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Bloated college administration is making education unaffordable

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Re: Bloated college administration is making education unaffordable

#201

Post by _hyn3 »

JamesBarney wrote: post #186
testfoobar wrote: post #110

In the US, both college education and healthcare have become enormous taxpayer wealth extraction schemes. Everyone has a "right" to education and healthcare, therefore we should subsidize it with taxpayer money. That is as far as the politics go. We have stupidly funded the demand side of the equation to where both education and healthcare are incredibly bloated behemoths capable of absorbing all the money thrown at…

I agree with a lot of what you're saying but the evidence that Obamacare ballooned healthcare expenses isn't there. Obamacare also has a huge positive impact besides just access to healthcare. For instance I couldn't have started a startup without it, and it's much easier to hire contract workers because of it.

My insurance is literally more than 3x higher than it was 15 years ago. It's literally more than my mortgage, and I don't live in a shanty.

Re: Bloated college administration is making education unaffordable

#202

Post by capitalsigma »

testfoobar wrote: post #174
dudeinjapan wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In education, "supply" itself is not the issue; there are more than enough spots at state, etc. universities. Its supply of prestigious universities, which is controlled by a cartel. Similar to diamonds, which are neither precious nor rare, yet prices are outrageous because they are controlled by a cartel. If/when I become President of the United States, I will hold back all education dollars on cartel-controlled edu…

This is funny and true. The competition and prices all originate from elite institutions. I wonder if it legal to completely clone a curriculum? Like could you clone an MIT EECS education? Down to the coursework? Or alternatively - force elite schools to license and manage franchisees? I'd vote for you.

I've taken classes at a number of institutions of varying rigor. My experience is that less well ranked schools just do not expect the same quantity and quality of academic work as more prestigious schools, and the students at these schools are not interested in changing that. It's especially striking in math, where I saw e.g. cross listed masters level courses start off with a disclaimer that we won't be writing any proofs.

Re: Bloated college administration is making education unaffordable

#203

Post by bumby »

kragen wrote: post #134
bumby wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ha! As a matter of fact I’m re-reading it at the moment. But as a former reliability engineer, i bristle as Persig’s claim that quality can’t be defined.

quality generally has a broader meaning than conformance to product requirement specifications ;)

:-) eh, it always came across to me as a repackaging of the already-existing concept of non-dualism.

But i fail to see it’s pragmatic application here. Prestige implies hierarchy, and hierarchy implies ranked measurement. But we can’t define what we’re measuring in terms of quality research or teaching. Apparently, like porn, we’re suppose to just know it when we see it. Like a lot of Pirsigs dialog, it feels a little too precious, without necessarily adding much.

Re: Bloated college administration is making education unaffordable

#204

Post by capitalsigma »

curious_cat_163 wrote: post #182
ip26 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remembering when I was applying to colleges, it was understood that inexpensive state colleges were probably 'sufficiently good', and cost effective, but it was impossible to grade that statement. Would it be good enough for your goals in life? How can a sixteen year old know? So, people picked the 'best' school they could get into. Not just for the 'experience', but to make sure they got the best education they coul…

This is very insightful. After having gone through it all, do you think if it matters how many doors open for a person based on the college they went? I suppose if someone went to a highly ranked school, it might matter. But being able to get into a highly ranked school is probably because of what the person had (money, life experiences) or what they did (crushed some standardized test). So, in the end, does it actua…

Yes, it matters. The quality of education is better. Lower ranked schools don't dole out the same kind of punishingly hard material that higher ranked schools do. The content of the degree is meaningfully different (based on my experience doing undergrad in a well ranked school and going back to mess around in part time classes while working.)

Re: Bloated college administration is making education unaffordable

#205

Post by Eisenstein »

WalterBright wrote: post #175
testfoobar wrote: post #110

In the US, both college education and healthcare have become enormous taxpayer wealth extraction schemes. Everyone has a "right" to education and healthcare, therefore we should subsidize it with taxpayer money. That is as far as the politics go. We have stupidly funded the demand side of the equation to where both education and healthcare are incredibly bloated behemoths capable of absorbing all the money thrown at…

Is it any surprise that the more the government gets involved in a particular industry, the more expensive it gets?

They aren't getting involved in an industry. When they do, it is to build public schools, which seems to be a great idea. What they are doing is submitting to public demand that education be accessible to everyone by paying for it, or by lending people the money for it. It is like saying that food stamps are 'government getting involved in the grocery industry'. If one counts subsidies, then the government is involved in most industries in some way.

