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

Some U.S. Colleges Cut Tuition

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 160 posts

Re: Some U.S. Colleges Cut Tuition

#71

Post by LockAndLol »

Now that they are in competition with online universities world-wide and more people are in trouble with just paying their rent, this is not a surprise at all. European and Australian universities should be jumping at this opportunity:

They need to organise themselves to use one platform for giving online lectures. Nearly a year after the start of COVID, universities are all over a place with their software. Some unis allow every lecturer to decide how to do the course forcing students to install sometimes 3! different applications for taking the lecture, sharing documents and taking the exam - per course! Sure, there's overlap, but it's a little crazy.

Then there's the problem of proctoring - the best way to sell your students data and invade their privacy. If for reasons beyond your power the internet flakes out or the software has a bug, it's either fail or simply resit. MOOCs seem to have already solved this problem, but many universities fail to do any kind of research on the subject.

What's pretty bad is that many universities don't record their lectures despite it being a wonderful tool for learning. You can pause, rewind, speed up, clip and discuss lectures after they happen and increase collaboration with students and the lecturers, but the opportunity seems to be willingly ignored. Even worse, some lecturers are staunchly against being recorded for fear of saying something wrong, but will gladly invite any proctoring company into the homes of their students.

We still have a long way to go.

Despite many people bemoaning the current pandemic, I think it is having a wonderful impact on the status quo. We had to be rocked out of our comfort zone to be force to innovate because we would've taken decades longer otherwise. This year was a good year.

Re: Some U.S. Colleges Cut Tuition

#72

Post by chongli »

zeku wrote: post #44
bluGill wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is college a form of jobs training or a way to make yourself better? There is the disconnect, because both are true in different amounts for different people. If it is just jobs training you are correct. We shouldn't have "under water basket weaving" type courses because there is no market for that. There is some need for art, but only in the context of art is useful to make better marketing materials, so the degree…

I think the simple answer is to look at how many Euro countries pull off having good universities for low cost... and copy them. No need to reinvent what has already been done. Just need to "port" it to America.

It depends from country to country. Germany pulls it off by tracking most students out of the university path at a young age. Instead, those students are basically forced into vocational schools. The US public would never accept that.

You still need to be upper-middle-class to rich to go to university in Germany. The difference is that you don't have to pay for it.

Re: Some U.S. Colleges Cut Tuition

#73

Post by yowlingcat »

dogman144 wrote: post #39
djsumdog wrote: post #4

> cut its tuition by $10,000 for all new students I find it insane tuition is that high. I finished grad school before 2010, and at least with the smaller state schools I went to, total cost of tuition and books was in the $3k~$5k range. Boutique schools like Vanderbilt were like $25k+ (per semester). I had a friend who got a free ride there for graduate school, and he said it wasn't really that different than our st…

> Federally subsidized student loans need to GO AWAY. The language I'm about to use pains me, but this is an extremely privileged take, or at least naive take, on what these loans do. Removing them will hurt about about a generation of students from the very low to the upper middle class set until the academic employment market adjusts. What do I mean? A simple, pragmatic fact is degree from a name-school, vs. a no-n…

> this is an extremely privileged take, or at least naive take, on what these loans do

> For many underpriv'd students, that network-buy is life changing.

I think that the belief that federally subsidized student loans need to /not/ go away is in and of itself a naive take -- about as naive as believing you can "buy" access to a network. These students you are talking about are not buying a network -- they are buying a signal and a brand. But the signal and the brand don't necessarily unlock access to the network, nor the presumed career opportunities that should unlock.

And why should it? After all, if universities wanted explicitly justify the expenditure in careerist terms, they'd offer the ISA-style funding arrangements that most reputable code academies offer. But they don't. You should ask yourself why that's the case, and why for many of these underpriv'd students you mention, this is a very expensive lesson they learn the hard way. You should ask yourself what happens when the student slips through the cracks and ends up with no job and a ton of debt. You should ask yourself if the whole thing is a scam -- because if this scenario doesn't make you imagine it might be one, I don't know what will.

Re: Some U.S. Colleges Cut Tuition

#74

Post by bluGill »

zaroth wrote: post #37

The deal between the government and private colleges is that those private colleges are training our critical workforce and adding net value back into the system by increasing lifetime earnings and economic growth. The government guarantee on debt dollars right now is absolute. Schools get paid no matter what, and have no liability for actually providing an ultimately valuable service. Here’s an alternate arrangement…

You need to account for the "Mrs" degree. Someone goes to school to find a spouse, get married and has no income.

Although "Mrs" is specific to females, my personal experience includes more males that have done this than females. The sexism is used to make the point easier to understand, and but its reflection of reality died around 1950 if it ever was one.

Re: Some U.S. Colleges Cut Tuition

#75

Post by analog31 »

swebs wrote: post #25
djsumdog wrote: post #4

> cut its tuition by $10,000 for all new students I find it insane tuition is that high. I finished grad school before 2010, and at least with the smaller state schools I went to, total cost of tuition and books was in the $3k~$5k range. Boutique schools like Vanderbilt were like $25k+ (per semester). I had a friend who got a free ride there for graduate school, and he said it wasn't really that different than our st…

>Federally subsidized student loans need to GO AWAY. They've allowed students to enter into debt, the only long term contracts kids under 18 can legally sign, for something they can never declare bankruptcy on. I think that's something that many people would agree with, but how do we go forward with making that happen?

