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High tuition costs mostly stem from the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act 1993

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Re: High tuition costs mostly stem from the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act 1993

#181

Post by lapcat »

sevenf0ur wrote: post #150
lapcat wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A college graduate will earn $900,000 more than a non-college graduate over their lifetime. A male college graduate, on average. https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/research-summaries/education... "Men with bachelor's degrees earn approximately $900,000 more in median lifetime earnings than high school graduates. Women with bachelor's degrees earn $630,000 more. Men with graduate degrees earn $1.5 million more in media…

> Why not both? Because forgiving loans is a moral hazard. It signals to new college students that they can take out more debt and it signals to universities that they can raise tuition.

Saddling people with a lifetime of student loan debt is a moral hazard that has already occurred. Moreover, college students are already taking out more debt, and universities are already raising tuition, despite the lack of forgiveness.

Would a one-time forgiveness cause an increase in college costs? I don't know, maybe? And if it did, by how much? I don't know, do you? Maybe the problem needs to get worse in order to put pressure on Congress to finally address it comprehensively. And if Congress still refuses to address the problem despite its getting worse, then you can no longer argue that we need to wait for a comprehensive solution, because that's not coming. Perhaps the occasional forgiveness event is the best and only thing we can do in the face of persistent gridlock. I hope not, but...

Re: High tuition costs mostly stem from the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act 1993

#182

Post by j_walter »

michaelt wrote: post #176
the_only_law wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shit I’m fine with keeping stuff if majority of the student body wants to pay for it, but let me opt out. The education system and tangential friends have so far proven the hardest bureaucracy I’ve ever tried to find a way around. I hate that now, when I’m more mature, more experienced, and know exactly what I want from it is the time it’s the most difficult for me to go back.

> Shit I’m fine with keeping stuff if majority of the student body wants to pay for it, but let me opt out. For things like swimming pools and gyms, sure. But some of the new services are things like 'mental health support' - it would be problematic if you'd opted out of mental health support to save $50/month, then you committed suicide.

What about things you already have...like say health insurance. I went back for an MBA ~2009 while working a full time job. I was forced to pay an extra ~$300 per term for health care even though I already had it through my work. No way to opt out. When my tuition was ~$2,500/term...another $300 doesn't seem like that much except I was paying out of pocket so every dollar counted.

Re: High tuition costs mostly stem from the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act 1993

#183

Post by Agamus »

zoolily wrote: post #101
Agamus wrote: post #24

"The solution is and always has been to cut the fluff from the academies. For context, go add up the salaries the 'student services' area of the expensive school of your choice. Having worked for one such office for ~15 years, the most appalling part was that they are largely antagonistic toward the faculty and mission of the schools. The waste is dizzying." I made the above comment on another thread with a similar t…

College costs have increased due to decreased state funding and increased regulation (both legal and from accreditors), which requires more administrative staff. Ironically, decreased state funding leads to an increase of administrative staff too, as universities invest in grant offices, development offices, and outreach departments in an attempt to find more funds.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this is at least partially wrong.

Are you only speaking of public universities? I worked at an expensive, private, liberal arts, non-profit college, where I witnessed revolting inefficiency. Do such schools receive _significant_ state funding? Any?

One example of the waste I witnessed: at the end of the financial year, the student services departments where I worked would blow whatever money remained in their budget on frivolous, needless things, because if they didn't spend it, it went back into the college's budget. This mostly changed after the 2008 financial crisis, (I think?) but that's how it was for a long, long time. All staff were complicit, and knew what they were doing. These departments were given executive privileges with very little oversight of expenditure or outcomes. The corruption was surreal.

Another dynamic that I never see mentioned: in a small college town, the hiring pool is challenging, and the college jobs are the high-status local jobs. I witnessed, on several occasions, needless positions being opened for people who were basically friends of staff, so they could have one of the "college jobs".

When I hear students discussing college debt, and I remember these and other examples, it makes me a bit sick.

Re: High tuition costs mostly stem from the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act 1993

#184

Post by scottcodie »

I often think about the role of universities in the education process. It seems that universities are just profit maximizing entities. They don't care about student's education unless it impacts their reputation or ability to make more money. They give the bare minimum support to teachers to teach as well as bare minimum investment in processes like admissions. Seems like universities are doing exactly what you'd expect any company would do.

Re: High tuition costs mostly stem from the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act 1993

#185

Post by derbOac »

thehappypm wrote: post #50
willcipriano wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about in exchange we cap their rate of pay so that society as a whole can benefit from their affordable services?

I’d rather lower the barrier of entry than punish the doctors. If it was easier to become a medical professional, doctors wouldn’t need to be paid so highly. We’re actually seeing a trend now of more people going into PA school which could help.