I think that by looking for an excuse as to why the government messes up everything and using that as a way to remove government from things, you haven't changed the need for that thing, you just make it so that in order to fill a public need the government has to enable it in some way that is probably less efficient -- like giving out lots of loans for education, or by having people forgo basic care and then ending up in the hospital with a huge bill that the government pays for because they cannot.

There is usually a medium between these things and it would be great to get off of our collective ideological horses and find them instead of blasting rhetoric at each other.

Re: Bloated college administration is making education unaffordable

#206

Post by testfoobar »

JamesBarney wrote: post #186
testfoobar wrote: post #110

In the US, both college education and healthcare have become enormous taxpayer wealth extraction schemes. Everyone has a "right" to education and healthcare, therefore we should subsidize it with taxpayer money. That is as far as the politics go. We have stupidly funded the demand side of the equation to where both education and healthcare are incredibly bloated behemoths capable of absorbing all the money thrown at…

I agree with a lot of what you're saying but the evidence that Obamacare ballooned healthcare expenses isn't there. Obamacare also has a huge positive impact besides just access to healthcare. For instance I couldn't have started a startup without it, and it's much easier to hire contract workers because of it.

Lets look at stock market returns from when Obamacare passed, March-2010, to today for tech and health insurance stocks:

SPY: about 4X

QQQ: about 6X

GOOGL: about 6X

CI: about 9X (Cigna health)

ELV: about 10x (formerly Anthem)

AAPL: about 19X

UNH: about 20X (united healthcare)

Health Insurance stocks in the US did better than tech stocks after Obamacare passed. Why?

Re: Bloated college administration is making education unaffordable

#207

Post by hmmmmmm111 »

_hyn3 wrote: post #201
JamesBarney wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with a lot of what you're saying but the evidence that Obamacare ballooned healthcare expenses isn't there. Obamacare also has a huge positive impact besides just access to healthcare. For instance I couldn't have started a startup without it, and it's much easier to hire contract workers because of it.

My insurance is literally more than 3x higher than it was 15 years ago. It's literally more than my mortgage, and I don't live in a shanty.

What do you think the difference in premiums are between a 20 year old and a 35 year old?

What about between 35 and 50?

I mean I know only two interesting facts about you, the difference in time, and I already know a common sense reason why your price today is much higher than it would be when you were 15 years younger, in “literally” any time in history, and perhaps it was always about 3x more expensive premiums.

Re: Bloated college administration is making education unaffordable

#208

Post by AuthorizedCust »

dudeinjapan wrote: post #130
testfoobar wrote: post #110

In the US, both college education and healthcare have become enormous taxpayer wealth extraction schemes. Everyone has a "right" to education and healthcare, therefore we should subsidize it with taxpayer money. That is as far as the politics go. We have stupidly funded the demand side of the equation to where both education and healthcare are incredibly bloated behemoths capable of absorbing all the money thrown at…

In education, "supply" itself is not the issue; there are more than enough spots at state, etc. universities. Its supply of prestigious universities, which is controlled by a cartel. Similar to diamonds, which are neither precious nor rare, yet prices are outrageous because they are controlled by a cartel. If/when I become President of the United States, I will hold back all education dollars on cartel-controlled edu…

“Cartel”? Nonsense! Provide evidence prestigious universities are colluding on pricing. You can’t because it’s not true.

Re: Bloated college administration is making education unaffordable

#209

Post by oogali »

School-Cotton wrote: post #159
missedthecue wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, perhaps it would have been better to say state school.

Where does the local state university cost $7k/yr?

If you’re not living on campus, Florida State University ticks that box.

https://admissions.fsu.edu/first-year/finances/

Re: Bloated college administration is making education unaffordable

#210

Post by hmmmmmm111 »

capitalsigma wrote: post #202
testfoobar wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is funny and true. The competition and prices all originate from elite institutions. I wonder if it legal to completely clone a curriculum? Like could you clone an MIT EECS education? Down to the coursework? Or alternatively - force elite schools to license and manage franchisees? I'd vote for you.

I've taken classes at a number of institutions of varying rigor. My experience is that less well ranked schools just do not expect the same quantity and quality of academic work as more prestigious schools, and the students at these schools are not interested in changing that. It's especially striking in math, where I saw e.g. cross listed masters level courses start off with a disclaimer that we won't be writing any…

This is a misconception.

In western Europe and Asia all college education is more rigorous than American college.

And yet I don’t have the overall impression that the international bachelor’s people I know got something correlated out of the difference in rigor. It would be as obvious as the difference in rigor itself. It’s not.

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