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Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ about education

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Re: Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ about education

#731

Post by chadash »

kevindong wrote: post #669
chadash wrote: post #25

I think it's time to decouple education from all of the other things tied to colleges. When I studied abroad in Australia, things like the gym or meal plans were available, but not "bundled in" to your tuition. The idea of tying competitive sports teams to a university would be laughable. We need to remove all of the "excess" stuff from higher education and get back to the core of education and research. Sure, things…

I went to Purdue. At Purdue, athletics and student housing/dining are entirely separate divisions from the academic side of the university. Each of those divisions is required to be self supporting without needing aid from tuition dollars. That being said, a mandatory part of tuition is funding for the student gym. I think it came out to be something like $100/student/semester which I'd consider reasonable.

Any individual cost looks justifiable. But they add up. And ultimately, students pay for many of them. With a gym, especially, you can make it optional and charge students who want it. That's the model in many other countries. Similarly, the school newspaper, political clubs, other student activities all get funded from somewhere.

Re: Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ about education

#732

Post by selectodude »

skewart wrote: post #717
bradlys wrote: post #695

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're saying that someone who is below a certain income cannot get a loan - how are they going to go to college? Pull-up them bootstraps and find some more money under the couch cushions? You do know that scholarships are not like a dime-a-dozen, right? It's not like every university waives tuition at middle class incomes. If you want to limit the cost of college then doing it by putting caps on how much a univer…

Do you think colleges wouldn't change if they were going to receive far far fewer applicants at their current sticker prices? I don't mean that to come across as snarky. I'm genuinely curious because your comment seems to be based on an assumption that colleges would not make changes to their operations or tuition if they suddenly had a hard time filling their freshman class.

It depends entirely on the school. Harvard could pretty reasonably jack up their tuition well over $100,000/yr without any real resistance or fall in applications. We wouldn't get cheaper colleges, we'd merely watch as all the 2nd and 3rd tier schools shut down.

Re: Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ about education

#733

Post by augustt »

0az wrote: post #385
augustt wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's often the parents who are buying into these things. Meal plans and dining halls are so popular because parents think their kids can't possibly cook for themselves or walk 10 minutes to eat out (at least that's my perception in a college city with lots of options to eat out, most of them cheaper & better than meal plan).

Actual college student. UCSD has a food bank on campus. Here's the math as to why: Recommended daily dining dollar spend: $19 Breakfast: $3.95, "Bobcat Sandwich" Lunch: $5.25, Hamburger Dinner: $6.95, "Wok Entree" This adds up to $16.15. That hamburger isn't very filling (between Whopper and Whopper Jr.), especially if you still operate on a teenaged metabolism. Add a fries to it, or do what I did and get a $2 salad…

Yep at MIT it's also pretty pathetic - most dorms have dining halls instead of kitchens, and living in a dining hall dorm requires you to be on a meal plan. These meals somehow cost around ~$14 per meal. And apparently MIT dining is still millions of dollars in debt... I truly don't understand.

Re: Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ about education

#734

Post by analog31 »

the-pigeon wrote: post #707
analog31 wrote: post #705

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In addition to just frightening people away from attending college, we could do some real things to make the skilled trades attractive to more people: 1. Real workplace safety laws with real enforcement 2. Better health care 3. Better safety net, including retirement 4. Stronger unions 5. Free continuous retraining From time to time, I hire tradespeople to work around my house -- roofing, tree service, installing a s…

I think this idea that white collar jobs require college is generally wrong. The core of the issue is that colleges produce degrees instead of people capable of doing specific jobs. If you want education for education's sake this is fine and great. But most of us don't have the money for that and need college to give us the specific skills needed for an in demand job. That's what needs to change, colleges need to pre…

The state that I live in, Wisconsin, has a multi tiered system of higher education. The University of Wisconsin in Madison is a world class research university with all of the trimmings.

Then there is a system of public universities around the state that offer fewer programs but similar admission and academic standards -- they are also less expensive and have slightly lower prestige, but produce a lot of trained people such as engineers, nurses, programmers, and so forth.

And then there is an even larger network of trade schools (aka "community colleges" in some states) that tend to be smaller but are accessible to students who live at home or commute to school part time while also working. Those schools all offer computer programming and other tech related trades.

Many of those schools also offer programs that provide the first 2 years of a conventional bachelors degree, with guaranteed transfer to one of the universities for the rest of the degree. These schools are designed for students who are working, raising families, etc. A lot of people think those programs are a rollicking good deal.

All of that stuff is available. The high schools immerse kids in information about these options.

