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Students foot the bill for flagship state universities

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Re: Students foot the bill for flagship state universities

#11

Post by spicyusername »

Aurornis wrote: post #6

The catch is that universities must spend on impressive new facilities, buildings, housing, and sports if they want to remain attractive to their customers (students). Most universities are still competing for students. Many students survey a lot of universities and do campus tours to determine where they want to attend. The short campus tours don't really show them anything about the education they receive, but the…

I'm not saying it's true or not true, but this is definitely the same story the school administrators are telling themselves.

Re: Students foot the bill for flagship state universities

#12

Post by WalterBright »

throwawaaarrgh wrote: post #5

I thought it was common knowledge that it's a racket? You pay exorbitant fees to get a piece of paper with a famous name attached hoping it will get you a job or contacts. They know this so they keep raising prices as long as the money keeps flowing.

If there's no math requirement for major X, you can be assured that there are no jobs in X that pay more than minimum wage.

Besides, there's no excuse for not googling "starting salaries for X" before committing to it.

Re: Students foot the bill for flagship state universities

#13

Post by m_0x »

mech7654 wrote: post #7

The college bubble is popping. Enrollment is down 15% from its 2010 peak. My intuition is that the bigger state schools will be well insulated financially, but smaller independent colleges will have a bloodbath.

Until companies ditch the stupid degree requirement for jobs that obviously do not require a degree, everybody is going to suffer.

Fewer colleges mean:

1) People out of jobs. Teachers will lose their main income and the remaining colleges will have no incentive to increase their payroll because where are they gonna go?

2) Getting into a college will be even more competitive. As companies will still look for people with degrees, colleges can charge even more and candidates to study there will have less choices.

This will only change when NOT studying at a college has no impact in your future income. Or the impact is lesser than today.

Re: Students foot the bill for flagship state universities

#14

Post by figassis »

Aurornis wrote: post #6

The catch is that universities must spend on impressive new facilities, buildings, housing, and sports if they want to remain attractive to their customers (students). Most universities are still competing for students. Many students survey a lot of universities and do campus tours to determine where they want to attend. The short campus tours don't really show them anything about the education they receive, but the…

Why. It just maintain them well, instead of building new structures every quarter?

Re: Students foot the bill for flagship state universities

#15

Post by echelon »

johnny99k wrote: post #2

When you have students taking out Federal loans, the University getting paid with virtually no risk, and they don't if the student can get a job or pay off the loan, they have no incentive to curb spending. The federal government need to force these universities to take the risk and loan out money directly.

It's all about risk. Currently the loans don't factor in the associated risks, and therefore are unlimited streams of funny money.

The expected value of the degree, the cost of the degree program, chance of graduation, chance of employment, student risk factors (grades, attendance), etc. are important, yet not considered.

When pricing is artificially kept independent of the underlying risk model, it leads to the kind of huge distortion we see today.

All of this is immediately obvious, of course. But the counter argument has weight too -- that putting risk into the equation isn't equitable. Poor and underserved students won't receive the same access.

A healthy medium might be to allow federal loans to continue for only programs with an expected value in four years that exceeds that of the degree program cost plus loan interest plus double the cost of living. Basically, just STEM, nursing, radiology, etc. at mostly community colleges and state universities. If you want an art school history major, you need a real loan.

Re: Students foot the bill for flagship state universities

#16

Post by vxNsr »

Can we all just agree that colleges not the US government should be on the hook for unpaid loans? I’m all for loan forgiveness if it comes out of the universities’ coffers.

In fact let’s take this to the next level, automatic wage garnishing but still ensure former students have a livable income, but after 15 years if the loan isn’t paid off, the university is on the hook for the rest.

Re: Students foot the bill for flagship state universities

#17

Post by sohex »

endominus wrote: post #8

There's a common belief that education is being underfunded in the United States, that the problem with schools is that they lack the budget to improve their learning outcomes. Statistically speaking, total spending on education had increased year on year, accounting for inflation, per student, since the 1970s. Conversely, test scores have remained relatively stagnant (see https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/09/consid…

Is total spending per student really sufficient as a means of tracking whether enough is being spent though? I'd imagine that the costs per student have risen a greater rate since the 70s than spending has. Between things like needing to pay for computers and IT infrastructure, accommodation programs for those with special needs, and so on it seems to me that it's actually remarkable in someways that test scores have even managed stagnancy rather than a decline.

Re: Students foot the bill for flagship state universities

#18

Post by lumost »

Aurornis wrote: post #6

The catch is that universities must spend on impressive new facilities, buildings, housing, and sports if they want to remain attractive to their customers (students). Most universities are still competing for students. Many students survey a lot of universities and do campus tours to determine where they want to attend. The short campus tours don't really show them anything about the education they receive, but the…

This doesn’t really make sense for state institutions. If I am a state institution, why do I need to compete for students?

If students have choice, then isn’t my job complete? I’d suspect that spending on premium faculty would have a better chance at business generation than saddling students with debt for stadiums.

Re: Students foot the bill for flagship state universities

#19

Post by WalterBright »

Aurornis wrote: post #6

The catch is that universities must spend on impressive new facilities, buildings, housing, and sports if they want to remain attractive to their customers (students). Most universities are still competing for students. Many students survey a lot of universities and do campus tours to determine where they want to attend. The short campus tours don't really show them anything about the education they receive, but the…

I must be weird, because I paid no attention to facilities, etc., when I looked for a university. I looked at the value of the engineering education they provided, and that was about it.

Re: Students foot the bill for flagship state universities

#20

Post by AlbertCory »

dang wrote: post #10

Recent and related: Colleges spend like there’s no tomorrow - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37074472 - Aug 2023 (8 comments)

recent, and inadvertently wrong: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37090403

I did archive the same story, but failed to include the URL. Duh.

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