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The Coming Meltdown In College Education & Why The Economy Won’t Get Better Soon

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Re: The Coming Meltdown In College Education & Why The Economy Won’t Get Better Soon

#21

Post by Swizec »

ntkachov wrote: post #13
Swizec wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem I have with this is that university should NOT prepare you for the work force . Universities are awesome! We ruined them when we started thinking of higher education as preparation (or even requirement) for the workforce. University should prepare you to be a thinker, a scientist and just generally an educated person. As soon as it becomes vocational the whole point is lost. We don't need to "fix higher e…

Great. They fail at that too. There have been a few studies that show that after 2 years of college, the difference in reading, writing, math, and critical thinking are negligible. So if you're not good for the industry, you're terrible at what you're made for, what good are you?

This probably depends a lot on the course one is taking. I have a feeling (from observing the people around me) engineers are a lot better at critical thinking and logical reasoning after a couple years of college than they were coming out of high school.

From my observation it takes about ~4 years for the really observable differences to settle in ... it might also just be maturity. Difficult to say :)

Re: The Coming Meltdown In College Education & Why The Economy Won’t Get Better Soon

#22

Post by hristov »

I really do not like housing bubble to education analogies. There is a big and quite obvious difference between housing and education. You cannot flip a diploma. You can try to monetize it by getting a good job but it is not something you can sell. The way you monetize it is by living your life a certain way.

Education would be a big investment even if it were free. You still have to go to classes. You still have to expend effort. And if you want to get your money's worth out of your education you still have build a career. So you cannot buy 20 diplomas on credit and flip them in a month for profit (as some people used to do with houses). Which means that education is a completely different beast. Every housing analogy is utterly idiotic.

Now that is not to say that there are no problems with education. Of course there are. But they are different type of problems.

Personally I think too many loans are being given out because of the recent proliferation of for profit schools with dubious teaching abilities and academic standards. I think we need some kind of merit based system that will limit the number of loans being given out. The merit based system may test either the students or the schools or both, and only give out loans to those that pass the test. Thus, we can limit the loans to only those that can beneficially use them.

Re: The Coming Meltdown In College Education & Why The Economy Won’t Get Better Soon

#23

Post by MaxGabriel »

gliese1337 wrote: post #12
MaxGabriel wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This disclaimer was on the BYU website. Do you know how much that is? "* A significant portion of the cost of operating the university is paid from the tithes of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Therefore, students and families of students who are tithe-paying members of the Church have already made a contribution to the operation of the university. Because others will not have made this contribution,…

Yes, I do. That's why I quoted the price for non-LDS students. The price for tuition for LDS students, as listed on the same page, is about half of that; but, as the disclaimer says, you also have to take into account that they're paying an additional 10% of their total income.

Thanks! I am not really familiar with tithing, and when I first looked at the chart I didn't understand that LDS meant you payed a tithe.

Re: The Coming Meltdown In College Education & Why The Economy Won’t Get Better Soon

#24

Post by ntkachov »

impendia wrote: post #16

I am in my first year as a mathematics professor at the University of South Carolina. Having moved here from Stanford, I've noticed several things. (1) Many students are woefully underprepared. In my calculus classes I have found that a great many of the students have not mastered high school algebra. And these are the students who pass our placement exam, and aren't obliged to take one of our many algebra and precal…

Most students are crap at math. That's a fact. There is 0 encouragement to spend high school refining math skills.

Also don't confuse motivation with laziness, priorities, or time management. To a psych major, calc might seem like one of those bullshit classes you have to take. To an EE Major it might just be more hours of work that could be spent sleeping.

Re: The Coming Meltdown In College Education & Why The Economy Won’t Get Better Soon

#25

Post by EzGraphs »

cageface wrote: post #2

You borrow as much money as you can for the best school you can get into and afford and then you “flip” that education for the great job you are going to get when you graduate. Maybe there is a bubble in higher ed but this analogy is pretty shaky. The most obvious difference between a house and a degree is that you can't "flip" a degree.

Agreed. There are similarities between the higher ed and housing bubble:

* Lots of quick money available

* Government loans and programs,

* Speculation about the relative return on investment that does not match the observed reality

But a house is an asset with a specific tangible transferable value. A college degree is a certification and not transferable in any specific way. It muddies the waters to see the bubbles as identical, and it suggests that they will resolve themselves in exactly the same way (which is at least questionable).

Re: The Coming Meltdown In College Education & Why The Economy Won’t Get Better Soon

#26

Post by AngrySkillzz »

MaxGabriel wrote: post #7

This was the first comment on Cuban's blog. Can anyone comment on it? I listened to the NPR Podcast, it is specific to private colleges; I am not sure how public colleges fit in. "The most recent Planet Money on NPR was about the cost of college. [1] They point out that the price that has been rising is the “sticker price.” However, the average price a student pays for college hasn’t risen (except to adjust for infla…

I believe that's true for many well-endowed and non-state institutions; the wealthy who can afford the full $45k tuition help to subsidize the poorer students who can't, and I don't see too much wrong with that.

The problem is that that isn't the entire story. Yeah, federally subsidized loans mean more kids are attending school, but not everyone is eligible for subsidized loans. Many of my friends, and myself, were offered standard unsubsidized loans as generally middle-class students. So for your average middle-class student, going to a less-endowed private or out-of-state institution means either paying full price out of pocket or taking out unsubsidized loans. And as we know, unsubsidized loans are reaching absurd levels under unrealistic terms and they're giving us a generation saddled with debt that will be very difficult to pay off.

