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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

#71

Post by lsmeducation »

sokoloff wrote: post #67
lsmeducation wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

What does “work” mean in this case? If a student goes to university and gets a degree in medieval French literature and then serves coffee for life as a job, the university did its job iff the student demonstrated a level of mastery of medieval French literature. The inadvertent economics education that came later was not the university’s doing and they take no credit nor blame for it.

Okay, that’s a great point. So we’ll have to change the definition of “success” from whatever the definition these institutions have been using this whole time. Our government nearly tried to pass a $500 billion dollar refund for these universities idea of what it means to market itself as “an investment for your future”.

Again, this is a consumer affairs issue. These universities are doing false advertising, period.

Re: Students foot the bill for flagship state universities

#72

Post by sieabahlpark »

mrtesthah wrote: post #35
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.

That's the wrong argument to be making. Education should be free. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/is-free-college-a-good-id...

[dead]

Re: Students foot the bill for flagship state universities

#73

Post by haldujai »

lsmeducation wrote: post #62
haldujai wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 edu…

No, we're talking about university education which should not be a business. Money and loans are involved, people pay, and people get paid. If we go even further on the money part, many consider it an investment . Anyways. Perhaps we should make the core liberal arts courses free of charge, and then create a pricing model for professional courses where the pricing model is more realistic about what is being offered,…

That’s interesting. I could get behind 1-2 years of core liberal arts training for everyone. I think it would be better for society.

I find the skills I developed in my English degree have been very useful during my medical training and practice and has been commented on by my teachers during this journey. It’s certainly a better use of resources and time than a pre-med curriculum that gets repeated in the first 2 years of medical school anyway.

Re: Students foot the bill for flagship state universities

#74

Post by WalterBright »

flexie wrote: post #60
WalterBright wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 t…

Thanks for the response. I'll start with I know nothing about Danish universities.

When I refer to "free", I mean more than just no cost in terms of money. If there is a cost in terms of the university being very difficult to get admitted to, then humans tend to value it. This sounds from your post like it may be the case here.

American public schools are valued so little that truancy laws (for 1-8) were passed to force attendance. Large numbers of high school students simply drop out and wander off.

On the other hand, becoming a Marine is free (they'll even pay you!). But the selection process is grueling, and hence the status of getting through that is valued. Even more selective services, like the Navy Seals, have correspondingly more status and value.

In the Air Force, being a fighter pilot is the hardest to achieve, and has top dog status, despite being paid to go through the process.

Re: Students foot the bill for flagship state universities

#75

Post by aoki »

fallingknife wrote: post #56
the_only_law wrote: post #36

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. It’ll never happen. They need low effort filters.

SAT scores would work fine for this

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griggs_v._Duke_Power_Co.

It’s hard to defend generic standardized tests. (Whereas ASVAB is ok.)

Re: Students foot the bill for flagship state universities

#76

Post by rahimnathwani »

rayiner wrote: post #68
rahimnathwani wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I couldn't take that article seriously after reading this paragraph: The French state spends 6,700 euros per public student per year, but up to thirteen thousand euros can be spent per student enrolled in Grandes Écoles, despite their only accounting for five percent of total students. Thus, though they only teach five percent of French students, these Grandes Écoles receive 30 percent of the government’s education b…

What do you think is wrong with that paragraph? It’s just saying that limited funding is disproportionally directed to the Grande Ecoles, leaving the other schools with much less funding. 6,700 euros is not a lot of money. It’s about $7,300. U.S. public universities and colleges spend on average over $28,000/year.

    6,700 euros is not a lot of money. It’s about $7,300. U.S. public universities and colleges spend on average over $28,000/year.
If I had $28k/year to spend on my education, I'd find a set of great tutors who would be willing to tutor me for an average of $100/hour.

Even if I were to have a 1:1 tutoring session every single weekday (260 weekdays/year), that would only cost $26k/year, and I'd still have $2k/year to pay for books and tests.

Now, if I had only $7,300/year, I'd probably need to pay the tutors $140/hour, and have daily 5:1 group lessons.

Re: Students foot the bill for flagship state universities

#77

Post by m_0x »

bosie wrote: post #58
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…

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

Your question implies colleges teaches you the skills required for jobs.

That's true in specialized career paths. A Doctor, a pharmacist and lawyers are good examples. Don't ditch the degree requirement for those.

However I've seen "offices" jobs where they only require people that can read, write, have basic MS Office skills and specially FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS. You can learn that in high school.

But companies require Degrees for those jobs and it's the most idiotic thing I can think because:

a) Companies are downsizing the pool of potential candidates and, b) People with degrees (Some of them at least) will feel that job is not fulfilling. They will leave for better opportunities.

For those jobs, just learning on the fly will suffice.

Re: Students foot the bill for flagship state universities

#78

Post by m_0x »

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.

Yeah, it won't happen. It's easier to start requiring a master's degree to even be able to submit a CV for a job opening.

Re: Students foot the bill for flagship state universities

#79

Post by OkayPhysicist »

lsmeducation wrote: post #71
sokoloff wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does “work” mean in this case? If a student goes to university and gets a degree in medieval French literature and then serves coffee for life as a job, the university did its job iff the student demonstrated a level of mastery of medieval French literature. The inadvertent economics education that came later was not the university’s doing and they take no credit nor blame for it.

Okay, that’s a great point. So we’ll have to change the definition of “success” from whatever the definition these institutions have been using this whole time. Our government nearly tried to pass a $500 billion dollar refund for these universities idea of what it means to market itself as “an investment for your future”. Again, this is a consumer affairs issue. These universities are doing false advertising, period.

If you want to optimize for student ROI, then you end up with vocational schools, and a population of zombie workers educated in the absolute bare minimum necessary for them to do their jobs. There is substantial value in having a broadly educated populace, especially if you're going to let everyone have a say in governance.

Re: Students foot the bill for flagship state universities

#80

Post by aoki »

Manuel_D wrote: post #41
abeppu wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

In theory, that's what accreditation is supposed to represent: a set of standards to ensure students are educated to a certain minimum bar for a given major. However, the cynical reality is that university is as much about signalling competence relative to the rest of the population as it is about learning. Fun fact: Stanford's computer science program is not accredited. The department explained that it's a mountain…

By ABET. The institution as a whole is accredited.

The question is whether accreditation from an engineering org is worth the limits they place on your curriculum. Stanford EE and CS and Cal EECS all say no, they’d rather give their grads more flexibility than have them jump through ABET hoops.

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