In my view, any plan that successfully addresses the college cost situation will do so through the regional colleges and trade schools, which are already excellent. I have colleagues who went to those schools, and you can send me a dozen more. There's huge peer pressure on kids to attend the gilded private colleges, but I'm not sure that I see the value.

A problem is that the private schools are funded by private wealth through their endowments, whereas public schools are funded by workers through our taxes.

Re: Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ about education

#735

Post by nmfisher »

wolco wrote: post #616
chrisco255 wrote: post #518

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my mind the problem is the system itself was designed for a world that doesn't exist. When the supply of college degrees was low 50 years ago, sure, it paid to have a degree. But now that it has become commoditized, it's not that valuable. There's no supply / demand pricing mechanism to influence a student's major. The cost of tuition is mainly based on an arbitrary credit hour. No matter how worthless a course is…

Why would having someone who knows the law and drives a taxi make it a waste of resources? Taxi drivers should be uneducated in your view. Why? How does that help society? Many lawyers need to drive taxis to get by. Being a lawyer doesn't mean instant riches unless you land at a high profile firm directly out of school. Studying law isn't a finite resource either.

> Many lawyers need to drive taxis to get by. Being a lawyer doesn't mean instant riches unless you land at a high profile firm directly out of school.

Wait, what? Since when?

Re: Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ about education

#736

Post by RickJWagner »

I'm hoping the crisis will:

- Better develop processes for remote education

- Bring to light the idea that MOOCs are legitimate

- Reduce the shocking amount of waste, privilege to the wealthy, and academic cruft and butt-kissery

Wouldn't it be nice to emerge from all of this with a more level, more accessible, and lower priced collegiate environment?

Re: Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ about education

#737

Post by bumby »

chrisco255 wrote: post #674
wolco wrote: post #616

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would having someone who knows the law and drives a taxi make it a waste of resources? Taxi drivers should be uneducated in your view. Why? How does that help society? Many lawyers need to drive taxis to get by. Being a lawyer doesn't mean instant riches unless you land at a high profile firm directly out of school. Studying law isn't a finite resource either.

"I never let schooling get in the way of my education." The problem with your view is you assume the only way to get educated is via academia. There is a lot of education when you become a mechanic, an electrician, a factory worker, a firefighter, etc. That is not academic. You learn on the job. There are also many certification courses for these fields that run outside of traditional college system. I believe in fre…

> If it is not teaching people valuable skills that they will be using in their profession

The problem with your view is that it makes the assumption this was, and always has been, the purpose of college. That wasn’t the historical purpose, in particular before the Morrill Act during the Industrial Revolution

Re: Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ about education

#738

Post by khawkins »

vsareto wrote: post #280
bachmeier wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the average college graduate, college is still a pretty good investment. I could write lots of comments about people without a college degree that live crappy lives and have trouble finding good paying jobs, and people with college degrees that live well and make a lot of money. My prediction is that we'll see changes in the US system. The problem you're pointing out is the risk. Universities are the ones that IM…

No college is going to advocate for taking future income from students over government backed loans or a traditional loan. The former translates to less immediate income. Colleges had little reason to raise tuition since 2000 except for money, I don't see them suddenly moving to forward-thinking strategies.

For this reason, I think instead of trying to force a new system, work within the reality that the federal government has a near-monopoly on student loans. Tie the amount of students that can get student loans at a particular college directly to the amount of money is being paid by students who have graduated. Also, cap the amount of money each student needs to pay back per year to their salary.

The colleges will have no choice but to ensure their students have nice enough jobs to pay back the loans, and will quickly see attendance plummet if they can't get people in the door anymore. Remember that it's the government paying these colleges directly, not the students.

Re: Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ about education

#739

Post by malandrew »

chrisco255 wrote: post #518
jedberg wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear, I don't think college should be paid for with loans. I agree with you that we shouldn't be enslaving people. But I also don't think allowing these loans to be discharged in bankruptcy will solve anything (and will arguably make things worse) without systemic changes in the way college is paid for.

In my mind the problem is the system itself was designed for a world that doesn't exist. When the supply of college degrees was low 50 years ago, sure, it paid to have a degree. But now that it has become commoditized, it's not that valuable. There's no supply / demand pricing mechanism to influence a student's major. The cost of tuition is mainly based on an arbitrary credit hour. No matter how worthless a course is…

> There's no supply / demand pricing mechanism to influence a student's major.

This is really the most important issue. People are spending tons of money on worthless degrees. If they were getting degrees worth something, we wouldn't even be having these discussions.

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