Consider the debt burden on society, whether that burden is borne by the students themselves, or by the government, may be roughly equal. If anything, the government pays less interest.

My thought is that in the future, privatizing higher education will seem like a quaint historical anomaly, like privatizing health care, both of which have made themselves at least twice as expensive as necessary.

If we can't force private colleges out of existence, we could concentrate on solving the education funding crisis starting at the level of state and regional colleges and trade schools. Preferentially direct research funding toward those schools, to build or expand on research institutes in areas where a few extra jobs would be welcome.

Ironically I believe we could destroy the private colleges by eliminating all government oversight of the admissions process, and letting them compete with one another with no restraint.

Re: Some U.S. Colleges Cut Tuition

#76

Post by kube-system »

CyberDildonics wrote: post #70
kube-system wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vocational schools already exist, if students want to attend one, they already can. Liberal arts schools are very intentionally not that. It is certainly possible to learn broad range of subjects outside of a structured environment, but it is improbable, which is why we value structured educations.

The idea that it is learning outside a structured environment is "improbable" is part of the problem. Most college isn't very structured in the first place. I think it is a problem with expectations. Kids seem to take on massive debt, then wonder why the job they get after spending four years at a school taking lots of classes that have nothing to do with the skills they need doesn't pay well enough to make their deb…

I agree, that expectation is absolutely the problem. A liberal arts education is not and has never been intended to be a job-training program.

The trope that kids should "go to college so they can get a job" has elements of truth but is wildly misleading when most interpret it to be a causal relationship. I don't blame post-secondary academics for this -- this is mostly a cultural problem. The last couple generations have been raised with a cultural expectation that 'success' equals 'college-bound', and secondary school advisors are not willing to rock the boat by suggesting anything otherwise.

Re: Some U.S. Colleges Cut Tuition

#77

Post by altdatathrow »

tesmar2 wrote: post #50
zeku wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the simple answer is to look at how many Euro countries pull off having good universities for low cost... and copy them. No need to reinvent what has already been done. Just need to "port" it to America.

> low cost Not low cost. They tax the hell out of their citizens.

You should compare the actual effective taxation rates. For example, high earners in Norway get taxed about ~8% higher than comparable earners in California but that comes with affordable healthcare, education, and government-backed pensions that people can actually survive on.

Re: Some U.S. Colleges Cut Tuition

#78

Post by manfredo »

NortySpock wrote: post #63
swebs wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Federally subsidized student loans need to GO AWAY. They've allowed students to enter into debt, the only long term contracts kids under 18 can legally sign, for something they can never declare bankruptcy on. I think that's something that many people would agree with, but how do we go forward with making that happen?

Income Sharing Agreement - You go to school, possibly with a small stipend, and in return the school gets (say) 10% of the first 7 years of your income, possibly capped at a max repayment amount. https://www.purdue.edu/dfa/types-of-aid/income-share-agreeme...

I think this is another good model. Purdue is one relatively well-known university that offers this. What's crucial about an ISA (especially an ISA that only collects on income beyond a threshold) is that the university then has a direct incentive to actually improve students' employment prospects.

Then again, the Lambda school ISA selling issue demonstrates the potential to eliminate this alignment of incentives. In universities, there's also the issue that colleges might only accept ISAs with students interested in majors with good employment prospects. But if we view university as an investment where the return is better employment, then this is working as intended.

Re: Some U.S. Colleges Cut Tuition

#79

Post by ntsplnkv2 »

manfredo wrote: post #46
swebs wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Federally subsidized student loans need to GO AWAY. They've allowed students to enter into debt, the only long term contracts kids under 18 can legally sign, for something they can never declare bankruptcy on. I think that's something that many people would agree with, but how do we go forward with making that happen?

Make student loans no longer exempt from bankruptcy. The rationale for making student loans persist through bankruptcy is that students could just declare bankruptcy after graduation, since they probably have no assets. Maybe make the exemption only last 10-15 years. The permanence of student loans means lenders have no qualms against writing loans for people who will likely not be able to pay them off for decades, o…

This is wishful thinking. There is no collateral for a school loan. Banks have to make up for that risk somewhere. Students will have nothing to lose by staging bankruptcy, and banks will stop giving out loans.

Re: Some U.S. Colleges Cut Tuition

#80

Post by ntsplnkv2 »

djsumdog wrote: post #4

> cut its tuition by $10,000 for all new students I find it insane tuition is that high. I finished grad school before 2010, and at least with the smaller state schools I went to, total cost of tuition and books was in the $3k~$5k range. Boutique schools like Vanderbilt were like $25k+ (per semester). I had a friend who got a free ride there for graduate school, and he said it wasn't really that different than our st…

The federal loan influence is not large enough to cause the problem we're in. The real problem is the demand for college is enormous because it's the only way to a semi-decent living these days.

If you get rid of federal loans all it will mean is private loans fill in to take its place - people still want good paying jobs, so they'll still pay to go to school.

Post reply on HN