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Bloated college administration is making education unaffordable

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Re: Bloated college administration is making education unaffordable

#81

Post by etempleton »

wheels wrote: post #79
etempleton wrote: post #43

Double edged sword. What the author proposes can be found. Go to some small low endowment private or public school for less money. Oh wait, you say, I don’t want to go there! The buildings aren’t as nice, the dorms are cramped and drab, there aren’t as many resources, the food sucks, the Wi-Fi is spotty, heck even the website sucks. Why is this? Because they don’t have the human or financial resources to do so. You g…

That's really not true. Where I went to college has gone from $14,000 to $38,240 in the past 22 years. Inflation would have predicted it be $24,130. That's a private school that back then had a beautiful campus, good food, good wi-fi, a good website and good dorms. (Though, notably, food and dorms don't come out of tuition.) The price increases are massive, across the board, and not obviously linked to quality of fac…

I would be interested to know what they average net tuition price actually paid is. I suspect it is lower than the sticker price, though 38k is sadly low by today’s standards.

Re: Bloated college administration is making education unaffordable

#83

Post by bumby »

etempleton wrote: post #70
kragen wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you have the causality all backwards. Colleges with quality gain prestige, which makes people willing to borrow extra money to go there, which creates windfall profits administrators can use to increase their personal standing by hiring more headcount and do things like paint the dorms and buy fancier food. That doesn't mean people's priorities in college choice are primarily or even significantly determined…

I respectfully disagree. It is true—prestige grants price flexibility for the college. They can charge more equivalent to their relative standing. But what leads to that reputation? How do you measure quality of education?What makes Harvard better than any other college at educating students? How much better? What percentage? Okay now prove it. At least in a succinct explainable way. No, prestige is based on awarenes…

I looked up US World News ranking methodology and, to your point, at least 40% is squishy measures like “peer assessment surveys” and “reputation”.

Others, like selectivity, are known to be gamed by encouraging students to apply even when they have no chance of getting in (which carries the additional income of the application fee).

Re: Bloated college administration is making education unaffordable

#84

Post by pas »

exmadscientist wrote: post #68
kragen wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you have the causality all backwards. Colleges with quality gain prestige, which makes people willing to borrow extra money to go there, which creates windfall profits administrators can use to increase their personal standing by hiring more headcount and do things like paint the dorms and buy fancier food. That doesn't mean people's priorities in college choice are primarily or even significantly determined…

Yes. The other side to the problem that most commenters here are missing is something that is much easier to see if you are employed by the school (as I used to be). There are dozens of layers of bloat and positions that exist only to make Doing Stuff (for values of Stuff that include both Research and Teaching) as slow as possible. Even getting a door fixed -- to stop the door stuck open alarm going off -- took mult…

wow, this sounds like a very extreme case study. could you detail why it took many days to fix that door?

Re: Bloated college administration is making education unaffordable

#85

Post by etempleton »

aerovistae wrote: post #73
etempleton wrote: post #43

Double edged sword. What the author proposes can be found. Go to some small low endowment private or public school for less money. Oh wait, you say, I don’t want to go there! The buildings aren’t as nice, the dorms are cramped and drab, there aren’t as many resources, the food sucks, the Wi-Fi is spotty, heck even the website sucks. Why is this? Because they don’t have the human or financial resources to do so. You g…

Yet these colleges were nice in 1980 too, before the price of tuition went up 1200% per the graph in the article. I don't think your argument really makes any sense in view of that.

Did they have giant fitness center with a rock climbing wall and full time staff? What about a lazy river with life guards on duty? What about a counseling center or career center? Were the dorms apartments with individual bedrooms per student? How was the food? Were there vegan, gluten free, and nut allergy options available every day? Was the menu set by a chef?

Re: Bloated college administration is making education unaffordable

#86

Post by lanecwagner »

dave333 wrote: post #18

Education should be recast as a sort of MMORPG instead of a physical campus. Would be 100th or 1000th the cost and achieve 80% of the results. Kahn Academy and the like are a start.

