It is not like most people in the United States would have college degree.

> When polled, 87% of students answered that they were dependent on financial support from their parents and 12% received state-sponsored loans [1].

The amount it costs to pay for "accommodation, food and participating in general student life" in Germany is significantly less then to pay for "college itself, books, accommodation, food and participating in general student life in United States. The fact that majority of middle class student can do it on parental help alone makes situation massively different then when students have to take on debt.

Re: Even during a crisis, colleges abuse their economic and reputational privileges

#57

Post by _Microft »

mattlondon wrote: post #51
firebacon wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other difference of course is that in Germany, only a fairly small proportion of high school students is even allowed to go to Uni. People that were not placed into Gymnasium at age 8 are set on a course where, once they turn 18, do not get to go free Uni; they simply are not allowed to go to Uni at all! Also the problem of cost of living while studying isn't exactly trivial. Accommodation, food and participating…

> People that were not placed into Gymnasium at age 8 are set on a course where, once they turn 18, do not get to go free Uni; they simply are not allowed to go to Uni at all! This is curious. Can you elaborate? So if you don't do a gymnasium class (i.e. physical education I guess?) at 8, you are barred from going to uni at all , regardless of grades? So you might suck at the parallel bars or pommel horse as an 8 yea…

This is not about sports. This might clear it up:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gymnasium_(school)

Re: Even during a crisis, colleges abuse their economic and reputational privileges

#58

Post by DeathArrow »

martin_a wrote: post #14

One can only shake his head when you hear about how things work in America. Why are you so hostile against each other and/or the weaker/younger/non-wealthy people? In most of Europe, education is free. You'll obviously have to take care of your own cost of living, but there are no real fees where you come out of your education and have 100k in debt. Why do things in America work so different? It's not (yet) a third w…

>Why do things in America work so different?

I don't know about the rest of EU, but in my country we focus on knowledge, not on political correctness and politics. Thus we don't have many bureaucrats to feed so we can provide free education. WE also used to have a high barrier to entry in public Universities like tough admission exams, so only skilled people would be admitted. High barrier also meant very few dropouts.

In US they have a terribly large bureaucracy and funding that bureaucracy from public money wouldn't be wise or even possible.

In South Korea they have, if I'm not mistaken, one of the best higher education systems, centering on knowledge and performance, not on money and politics. China is starting to also have a very good high education system.

Re: Even during a crisis, colleges abuse their economic and reputational privileges

#59

Post by battery_cowboy »

nabla9 wrote: post #38
battery_cowboy wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't agree with this sentiment and I believe it's based on a big lie, but here's what some of the "average" Americans might think: "I'm an American, my ancestors for generations have pioneered the frontier and could only rely on themselves. I don't like the idea of helping some lazy bum get their art degree on my dime, so I'm against free college. I'm a working man, and my son will be too, or he'll get a degree as…

This is basically agricultural era thinking peppered with laissez-faire ideology. In 1700-hundreads you could drop average household with some seeds and few tools into the forest and they would go on. If there was village around with 50-100 people their productivity would probably double. Connected to organized state and trade it might increase even more. Today >95% of the value from work comes from the infrastructur…

There you go, they don't realize that they're already reliant on society, they think that they're doing it all themselves, it's peak narcissism.

Re: Even during a crisis, colleges abuse their economic and reputational privileges

#60

Post by DeathArrow »

eulenteufel wrote: post #50
firebacon wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other difference of course is that in Germany, only a fairly small proportion of high school students is even allowed to go to Uni. People that were not placed into Gymnasium at age 8 are set on a course where, once they turn 18, do not get to go free Uni; they simply are not allowed to go to Uni at all! Also the problem of cost of living while studying isn't exactly trivial. Accommodation, food and participating…

> You will need at least 1k-1.5k EUR net per month, which means earning 2k or more gross. I am currently living as a student with ~ 500 EUR per month from working a student job in Berlin. This is not the most comfortable life, but is certainly is doable. On top of that we have BAföG which, if your parents don't earn very much, can be enough to study or at least be a good support. While BAföG is still some kind of loa…

In our country we have state scholarships, awarded to both top students and poor students. While not much, that can help.
Post reply on HN