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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

#21

Post by s1artibartfast »

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 would argue that they're not competing for students, they're competing for Prestige. Most universities have a wait list a mile long, so they're not going to run out of students.

However, very few colleges want to be the university that produces an adequate education with extremely low cost. They all want to be the most prestigious University, costs be damned.

If you want to get a sense of the differences, community colleges are focused on students, not prestige. Community college costs is California are $550 per semester, while UCs are in the $13-14k/yr ballpark.

Undergraduate lecturers can actually be better at a community college IMHO, because they are career teachers, not career researchers.

Re: Students foot the bill for flagship state universities

#22

Post by abeppu »

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.

I think the federal government just needs to have a 'fitness standard' for schools to be eligible to receive federal loan dollars. Like, >80% of tuition dollars must be spent on instruction staff, instruction-specific facilities that serve students, students must be able to opt-out of substantial non-instruction services (e.g. dorms, recreational facilities), etc. If you want to build a new building that doesn't have classrooms, you need to find some other source of funding than students.

I know people hate this, but I also think it would be reasonable if you weren't eligible to receive federal student loans until you had filed your own taxes without being anyone's dependent, or been out of high school for 2 years, or _something_. What if we still agreed that federal programs can help make college accessible and affordable -- but we should want students to have some perspective on what they want their life to look like, and what it will mean to pay off a giant pile of debt over years, and what kind of education might give them a chance at balancing those concerns.

Re: Students foot the bill for flagship state universities

#23

Post by dv_dt »

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 would also help to require administrative salaries to be below a certain percentage in order to qualify to accept federal loan money. (I would think 8% or lower).

Re: Students foot the bill for flagship state universities

#24

Post by WalterBright »

sohex wrote: post #17
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…

Computers are not necessary for K-12 education. They're more likely a hindrance.

Re: Students foot the bill for flagship state universities

#25

Post by lsmeducation »

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.

I always had a very simple way to do student debt forgiveness:

1) Have universities foot the bill, not the tax payer (shocking, I know). A literal refund.

2) Institute an audit every 5 years on their price to success rate on a per major basis. Have them refund north of 50% of the tuition if overpriced.

Cool, now run your little game.

This is literally a consumer protection issue and this industry has hid far too long under the veils of sanctity of “but tis’ but education, maaaaan”.

—-

Like many have already mentioned, the federal loans going toward these costs are essentially like donating to a charity that you will never get actionable data on. Did the money go to the right place? Did it work? No? Okay, stop donating to that charity, as nice as it feels to be charitable.

If a charity doesn’t work, it doesn’t work, doesn’t matter how great it sounds. Even a charity named Education.

Re: Students foot the bill for flagship state universities

#26

Post by AlbertCory »

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…

Cost per student is the wrong metric, since the numerator includes all the hundreds of assistant deans, other administrators, and other non-educational costs.

"Instructor salaries, fully loaded, and other direct costs" would be a better choice.

Re: Students foot the bill for flagship state universities

#27

Post by WalterBright »

dv_dt wrote: post #23
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 would also help to require administrative salaries to be below a certain percentage in order to qualify to accept federal loan money. (I would think 8% or lower).

More regulation to micromanage things is never going to work. For example, what if you've got an opportunity to hire Feynman, but he expects 9%? Maybe you'll skirt the 8% requirement by giving him a company car to use.

Nobody is smart enough to write a regulation that can't be gamed.

Re: Students foot the bill for flagship state universities

#28

Post by mlyle »

WalterBright wrote: post #24
sohex wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Computers are not necessary for K-12 education. They're more likely a hindrance.

Students getting experience doing computer things is nice. And there's things that are awesome to demonstrate with simulations.

Spending a huge fraction of your educational day on them is dumb and ripe for abuse.

This is a potential silver lining of the whole LLM thing: computers being used for writing assignments, etc, may become untenable.

Re: Students foot the bill for flagship state universities

#29

Post by WalterBright »

rayiner wrote: post #9

It’s worth understanding the trade offs countries like France make to offer near free university education: https://voices.uchicago.edu/euchicago/the-problem-with-frenc...

"The accessibility of French universities—both from an admissions and financial perspective— paradoxically has had negative consequences on students."

That's pretty obvious to anyone who understands that people tend to not place value on things they get for free. Like public high school education in America.

Re: Students foot the bill for flagship state universities

#30

Post by SoftTalker »

m_0x wrote: post #13
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 wi…

While many jobs do not in reality require more than a high-school level education, a college degree is a valuable filter for people who can commit to something that requires learning and applying what has been learned, and seeing it through over a period of 3-4 years.

For jobs that require a college degree, but the major subject of study doesn't matter, that is what they are using it for.

A High School diploma used to mean a lot more, when education was compulsory only to 8th grade. A modern high school diploma pretty much just certifies that you showed up, and the only people who don't have one are people who dropped out.

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