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How America's universities became debt factories

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Re: How America's universities became debt factories

#391

Post by pixodaros »

ghaff wrote: post #264
pixodaros wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is finding that intersection. If you are really suited to journalism you will have a hard time financially in 2024. And the experience of studying a thing and doing it for a living are different, and in 2024 its hard to try different careers out because most employers want credentials and experience. There are still jobs where you can walk into the office and talk someone into giving you an internship but…

To your specific example, there are a lot of jobs that involve content marketing and other types of writing that aren't exactly hitting the pavement journalism but probably pay a lot better, are more reliable employment, and may be close enough. As you say, it's about finding the intersection. If I were looking for a writing job today--which I did a lot of over the past 10 years--I wouldn't be looking to the New York…

Your example of having engineering degrees but spending much of your working life writing is a good example of how income and academic degree don't necessarily go together. If you get training rather than an education you have a clear path but if the job you trained for is not hiring when you need a job you can be SOL.

Re: How America's universities became debt factories

#392

Post by lapcat »

DiscourseFan wrote: post #387
lapcat wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some departments have money, and some don't. Simple as that. I find it very odd that people are trying to deny my experience here.

We're wondering if you were perhaps mislead somewhat, because in our experience its quite rare for a department not to have any funded PhDs with stipends.

> We're wondering if you were perhaps mislead somewhat

I wasn't. But I'm not going to write an autobiography here. I already regret revealing personal details in this thread.

> in our experience its quite rare for a department not to have any funded PhDs with stipends.

Who is "our" and what is your "experience"? Are you referring to Telemakhos and yourself? Are either of you even former humanities PhD students? And how many departments have you surveyed such that you can make a judgment of rarity?

Re: How America's universities became debt factories

#393

Post by NickC25 »

Why has nobody mentioned for-profit entities allowed to run roughshod over our country's students?

textbook publishers, for one, are guilty of this. professors get kickbacks to assign a new edition of a textbook each year or few years, so archived or older versions don't work. don't get me started on those books that come with a 1-time code that you have to use to do online work. its a racket.

Re: How America's universities became debt factories

#394

Post by photochemsyn »

lordnacho wrote: post #47

I don't know if this is some kind of heresy, but here we go. I don't think universities provide much value at all to the common student who is not going to be a PhD. I went to a very well-known institution known for putting the students in a room with the professors, maybe two or three students, to one professor. My economics professor taught me one on one. I still think, in the end, the work is mostly done alone, in…

Academia is not a monoculture, but people who take the path suggested by the administrative faction are the ones ending up in debt. The marketing is like that for dodgy credit cards or subprime home loans. (The Ivy League strata is more about getting to network and socialize with clubs of the wealthy and powerful, possibly getting a lucrative position as in the British Empire's public school system, so set them aside as a special case.)

Otherwise, for people who want to learn arcane technological skills and curious knowledge for the science and engineering world, community colleges and research universities are the way to go. Two years in a community college at low cost, ideally some kind of grant/scholarship for 2-3 years more at a research university, preferably in collaborative/teamwork situations with actual professionals in their fields. You also have access to tools and equipment that you'd never get to use otherwise, and experience with such setups can lead right into a good R & D job.

It's not worth being weighed down with debt at the end, though, since the loan payments will eat up revenue that could have gone to savings for a home, founding a startup, etc.

Students should thus view the academic finance system as a hostile adversary that's always trying to force them to take on as much debt as possible. Student loans are traded like subprime mortgages were in 2008, I imagine tranched into pyramid schemes, and the industry always needs fresh meat.

Re: How America's universities became debt factories

#395

Post by globalnode »

how do you get the system to change itself when it benefits so greatly from the status quo. massive protests? vote them out? those would require organisation and cooperation from people that can easily be turned against each other. no, the system stays as it is or gets worse. sorry to be a downer has there ever been a situation where massive self interest like this have been overcome?

