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Anonymous Donor Pays for College of Every Student in Kalamazoo

nytimes.com

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Re: Anonymous Donor Pays for College of Every Student in Kalamazoo

#31

Post by femto »

On the assumption this is a good thing, let's say every town/state rolls such a scheme out. Now every student in the nation is having their tuition paid. It's also costing about the same amount as if the government levied taxes and paid the costs.

A negative, compared to government funding, is that the economy has lost mobility of labour. Getting a full scholarship requires the child to be enrolled from K-12. Loss of mobility might be a good thing, in that it prompts people to improve their local economy, rather than run away. Alternatively, it could lock people into a form of serfdom, unable to move to better their situation.

I'd advocate that a voucher system, whereby the government gives each student a voucher for the degree of their choice, would be preferable to the widespread adoption of "the promise".

Re: Anonymous Donor Pays for College of Every Student in Kalamazoo

#32

Post by AJ007 »

alttag wrote: post #7

Wow. That's neat. I once had a conversation with a state legislator where he argued it wasn't the responsibility of government to provide grant and loan opportunities for higher education, and that by doing so, the federal government was disincentivizing saving and investing. Instead, he argued universities should be more market driven (which I will concede might introduce more price competition in the face of rapidl…

http://www.finaid.org/savings/tuition-inflation.phtml (those graphs don't really do it justice, but if you know your math you know what a difference being several point ahead of inflation for decades does to the difference in price.)

Its a shame that an entire generation of educated Americans are being enslaved by an unparallelled level of debt so early in their lives. The NYTimes has had many articles that give a good idea of how deep the problem is: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/01/business/shedding-student-... http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/09/business/once-a-student-no...

I'm an optimist. The problem will fix itself thanks to technology. Education in the future is going to be nearly free. I think it is going to happen a lot sooner than people realize. Runaway education inflation will make even the "expensive" solutions look dirt cheap.

There will be some ugly financial realities along the way. Private, public, not for profit, and for profit schools will go belly up along the way. Educators who teach things that can be taught online better will find themselves with no job market. Students whose defaulted $70k loan balloons to $200k because of non-payment will be at a tremendous financial disadvantage over the next generation of students with no debt.

Kalamazoo makes for a warm feeling story. Reality is a lot more sinister. It is giving free weapons to one small group in an arms race. In this case, everyone else is getting killed with debt.

Re: Anonymous Donor Pays for College of Every Student in Kalamazoo

#33

Post by kevinconroy »

femto wrote: post #31

On the assumption this is a good thing, let's say every town/state rolls such a scheme out. Now every student in the nation is having their tuition paid. It's also costing about the same amount as if the government levied taxes and paid the costs. A negative, compared to government funding, is that the economy has lost mobility of labour. Getting a full scholarship requires the child to be enrolled from K-12. Loss of…

Lack of mobility is a key part of the experiment here. It's an economic growth strategy - attract families that value education, get them to set up roots, and the local economy will benefit.

If this were to roll out on a national level then it would be much similar to public school, but rather than K-12, it'd be K-BA. Maybe there'd be vouchers, maybe not.

The point is that this is an experimental model for economic growth and social benefit for the town, not the model for the entire nation.

Re: Anonymous Donor Pays for College of Every Student in Kalamazoo

#34

Post by sukuriant »

msellout wrote: post #21
sukuriant wrote: post #2

And now. Whatever you do. No. Whatever. You. Do. Do. NOT. Turn back on this promise. Make it happen. No ifs, ands, or buts. Period. And colleges. If somehow, something terrible happens, and the money stops coming in. Let those kids finish for free anyway. Anything less is the newest worst thing that could happen to these kids and then adults. [edit: I am curious about the downvotes. From what I gathered, the people t…

The down-votes may be in response to the style of your prose and that your comment is directed to people that (most likely) do not read this forum. If you want to engage with the other forum readers, perhaps you should have said something along the lines of: "I worry that this funding promise will be broken if the donors lose some of their wealth. If that occurs, the children's lives may be worse than if the promise…

Forgive me; but, you say you disagree with the sentiment, but you disagree with it on the bounds that the thing you're disagreeing with is unlikely to happen. That doesn't change the damage that could/would happen if the unfortunate thing DID happen; and that shouldn't cause you to disagree with the sentiment, from my understanding. Perhaps I'm understanding you incorrectly?

I read what you said as:

* Taking A away after giving A is worse than never giving A in the first place.

* People giving A are probably not in a position to lose A.

* Therefore, I disagree that losing A would be a bad thing.

Re: Anonymous Donor Pays for College of Every Student in Kalamazoo

#35

Post by kevinconroy »

jdminhbg wrote: post #27
kevinconroy wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlike gold which is a scare resource, knowledge is non-rivalous. College tuition acts as an economic exclusion mechanism and thus only allows consumers/students with sufficient means to gain access to it. By removing the exclusion mechanism for these students, it in effect turns college education into a public good. As a country, we've deemed that this is so vastly in the public interest that we provide free K-12 ed…

Knowledge is non-rivalrous, but it's not settled that the value of a college education comes mostly from added knowledge. If instead it comes from signaling, then it's no longer the case.

Agree with you on the signally aspect. As a nation we've become obsessed with college degrees and college may not be the right choice for everyone. But that's a whole other discussion thread.

Re: Anonymous Donor Pays for College of Every Student in Kalamazoo

#37

Post by ktizo »

elmuchoprez wrote: post #22
mahmud wrote: post #5

What would be the unintended negative consequences of this? It reminds me of the story of a West African king who went on a pilgrimage to Mecca. On his way to Arabia, the king gifted so much gold to all intervening communities that the price of gold crashed, taking with it the economies of North Africa and Arabia.

The same as any tuition program or grant: When you separate the cost from the consumer, prices skyrocket. With 100% of their tuition being paid by anonymous donors, why should these kids care how much it costs? And if the kids don't care and have a blank check, why shouldn't the schools raise the price tag? I'm just using this an example of unintended consequences in this type of stuff. I'm well aware this handful of…

When you separate the cost from the consumer, prices skyrocket.

Not always. Cost of education in the UK has skyrocketed more since the scrapping of grants in favour of a loans+tuition fees model. Part of this is that when there is a marketplace based on prestige, nobody wants to appear cheap, so price becomes based on the highest price that the market will bear.

Re: Anonymous Donor Pays for College of Every Student in Kalamazoo

#38

Post by 001sky »

kevinconroy wrote: post #33
femto wrote: post #31

On the assumption this is a good thing, let's say every town/state rolls such a scheme out. Now every student in the nation is having their tuition paid. It's also costing about the same amount as if the government levied taxes and paid the costs. A negative, compared to government funding, is that the economy has lost mobility of labour. Getting a full scholarship requires the child to be enrolled from K-12. Loss of…

Lack of mobility is a key part of the experiment here. It's an economic growth strategy - attract families that value education, get them to set up roots, and the local economy will benefit. If this were to roll out on a national level then it would be much similar to public school, but rather than K-12, it'd be K-BA. Maybe there'd be vouchers, maybe not. The point is that this is an experimental model for economic g…

This is totally interesting point. The experiment has to be seen as the 18 year time-frame. How many Parents can rationally expect 18 years in Job? That type of career is getting further away from the norm, it seems
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