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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

#191

Post by j_walter »

suture wrote: post #87
readthenotes1 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"State funding for higher education has declined by roughly a quarter, to $7,152 per student enrolled in a public two- or four-year school in 2015, down from $9,489 per student in 1987." The article is not in disagreement with the thought that Free Federal Money displaces other sources. Also, the article does not show why tuition has risen 1200% instead of 30%.

Tuition in the University of California system increased by an infinite percent from 1960 to 1980. It used to be tuition free. Had it remained tuition free it would have been cheaper and better overall for society.

I think many people are for tuition free for a certain amount of people based on merit. However it shouldn't be just a 5th-8th year of high school...like it seems to be becoming. When an admissions rate of a large public university can reach 95%+...we are no longer selecting the best students that will actually gain anything from going to college.

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

#192

Post by devwastaken »

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…

I work at a well known public uni. We can get state and federal funding for anything that aligns with democrat political talking points. We cannot get funding for basic tech and projects. We have a program where students design and build actual tech related directly to their degree and future employment, and we have to beg people to fund us. The school nor grants will find us in any way yet we are entirely bound to all the unis policies.

This often means we pull money out of our own pockets for super basic tooling and materials. Students simply cannot learn in such a restricted environment and often burn out because they have to spend days working around a problem that a $10 component is meant to solve. Those students are also required to work to even afford tuition. They have to take on a second external job to have any "extra" money to buy their own hardware with.

Yet the uni absolutely preaches equality and opportunity. Again, democrat talking points. They do nothing to actually make that happen.

We need to defund unis, and we should have done it 20 years ago. Across the board no more public funding, if it's worthwhile then private industry will fund it like they do for any other trade.

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

#193

Post by horsawlarway »

charwalker wrote: post #171
gedy wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes I went to a cheap state school that I could afford. I'm from a modest background and it didn't occur to me I could borrow beyond my means and go to a nicer school. I certainly don't feel student loan forgiveness is "fair" in that circumstance!

Nowadays 'affording' a 'cheap' state school is guessing if you can walk away with 20-50k of debt vs 50-150k. My younger brother had solid scholarships and still walked out with 25k. I graduated in 3 years and luckily my parents covered the last tuition check and I still had 15k. At this point I've paid my debts and still welcome relief for students who didn't have the same opportunities as me. There is no 'cheap' 4 y…

Ignore fair - How does this debt forgiveness address any of the systemic issues you've pointed out?

Colleges will still be just as expensive. The next round of student signing up now still has all the same burdens and obligations, the same disadvantages understanding the borrowing they're doing.

Nothing is getting fixed. You're just handing a one-time stimulus to recent college grads. And don't take me wrong - I would also have preferred a stimulus for recent college grads instead of the insanity that was Trump's tax cuts for the wealthy. But that's like picking between two wormy apples.

I really don't want a payout for EITHER of those groups! - I want the systemic issues around pricing for education to be addressed.

So if "debt forgiveness" also includes plans for something like universal access to college, or a standardized loan process through the federal government, or (perhaps most useful of all) the simple ability to discharge education debt through bankruptcy.... then sign me up.

If it just means handing money to the children of already mostly well-off folks, as a one-time political courtship to win the next presidential election... Then count me out. I think it's a bad idea.

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

#194

Post by clairity »

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…

right, the causal chain is so apparent and obvious, it's hard to see why someone would provide puzzling alternatives such as "fluff". schools can't fluff up unless an unlimited money spigot appears out of the sky, as it did in the 90s. fluff is a result, a part of the end of the causal chain, not the beginning. tuition was certainly rising before that, because government assistance existed before that, but it was limited by political means until the spigot was thrown wide open in the 90s.

in any market, there are broadly only two competitive strategies, cost or differentiation, and cost no longer matters when money is "free".

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

#195

Post by yardie »

j_walter wrote: post #182
michaelt wrote: post #176

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. 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.

I believe you are confusing the student health fee with health insurance plan and they aren't the same thing. Student health fee goes into paying for the on-campus student services like the athletic fee, computer fee, etc. I haven't been a student in years but I do remember walking into the clinic and getting seen by someone right away. The services under that fee are kind of unique to student lifestyle: birth control, STD tests, vaccines, common prescriptions, mental health. Which is slightly different from family healthcare which requires preauthorization on some health services.

BTW, you could get a lot of fees removed or reduced by dropping to part-time commuter student. But they probably got rid of that exclusion since a lot of colleges are chasing money.

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

#196

Post by massysett »

This makes no sense at all. Under the Federal Family Education Loan program, the student borrowed from a bank, and the university was paid right away. The government paid the bank in case of default.

Under the William D Ford Federal Direct Loan program, the student borrows from the government. The university is paid right away.

So this post’s argument, which is that the Direct Loan program made universities get paid right away, makes no sense.

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

#197

Post by yardie »

Agamus wrote: post #183
zoolily wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wha…

> These departments were given executive privileges with very little oversight of expenditure or outcomes.

If only they hired an inspector general or auditor to keep tabs on these sort of shenanigans! /s

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

#198

Post by zaptheimpaler »

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…

This feels almost word for word true for any institution in the US today. It would be one thing if institutions mistakenly over-prioritized profits over their broader goals, but they don't even have meaningful missions beyond profit anymore.

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

#199

Post by weberer »

lamontcg wrote: post #172
vsareto wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With free universities, they wouldn't have to charge students anything.

And the government would then cap the amount that universities get per student, and it would allow poor people to go to college as well. Everyone winds up paying tuition via taxes over time.

Poor people already go to college. You don't have to pay anything up front. Its entirely debt-based.

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

#200

Post by Agamus »

thehappypm wrote: post #187
Loughla wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"...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.

We might conclude that because this kind of thing probably never happened, say, 50 years ago, that, things have changed.

Methinks Heraclitus is grinning in our general direction.

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