Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Students foot the bill for flagship state universities

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 87 posts

Re: Students foot the bill for flagship state universities

#51

Post by dv_dt »

ssivark wrote: post #45
haldujai wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regulating administrative overhead as a single line item with a fixed percentage is micromanaging?

Yes, because somebody might innovate an education model where administrative salaries are 90% of the cost but students learn well, and earn well. An 8% cap would close off such avenues for progress. In general (going back to basic cybernetics/control theory), it’s better to regulate outcomes (what you actually want) rather than inputs, unless you’re sure you have the correct model of the system. So it’s much better t…

How is setting up a control system not in some sense regulating? I’m genuinely curious.

Re: Students foot the bill for flagship state universities

#52

Post by lsmeducation »

haldujai wrote: post #46
echelon wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Basically, just STEM, nursing, radiology, etc. So "Basically, STEM or STEM-adjacent"? (depending how consider nursing) > The expected value of the degree To society or the individual? Calculated how? > If you want an art school history major, you need a real loan. So only rich people are allowed to be educated in the humanities unless you're willing to get what will be a very expensive and likely cost-prohibitive p…

How much is the cost of your undergraduate major on average nationwide? Do you believe it is accurately priced in comparison to a STEM major?

It’s a pricing issue.

If we don’t agree it’s a pricing issue, then let’s pay everyone the same salary regardless of profession. There’s ideological value in everything, but we’re talking business here.

The colleges CHARGE you something. They don’t gift you anything out of virtue. So talk money.

I’d be willing to even accept a Nicotine warning label of sorts that colleges tell an English major at the start (and the parents).

“hazardous warning label: hey, we are going to charge you 15k a year for this. you won’t likely make more than X in the real world with this degree. You cool with it? No refunds.”

Re: Students foot the bill for flagship state universities

#53

Post by beej71 »

AdamJacobMuller wrote: post #38
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.

Agreed, simple solution though. Students pay a maximum of N% of their income over Y years and anything above this is forgiven. The university has any forgiven amounts deducted from their actual cash payments for future student loans.

This is an Income Share Agreement, which I certainly approve of.

Another option available to public schools is that you can use tax as a mechanism for collecting that money.

Re: Students foot the bill for flagship state universities

#54

Post by fallingknife »

abeppu wrote: post #22
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…

This will just be gamed. The universities need to take on some of the financial risk of loan default. No other system will work.

Re: Students foot the bill for flagship state universities

#55

Post by fallingknife »

haldujai wrote: post #46
echelon wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Basically, just STEM, nursing, radiology, etc. So "Basically, STEM or STEM-adjacent"? (depending how consider nursing) > The expected value of the degree To society or the individual? Calculated how? > If you want an art school history major, you need a real loan. So only rich people are allowed to be educated in the humanities unless you're willing to get what will be a very expensive and likely cost-prohibitive p…

What is the benefit to me of someone else having a humanities degree? I see the benefit to me of someone else being trained as an engineer, so I am happy to support that with my taxes. What is it that humanities majors learn that can't be learned for free, or maybe a few buck on Amazon? I took those classes and I'm not seeing it. They were taught on such a low level compared to STEM classes that it was a joke.

Re: Students foot the bill for flagship state universities

#56

Post by fallingknife »

the_only_law wrote: post #36
m_0x wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Until companies ditch the stupid degree requirement for jobs that obviously do not require a degree, everybody is going to suffer. It’ll never happen. They need low effort filters.

SAT scores would work fine for this

Re: Students foot the bill for flagship state universities

#57

Post by haldujai »

fallingknife wrote: post #55
haldujai wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Basically, just STEM, nursing, radiology, etc. So "Basically, STEM or STEM-adjacent"? (depending how consider nursing) > The expected value of the degree To society or the individual? Calculated how? > If you want an art school history major, you need a real loan. So only rich people are allowed to be educated in the humanities unless you're willing to get what will be a very expensive and likely cost-prohibitive p…

What is the benefit to me of someone else having a humanities degree? I see the benefit to me of someone else being trained as an engineer, so I am happy to support that with my taxes. What is it that humanities majors learn that can't be learned for free, or maybe a few buck on Amazon? I took those classes and I'm not seeing it. They were taught on such a low level compared to STEM classes that it was a joke.

Whether or not one personally finds benefit from things like fine art, media, journalism or literature it's clear that our society places value on this through both private enterprise and public institutions.

> What is it that humanities majors learn that can't be learned for free, or maybe a few buck on Amazon?

This statement is more easily applied to some STEM fields. Why pay for a CS degree when you can learn everything online for free?

Re: Students foot the bill for flagship state universities

#58

Post by bosie »

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…

Where would you learn the skills for that first job? And which jobs would that be?

Re: Students foot the bill for flagship state universities

#59

Post by haldujai »

lsmeducation wrote: post #52
haldujai wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Basically, just STEM, nursing, radiology, etc. So "Basically, STEM or STEM-adjacent"? (depending how consider nursing) > The expected value of the degree To society or the individual? Calculated how? > If you want an art school history major, you need a real loan. So only rich people are allowed to be educated in the humanities unless you're willing to get what will be a very expensive and likely cost-prohibitive p…

How much is the cost of your undergraduate major on average nationwide? Do you believe it is accurately priced in comparison to a STEM major? It’s a pricing issue. If we don’t agree it’s a pricing issue, then let’s pay everyone the same salary regardless of profession. There’s ideological value in everything, but we’re talking business here. The colleges CHARGE you something. They don’t gift you anything out of virtu…

I don't know the national average of my major. I paid something around 35-40k/year in tuition for an english literature degree. My MD and MS (CS) were more expensive but also done later.

All undergraduate degrees in the US have a pricing issue. I don't believe anyone should be paying 30-60k/year for one.

> There’s ideological value in everything, but we’re talking business here.

No, we're talking about university education which should not be a business. I don't consider an undergraduate degree training for a specific job, that's what technical colleges are for. If you want to argue we shouldn't subsidize university in general I could understand that but think it's a bad idea.

I don't agree that STEM degrees are inherently more valuable than the humanities from a general education perspective which is what I view undergraduate degrees as.

If we treat it as a business we should only subsidize courses essential for the workplace. Why am I subsidizing a web developer or a physician taking undergraduate calculus and physics? Having worked as both I have needed neither.

> “hazardous warning label: hey, we are going to charge you 15k a year for this. you won’t likely make more than X in the real world with this degree. You cool with it? No refunds.”

I think it's common knowledge that STEM graduates earn more, this was the case when I was in high school during the 2000s.

Re: Students foot the bill for flagship state universities

#60

Post by flexie »

WalterBright wrote: post #29
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.

Here in Denmark, all universities are state owned and with no tuition. In fact, you get paid to attend one (around 900 euro monthly). But I can assure you that Danes place a lot of value on the free universities. Some universities are considered slightly more prestigious (often the older ones), and some programs are also more prestigious than others, for example the ones that are difficult to get into, or that lead to jobs with higher salaries, or which are considered particularly difficult.

So how does one compare the "free" (tax paid) Danish universities to the US/UK ones? By citations? Nobel laureates? Amount of foreign students? Salaries of alumni? Patents? GDP per capita? Number of high value companies per capita? I think you'd find that as a whole, Danish, and other Scandinavian universities, easily compete with Anglo Saxon universities, and that the main drawback of Scandinavian universities is the language.

Post reply on HN