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Why has college gotten so expensive in the last 30 years? A blank check in 1993

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Re: Why has college gotten so expensive in the last 30 years? A blank check in 1993

#111

Post by Hokusai »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #45
Dannymetconan wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Universities in Europe are generally high quality and low cost. It does have it's problems but it is not one or the other. You do not need a degree 30 years ago to do lots of jobs that now require one. Higher education for a lot of organizations is just an easy way to cut the application stack down

>Universities in Europe are generally high quality and low cost. The cost is low for the student but it's pretty high for the taxpayers. Not US high but still, it's not free, there's lots of bloat in the system that thrives on volume of students not on quality so they try to push forward legislation and programs to increase the number of students, especially from abroad and build more faculties/universities with more…

> The cost is low for the student but it's pretty high for the taxpayers.

That is a supposition that proves to be false. The same happens for health care. To have a centralized state sponsored education or health care system allows it to be more efficient that smaller for profit institutions that have incentives to increase cost to the students as their profit depends on that.

Also, I would like to notice, that for European tax-payers it is an investment. That money spend in education brings back way more money that what the original cost was. So, to just talk about "cost" misses the point.

> bouncing in and out, not bothering to finish it or prolonging it till their thirties, etc.

Not true. I have never been in a classroom where anyone was above thirty, probably no one was over their 25 anniversary.

But, that is my personal experience. Can you provide some data about that? I have not been able to find any statistics to confirm your statement.

Re: Why has college gotten so expensive in the last 30 years? A blank check in 1993

#112

Post by davidw »

jimhefferon wrote: post #108

I found https://www.mercatus.org/system/files/helland-tabarrok_why-a... enlightening. (Not an economist, just a person who wonders why college costs so much compared to cars.) I am a prof in a SLAC and I can assure you that I am not floating in money, nor is the college.

I was pleased to read about his paper. He's a somewhat libertarian leaning economist, and came into his research with some notions about what was driving costs. What he found did not match his earlier ideas. He wrote about what he did find. That's how things ought to be.

Re: Why has college gotten so expensive in the last 30 years? A blank check in 1993

#113

Post by rayiner »

zadkey wrote: post #63
rayiner wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The top 0.01% earns 5% of all income. The top 1% (which includes many Facebook engineers, doctors, etc.) earns 20%. The vast majority of the "fruits" of the system go to normal people.

Citation needed. I recall the top 1% earning 50% of all income.

https://www.cbpp.org/distribution-of-income-before-and-after...

Re: Why has college gotten so expensive in the last 30 years? A blank check in 1993

#114

Post by relscholar »

jweir wrote: post #109

Look at Perdue University - no change in tuition in 9 years. What are they doing right? https://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2020/Q1/purdue-anno...

The approach you’re taking by inviting us to ask “What is Purdue doing right” is the exact methodology evangelized in the book “The Power of Positive Deviance.” Essentially, find the successful outliers, and see if you can apply the success technique elsewhere. The book mentions that one of their difficulties (in using their approach) is that other people and organizations don’t often want to adopt the success technique for various reasons. They found that by encouraging the successful people and organizations to spread the message as peers (or even bottom up) it worked better than trying to coach others into success (from the top down). Thanks for highlighting Purdue!

Re: Why has college gotten so expensive in the last 30 years? A blank check in 1993

#115

Post by watwut »

ericmay wrote: post #110
silvestrov wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the cost to tax payers in Europe is less than what people in USA have to pay the college. This is because my University (in Europe) had no sport facilities whatsoever , not even a soccer field. It also had no dormitories, canteens, no fancy library, sport teams etc. It did teaching + research, and nothing else.

Idk. People say this but are sports the real cost driver here? Many sports programs in the US pay for themselves and more or might be close to break even. We also have Title IX (1) which in some cases will lead to increased costs. Not to mention we have, you guessed it, a Title IX coordinator at every university that has to comply with Title IX who probably makes $50,000 - $100,000. If you think about other programs…

Afaik, only few super winning sports programs are earning. The rest of them costs money.