Re: How America's universities became debt factories

#396

Post by rr808 »

mchusma wrote: post #41
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

But…the whole point is that it is NOT a market. If student debt is dischargeable and the government guarantee is removed or dramatically reduced, pretty much all problems are “solved”. Universities will have to start focusing on ROI. Universities that provide a poor ROI will shut down. Universities will need to reduce costs for traditional coursework, cut courses with poor returns, add courses with higher returns. Th…

> If student debt is dischargeable and the government guarantee is removed or dramatically reduced, pretty much all problems are “solved”.

No, it just means everyone will complete their degree then file for bankruptcy immediately before starting their first job.

Re: How America's universities became debt factories

#397

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

ben_w wrote: post #72
daedrdev wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

They stopped the one child policy nine years ago; they had it in the first place because demographic projections had them severely overpopulated if they didn't. During the period in which it was active, their GDP increased by a factor of about 62. Not percentage, multiple.

They reversed the policy too late. Their rapid growth was them seizing the low hanging fruit upgrading from a country of almost entirely peasants to slightly fewer peasants, all funded by Western greed. Those gains will never happen again.

Re: How America's universities became debt factories

#398

Post by BeetleB »

lapcat wrote: post #341
DiscourseFan wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>That's not generally true. I attended a state university, and the department simply didn't have the funding to pay for its graduate students. I mean, maybe? I know a number of state schools, certainly not all of them, but plenty that can afford paid spots for PhD students in the humanities that are certainly enough for someone to support themselves on. It doesn't pay as well, nearly as well, as jobs that humanities…

Some departments have money, and some don't. Simple as that. I find it very odd that people are trying to deny my experience here.

They're not denying your experience. They are, however, pointing out you didn't do your research Well when picking programs to apply to.

I've been in different universities and the experiences for the same departments very considerably. You specify on your application whether you want your admission to be conditional on funding. One communications department for example would typically admit only 2 to 3 students per year on funding. I thought it was very competitive to get into. But of course if you tell them you're willing to pay your own way admission becomes much easier.

Other departments may not be that upfront with the deal but all people applying to grad school should understand these Dynamics.

Re: How America's universities became debt factories

#399

Post by dingnuts »

rr808 wrote: post #396
mchusma wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But…the whole point is that it is NOT a market. If student debt is dischargeable and the government guarantee is removed or dramatically reduced, pretty much all problems are “solved”. Universities will have to start focusing on ROI. Universities that provide a poor ROI will shut down. Universities will need to reduce costs for traditional coursework, cut courses with poor returns, add courses with higher returns. Th…

> If student debt is dischargeable and the government guarantee is removed or dramatically reduced, pretty much all problems are “solved”. No, it just means everyone will complete their degree then file for bankruptcy immediately before starting their first job.

which would make lenders more cautious which would make it harder to get a loan which would make less money available so tuitions would be competing for less and prices would come down this is how it's supposed to work yes

Re: How America's universities became debt factories

#400

Post by BeetleB »

magnoliakobus wrote: post #86
robertlagrant wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Say you major in comp sci (or some other high-paying field) but shortly after graduation something happens which prevents you from working in the field. Sucks to be you. That's why the article's saying you should be able to declare bankruptcy. > And likewise it sets up universities to, as you say, "cut courses with poor returns." Like for example "teaching", because school teacher pay is crap, so it has a poor ROI.…

I think most people would agree with me in saying the European model sounds pretty swell compared to forcing people into declaring bankruptcy because of economic/personal factors potentially out of their control, while also inserting an incredible amount of volatility into the entire university system that would make long term institutional planning much less possible.

Be careful what you wish for. The majority of my fellow engineering graduates would not have gotten an engineering degree in Germany.

They would have flunked the first year - a weed out year - and then been forced into a technical diploma program and not be allowed to call themselves engineers.

My friend who went to the German school said they have a target of flunking half the students that first year. Funds are limited and shape how many can graduate.

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