I'd be interested to see if you have any feedback for me on Boot.dev. we are really trying to make it fun

Re: Bloated college administration is making education unaffordable

#87

Post by colordrops »

etempleton wrote: post #85
aerovistae wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet these colleges were nice in 1980 too, before the price of tuition went up 1200% per the graph in the article. I don't think your argument really makes any sense in view of that.

Did they have giant fitness center with a rock climbing wall and full time staff? What about a lazy river with life guards on duty? What about a counseling center or career center? Were the dorms apartments with individual bedrooms per student? How was the food? Were there vegan, gluten free, and nut allergy options available every day? Was the menu set by a chef?

Yes, at least where I went to school in the early 90s (UCLA)

Re: Bloated college administration is making education unaffordable

#88

Post by bnralt »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #57
etempleton wrote: post #43

Double edged sword. What the author proposes can be found. Go to some small low endowment private or public school for less money. Oh wait, you say, I don’t want to go there! The buildings aren’t as nice, the dorms are cramped and drab, there aren’t as many resources, the food sucks, the Wi-Fi is spotty, heck even the website sucks. Why is this? Because they don’t have the human or financial resources to do so. You g…

> If people were price sensitive cheap schools would have people busting down the doors to get in. I think government backed so urgent loans are a big reason why people are not price sensitive.

And we're lending this money to high school students who often have no sense of what it means. These are all amounts that most students have never had to handle before, and they'll be repaid when students are at jobs they've never previously had making more than they could possibly imagine. The whole thing is probably so abstract for them that a lot probably don't grasp what the difference between $8,000 a year tuition and $40,000 a year tuition _actually_ means for their day to day lives.

On top of that students are sold the idea that, as the above poster said, "you get what you pay for," and that cheaper schools are somehow worse and will mean they'll earn less money. If you're getting into debt to increase your earning potential anyway, it makes sense that you would try to maximize things. But you're 17, and might not realize that these adults who are in positions of power are likely misleading you.

Also, honestly, a lot of 17 year olds don't seem to be able to grasp the idea that debt is something you actually have to pay back (a lot of adults even don't seem to grasp that). What do people think would happen if they gave every 17 year old a credit card? Yet their financial competence is somehow expected to be completely different if we give them a much larger loan?

Re: Bloated college administration is making education unaffordable

#89

Post by wheels »

etempleton wrote: post #81
wheels wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's really not true. Where I went to college has gone from $14,000 to $38,240 in the past 22 years. Inflation would have predicted it be $24,130. That's a private school that back then had a beautiful campus, good food, good wi-fi, a good website and good dorms. (Though, notably, food and dorms don't come out of tuition.) The price increases are massive, across the board, and not obviously linked to quality of fac…

I would be interested to know what they average net tuition price actually paid is. I suspect it is lower than the sticker price, though 38k is sadly low by today’s standards.

The average annual net price is $26,482, but it was also significantly below sticker price 22 years ago as well. $38k is not low for modern tuition (it's in fact well above average -- though almost exactly average for private liberal arts schools).

I have the feeling that you're looking only at elite institutions. At the time I was in college, the place came in around #100 on the list of top liberal arts schools in the country, which while not especially shabby, also wasn't in any way elite. In comparison, the one elite university that I'd applied to back then was $36k/year for tuition, and is now $59k/year. Surprisingly, its tuition has grown at a slower rate.

Re: Bloated college administration is making education unaffordable

#90

Post by etempleton »

etempleton wrote: post #70
kragen wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you have the causality all backwards. Colleges with quality gain prestige, which makes people willing to borrow extra money to go there, which creates windfall profits administrators can use to increase their personal standing by hiring more headcount and do things like paint the dorms and buy fancier food. That doesn't mean people's priorities in college choice are primarily or even significantly determined…

I respectfully disagree. It is true—prestige grants price flexibility for the college. They can charge more equivalent to their relative standing. But what leads to that reputation? How do you measure quality of education?What makes Harvard better than any other college at educating students? How much better? What percentage? Okay now prove it. At least in a succinct explainable way. No, prestige is based on awarenes…

Bonus point: What are the highest regarded colleges in the US? The Ivies(with some notable outliers). What is it that ties them together?

An athletic conference.

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