Re: Why has college gotten so expensive in the last 30 years? A blank check in 1993

#116

Post by m0zg »

noetic_techy wrote: post #34

"The question then becomes a matter of how we fix this without diminishing access to a college education." This is the crux of it that everyone needs to get over. Universality, High Quality, Low Cost. Pick two. By letting the government meddle you have guaranteed no one can afford college and will be long in debt to a loan they cannot discharge in bankruptcy. I'd rather have cheap college then universal access for ev…

> Universality, High Quality, Low Cost. Pick two.

As a person who hired a couple dozen people, and interviewed hundreds, let me correct this: at present it's "pick one", because "quality" is not a real option. My observation is, people who are good at software engineering are often good _in spite of_, and not _thanks to_ whatever their alma mater did. If they just took whatever their school offered and nothing else, they wouldn't know anything other than Java, and they'd suck at Java as well. The quality of CS education is piss poor even in "reputable" schools. People are overpaying for what they get to a rather extreme degree (pun intended).

Re: Why has college gotten so expensive in the last 30 years? A blank check in 1993

#117

Post by ntsplnkv2 »

sokoloff wrote: post #105
ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are already very affordable college options - the reason many schools charge more is because of demand and exclusivity. This is another example of sensationalism. According to an article on Forbes -> "The average student loan debt for members of the Class of 2018 is $29,200" Is that really so egregious? Isn't it more likely that semi-skilled labor jobs disappeared increasing the demand to go to college for a go…

I would say that if someone was housed, clothed, and fed for four years while they worked perhaps only at a summer job, that being only $29K in debt is quite a good deal. It's not just tuitions, books, and fees. You could make tuition and books free and someone still has to cover your living expenses for ~4 years of (mostly) not working at a paid job.

29k in debt is the deal - that's the average of a graduating class, so people ARE finding ways to provide for their needs and go to school and come out with 29.

*Assuming these numbers are accurate - I'm not here to get into a statistical debate on the numbers. But assuming that number is accurate.

Re: Why has college gotten so expensive in the last 30 years? A blank check in 1993

#118

Post by 1123581321 »

ericmay wrote: post #110
silvestrov wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the cost to tax payers in Europe is less than what people in USA have to pay the college. This is because my University (in Europe) had no sport facilities whatsoever , not even a soccer field. It also had no dormitories, canteens, no fancy library, sport teams etc. It did teaching + research, and nothing else.

Idk. People say this but are sports the real cost driver here? Many sports programs in the US pay for themselves and more or might be close to break even. We also have Title IX (1) which in some cases will lead to increased costs. Not to mention we have, you guessed it, a Title IX coordinator at every university that has to comply with Title IX who probably makes $50,000 - $100,000. If you think about other programs…

Yes, most lose money and average losses are projected to increase. Here’s an NCAA study: http://www.ncaa.org/about/resources/media-center/news/growth...

Re: Why has college gotten so expensive in the last 30 years? A blank check in 1993

#119

Post by darth_avocado »

Why not move from a pre-paid to a post-paid system? The government stops writing blank cheques. The students enroll for free, signing a 30-year mortgage like contract, that would say pledge 1% of your post tax earnings to the school/university you went to. Universities will then have incentives to remove the programs that don't have as much of a use in the modern day and age, and add the ones that are needed. The government can then use all that money saved to fund programs that don't bring as much revenue to the university but are necessary for the country.

I mean imagine graduating debt free and instead, just paying a small extra tax. People would be able to focus on creating more wealth instead of being underemployed so that they can pay their bills.

Re: Why has college gotten so expensive in the last 30 years? A blank check in 1993

#120

Post by watwut »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #45
Dannymetconan wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Universities in Europe are generally high quality and low cost. It does have it's problems but it is not one or the other. You do not need a degree 30 years ago to do lots of jobs that now require one. Higher education for a lot of organizations is just an easy way to cut the application stack down

>Universities in Europe are generally high quality and low cost. The cost is low for the student but it's pretty high for the taxpayers. Not US high but still, it's not free, there's lots of bloat in the system that thrives on volume of students not on quality so they try to push forward legislation and programs to increase the number of students, especially from abroad and build more faculties/universities with more…

> bouncing in and out, not bothering to finish it or prolonging it till their thirties

Very rare. Mostly because school is not paying you unless your results are super great. Meaning, if you want to eat and live inside, you need money.

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