More students are going to college, but I seriously doubt the price of education is rising. Spending time on any college campus will tell you that they are spending recklessly because of the education bubble, and I'm not talking high professor salaries (they deserve every penny). Administrators these days make frankly irresponsible amounts of money, schools purchase expensive and unnecessary equipment to have a selling point for certain departments, and construction/renovation is everywhere. The sticker price isn't rising because costs are rising, the sticker price is rising because demand is inelastic (due to promise of better jobs and easy financing) and colleges are finding reckless ways to spend the rest of the money.

So the points are valid, but they don't speak to the entire situation. It sure smells like a bubble to me; student debt is ballooning because demand is inelastic and its easy to take out a loan, schools are spending the money irresponsibly, and I don't see any reasonable way that all of this debt is getting repaid in this economy, especially under the conditions the loans are given. I'd say there's likely to be an impending burst and credit crunch as my friends and I hit the workforce.

Re: The Coming Meltdown In College Education & Why The Economy Won’t Get Better Soon

#27

Post by whatusername »

ekianjo wrote: post #20
Swizec wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem I have with this is that university should NOT prepare you for the work force . Universities are awesome! We ruined them when we started thinking of higher education as preparation (or even requirement) for the workforce. University should prepare you to be a thinker, a scientist and just generally an educated person. As soon as it becomes vocational the whole point is lost. We don't need to "fix higher e…

"Preparing for the Work Force" does not equal to "Vocational". After all, if universities do what you claim they should do, i.e. "prepare you to be a thinker, a scientist and just generally an educated person", you should become a useful member of society in the end and most probably you will be employed by someone who can use your skills. This being said, I have a problem with the mentioned "solution". Why would you…

Here's the Australian Solution. Government Supported Loans/Subsidised places. Indexed to the Inflation rate. Paid back as a % of income (a rising percentage as income rises).

Note: The US Concept of "tuition" covering Board/food/etc is basically un-heard of in any large numbers. (Possibly due to how consolidated into Major Cities we are.)

Re: The Coming Meltdown In College Education & Why The Economy Won’t Get Better Soon

#28

Post by AngrySkillzz »

MaxGabriel wrote: post #7

This was the first comment on Cuban's blog. Can anyone comment on it? I listened to the NPR Podcast, it is specific to private colleges; I am not sure how public colleges fit in. "The most recent Planet Money on NPR was about the cost of college. [1] They point out that the price that has been rising is the “sticker price.” However, the average price a student pays for college hasn’t risen (except to adjust for infla…

And as far as in-state institutions go, the prices can generally be anywhere up to the $20k range. I'm sure a significant amount of the loans are being spent on in-state institutions and, because of budget cuts, they don't have as many need/merit-based scholarships to give. That's not doing us any favors either.

Re: The Coming Meltdown In College Education & Why The Economy Won’t Get Better Soon

#29

Post by rsanchez1 »

hristov wrote: post #22

I really do not like housing bubble to education analogies. There is a big and quite obvious difference between housing and education. You cannot flip a diploma. You can try to monetize it by getting a good job but it is not something you can sell. The way you monetize it is by living your life a certain way. Education would be a big investment even if it were free. You still have to go to classes. You still have to…

In both situations, people get themselves in deep debt with the expectation that they'll end up with a lot more money than they started. The housing market collapsed because prices fell after everyone realized the majority of the housing market was built on promises that could not be kept. The education market will collapse because available jobs and salary fell (analogous to prices in the housing market, and largely because of the housing market collapse) and the promises made to young people that they will be able to build a career cannot be kept for every student graduating today. I do not like the analogy either, because it ends with the country hurting hard, very hard.

It's easy to dismiss such analogies as idiotic when you assume that all you need to do is "live your life a certain way" for the diploma to pay off, and when you want to ignore the eventuality that the education market collapse will cause tremendous damage. Both the housing and education market collapses depend on promises made to homeowner and students that cannot possibly be kept for everyone involved.

Of course, limiting loans based on merit is a great solution, but it's not a politically palatable one. On one hand, politicians love to say that everyone will get an education and it will be paid for no matter what. On the other hand, what happens when students from well-off community meet merit-based standards for loans while students from poor communities don't? Banks and universities will be slammed for practicing discrimination. Sort of like how banks were slammed for discrimination when they were lending less to minorities and accused of discrimination based on race, when in reality they were limiting loans only to those who could pay for them, but banks were ultimately forced to give out subprime loans through legislation and we ended up with the housing market collapse.

Common sense solutions are not adopted when you have politicians involved who only appeal to the emotion of voters and seduce voters with promises of cheap housing and education, and slam politicians who are fiscally responsible and want to limit mortgages and student loans to those who have the ability to pay for them.

Re: The Coming Meltdown In College Education & Why The Economy Won’t Get Better Soon

#30

Post by learc83 »

MaxGabriel wrote: post #7

This was the first comment on Cuban's blog. Can anyone comment on it? I listened to the NPR Podcast, it is specific to private colleges; I am not sure how public colleges fit in. "The most recent Planet Money on NPR was about the cost of college. [1] They point out that the price that has been rising is the “sticker price.” However, the average price a student pays for college hasn’t risen (except to adjust for infla…

>The reason student loan debt has ballooned isn’t because students are paying more.

That's not true, I've seen numerous articles on the cost of public colleges increasing much faster than inflation.

Anecdote: I dropped out of Georgia State in 2007, I'm going back now to finish my last few semesters of a math degree.

The cost has more than doubled in the last 5 years.

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