"easier to become a medical professional" rather than only "easier to become a physician" is key.

There needs to be a lot more competition in healthcare service provision period. There are a lot of things that could be made over the counter (e.g., drug deregulation), and a lot of services that could be provided by other types of providers (e.g, pharmacists, other professions that don't even exist now).

Re: High tuition costs mostly stem from the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act 1993

#186

Post by j_walter »

derbOac wrote: post #180
suture wrote: post #30

State funding per student has steadily declined since 1987. Tuition rates have risen in response. I don’t claim all of the tuition increases have come from the decline in funding but the decline in public funding contributes to the increase. Public colleges are more and more being run like businesses. According to this research, public funding for higher education has declined in response to increased welfare and Med…

I think the blog post might be onto something, but I agree that I don't think it's all of it. My friend and colleague were just talking recently about how something happened around the mid to late 1990s in the US with college, but it's really hard to put one's finger on one thing or even one set of things, or why they changed around the same time. It's like higher ed just started getting insane around then in several…

Could be the access to information that the internet brought on. People were able to see data and information much quicker. Perhaps this led to submitting information quicker and having less barriers between someone applying for a loan and getting the loan. This then led to money grabs by every institution and the risks were small since there was always federal backed money available.

Grow bigger, spend more, push the lie that everyone needs to go to college...admissions go up, quality goes down...but they get more money than ever.

Re: High tuition costs mostly stem from the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act 1993

#187

Post by thehappypm »

Loughla wrote: post #118
Agamus wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I send my own children to college, it will be exclusively through extension courses. No frills. A long time professor at Harvard did the same thing for his children and gave me this idea. I feel strongly that these expectations could well lead to the undoing of Western Civilization. "...is my child safe..." Perhaps the issue is that the people who go to college these days are still... children?

>"...is my child safe..." Perhaps the issue is that the people who go to college these days are still... children? I have a half an hour soapbox rant about over-protective, bulldozer parenting and what I have seen it do to our kids if you have time. I work in administration now for retention services, but I've done a little of everything over the years from maintenance and janitorial to executive leadership to profes…

While this is a really interesting story, I really don’t see how we can draw any big conclusions from it.

Re: High tuition costs mostly stem from the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act 1993

#188

Post by satao »

scottcodie wrote: post #184

I often think about the role of universities in the education process. It seems that universities are just profit maximizing entities. They don't care about student's education unless it impacts their reputation or ability to make more money. They give the bare minimum support to teachers to teach as well as bare minimum investment in processes like admissions. Seems like universities are doing exactly what you'd exp…

in academia education is secondary to research... we make the mistake of thinking they it serves an education purpose, but in reality their focus is on research. this is what matters for their funding, their public name, etc etc

Re: High tuition costs mostly stem from the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act 1993

#189

Post by thehappypm »

snarf21 wrote: post #82
Loughla wrote: post #16

I mean, yeah. But also, the expectations placed on colleges have grown exponentially. Retention staff, student life staff, counseling staff, new innovative (read: Expensive) programs, the 'experience'. These all cost money. My experience of expectations of college in the 90's - can I drink? Do the faculty let me miss if I need to? My experience of expectations of college now - is my child safe? Can s/he access approp…

Quite true. Additionally, there are raised expectations around wanting a perfect experience. My college in the 90s was block wall room with bunk beds and communal bathroom on the floor. Today everyone wants a private bedroom, shared kitchen and hang out area in their quad. This costs money and space too. At the same time, we now refuse to give deserving teachers tenure and everything is adjunct and basically gig work…

And then an architect proposes a way to do both for cheap, and then people complain that there’s no windows in every person’s bedroom.

Re: High tuition costs mostly stem from the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act 1993

#190

Post by mfer »

etempleton wrote: post #175
Agamus wrote: post #24

"The solution is and always has been to cut the fluff from the academies. For context, go add up the salaries the 'student services' area of the expensive school of your choice. Having worked for one such office for ~15 years, the most appalling part was that they are largely antagonistic toward the faculty and mission of the schools. The waste is dizzying." I made the above comment on another thread with a similar t…

As the article mentioned schools are no longer competing on price, but they are competing on features / services / amenities. It seems intuitive to cut those to reduce costs, but the market doesn’t want that even if people say that is what they want that is not how they vote with their dollar. The biggest declines in enrollments are at community colleges and state schools. Also counter intuitively when a college lowe…

Some of this situation is bad advice up front. I know numerous people who were guided by guidance counselors, schools, and loan folks to think that taking a large student debt would be just fine. Only to later have issues with it.

Schools and loan folks have skin in the game so I can understand why they are pushing for more high priced loans.

Why aren't school guidance counselors and school programs better preparing people? We should be taking a hard look at that.

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