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How America's universities became debt factories

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Re: How America's universities became debt factories

#31

Post by advael »

hiddencost wrote: post #19
advael wrote: post #12

I think it's really sad that we so reflexively consider universities vocational training that criticism of universities so often includes "offering degrees that won't get you a job" Actually academia predates the push to gate jobs behind undergraduate degrees, and trying to repurpose these institutions that mainly exist to train and employ researchers to be fully general vocational schools has been a disaster in ever…

At that time they were also incredibly exclusive and mostly the rich.

Yea, and jobs that selected by university degree wanted to implicitly select for class

Making the path to go to a university more accessible is admirable. Entrenching this hiring practice with policy designed to enforce its implications on universities was always ill-conceived and the consequences have mostly been negative, creating a class of permanent debtors, turning universities into dysfunctional and corrupt quasi-businesses, and not really causing a significant de-stratification of job opportunities on balance at all

Re: How America's universities became debt factories

#32

Post by atomicnumber3 »

jackdaniel wrote: post #8

I wonder why there's no mention of a free education as an alternative solution to the broken system

I think in part because on the "buyer" side, there's often a problem of how to sort through 100 resumes for a position. Given that in any given pile of resumes, probably 70% are unqualified, filtering for "degree" is an easy way (though naturally not great, though how not great it is is hard to measure, which of course means we do it) to cut the work required in half or more.

Re: How America's universities became debt factories

#33

Post by ghaff »

hiddencost wrote: post #19
advael wrote: post #12

I think it's really sad that we so reflexively consider universities vocational training that criticism of universities so often includes "offering degrees that won't get you a job" Actually academia predates the push to gate jobs behind undergraduate degrees, and trying to repurpose these institutions that mainly exist to train and employ researchers to be fully general vocational schools has been a disaster in ever…

At that time they were also incredibly exclusive and mostly the rich.

I think that's effectively what a lot of people here are arguing they should be. You're not going to have cheap and quality research institutions (except via financial aid/loans). You can imagine different systems--and they exist to some degree in Europe. It's presumably not a terrible system but it probably does tend to be more exclusive.

Re: How America's universities became debt factories

#34

Post by squidgedcricket »

michelsedgh wrote: post #5

I agree, and another way out is educating people who are about to enter university properly so they make an informed decision about the major they wanna choose more than their feelings and more on facts to see the outcome.

That's not a one-size-fits-all solution. Many 18 year olds will not be willing or capable of making a good financial long term decision regardless of education.

Mortgaging yourself into decades of indentured servitude shouldn't be an option that's available to young adults.

Re: How America's universities became debt factories

#35

Post by daedrdev »

mrfox321 wrote: post #11
WorkerBee28474 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's too disruptive, and there's too high a chance of unintended consequences. Instead of that what you'll see is a 'we'll kill this multi-billion dollar industry over the course of the next 30 years'

China does this, for better or for worse.

They are not a supportive example, their one child policy doomed their demographics and future economic growth.

Re: How America's universities became debt factories

#37

Post by BoxedEmpathy »

anovikov wrote: post #26
advael wrote: post #6

We should be way more willing to straight up kill multi-billion dollar industries. Without that willingness, most modern problems are impossible for governments to solve, and such industries and even their potential competitors are incentivised mostly to exacerbate the problem. I love a good market as much as anyone but there really are problems markets will never solve

We shouldn't see the government as solution to too many problems. If we overdo on it, we get socialism. And we know how it always ends. Let the market forces decide. Eventually people will realise college doesn't work and will stop going there. Seriously problem is that too many people think they are smart and can benefit from a degree, when most can't. If 10% top graders go to college from school as it was in the bo…

I question utility of that reduction. When you reduce complex situations to simple words like 'socialism' you lose nuance and predictive power. It's not binary. It's more or less. Canada is more socialist than USA. Norway is more socialist than Canada.

Reducing to "is" or "isn't" doesn't help understand the problem or come up with viable solutions.

Re: How America's universities became debt factories

#38

Post by advael »

candiddevmike wrote: post #23
advael wrote: post #6

We should be way more willing to straight up kill multi-billion dollar industries. Without that willingness, most modern problems are impossible for governments to solve, and such industries and even their potential competitors are incentivised mostly to exacerbate the problem. I love a good market as much as anyone but there really are problems markets will never solve

Multi-billion dollar industries represent jobs, stocks, and campaign contributions. The US government is not designed to beat those forces. It's the same reason we'll never see universal healthcare unfortunately.

It isn't set up to now, but it has been before and it can be again

Re: How America's universities became debt factories

#39

Post by jackdaniel »

dwighttk wrote: post #20
jackdaniel wrote: post #8

I wonder why there's no mention of a free education as an alternative solution to the broken system

how does that help?

You don't have "an industry" that hikes prices, and there is a central authority without ulterior motive that has an influence over what is funded. Not to mention that you don't put young people into debt from get go.

Re: How America's universities became debt factories

#40

Post by ants_everywhere »

jackdaniel wrote: post #8

I wonder why there's no mention of a free education as an alternative solution to the broken system

Yeah I don't get why this isn't talked about more. It feels like one of those things in the 80s/90s during the free market fad where people decided that private loans would fix education and it ended up just disastrous.
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