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The college-for-all model isn't working

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Re: The college-for-all model isn't working

#101

Post by WalterBright »

arebop wrote: post #91
WalterBright wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always wondered about the reputed benefit of learning to think critically from a liberal arts education. For example, with engineering, an airplane built from your design flies or does not. There's no pretending it flies when it doesn't. Reality cannot be fooled, so one is forced to learn to think critically. But with liberal arts, the same person can argue both points of view with equal facility - how does one…

The liberal arts mechanism for ordering arguments is democracy! The idea of liberal arts is that their study enables one to participate as a full-fledged member of society. Thinking critically about arguments that concern society requires not just checking the validity but also the soundness of an argument. I suppose you really need some understanding of culture and history to make up your mind about many issues of i…

Re: validity of the argument.

In engineering, you learn to discern logical fallacies rather quickly. Insulting your computer (ad hom) won't fix bugs in your programs. Insults in issues of importance to society are the norm, even going to the highest levels.

As a lawyer friend told me once:

1. if justice is on your side, argue justice

2. if the law is on your side, argue the law

3. if neither the law nor justice is on your side, insult the other side

Re: The college-for-all model isn't working

#102

Post by 3pt14159 »

fiesycal wrote: post #86
3pt14159 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are skill shortages, just look to any job that pays over $100k. Data Scientists, Web Developers, Oil Rig Workers, Underwater welders, etc. The problem is that they arn't easy skills to learn or they arn't comfortable tasks to do.

Is it a skills shortage or a won't-pay-market-value shortage? If more MBA's and the like start choosing silicon valley will Wall Street cry shortage or will they just raise the rates of pay and bonuses? If someone making 100k a year couldn't find a helicopter to buy they would be laughed out of the room if they suggested it was due to a shortage of helicopters rather then them not having enough money to buy. But comp…

It's supply and demand man. The reason I don't own a helicopter is precisely because there is a shortage. Anything with a free-floating price is in shortage. I would totally buy a helicopter if they were $10k or less.

My point is that there isn't this magical jobs fountain that people are holding back from the masses, it's that there are large portions of the population that lack skills that are in demand in the work force.

I don't see how this is a controversial opinion.

Re: The college-for-all model isn't working

#103

Post by fiesycal »

3pt14159 wrote: post #102
fiesycal wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it a skills shortage or a won't-pay-market-value shortage? If more MBA's and the like start choosing silicon valley will Wall Street cry shortage or will they just raise the rates of pay and bonuses? If someone making 100k a year couldn't find a helicopter to buy they would be laughed out of the room if they suggested it was due to a shortage of helicopters rather then them not having enough money to buy. But comp…

It's supply and demand man. The reason I don't own a helicopter is precisely because there is a shortage. Anything with a free-floating price is in shortage. I would totally buy a helicopter if they were $10k or less. My point is that there isn't this magical jobs fountain that people are holding back from the masses, it's that there are large portions of the population that lack skills that are in demand in the work…

The controversial opinion is that despite the 'shortage' (http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/education/the-stem-crisis-i... don't increase their pay rates substantially and instead complain that there's no one to hire.

Re: The college-for-all model isn't working

#104

Post by kyzyl »

I see a lot of folks here talking about college education in economic terms. So, sure, the evidence is certainly mounting that we've mucked something up: tuition is stupidly high, graduation rates are low, people are dogging their way through college 'just because' et cetra. But nobody (around here, anyhow) seems to be speaking on higher education in terms of intrinsic value.

I'm talking about the way going to a university integrates you with a ton of strange, weird, different people. How there is a tremendous amount of information and culture that is absorbed, either by directly learning it or simply by osmosis. The 'by osmosis' thing might be a bit of an assertion, but I think that most people who've been to university can probably relate to the concept.

In my opinion that adds a lot of value to a society. I know these are not original ideas, and it wouldn't be nice to live in a highly educated society where absolutely nobody has work, but I wouldn't immediately discount the value that is added by sending the masses through university. As explained by numerous people here, this strategy is clearly broken as a method of certification and job training. Does that mean that we should do a 180 and reserve anything beyond vocational training for the Marxes, Shakespeares, and Feynmans? I think not. I'm not suggesting that people here are promoting that idea, just illustrating that moving in that direction might destroy a lot of value that's not as plainly seen as one's student loan balance (something I can certainly relate to...) or the national unemployment rate. Maybe I'm just being young and naive.

Re: The college-for-all model isn't working

#105

Post by [deleted] »

tbrownaw wrote: post #97
randomdata wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I was trying to prove that there isn't a shortage, rather if you're only offering a "generous" rate and not the rate that actually attracts people, then you are not really playing in the market. With that said, what is a shortage? Is there a shortage of Ferraris because I cannot afford one, or am I just too poor to consider owning one? Is there a shortage of developers until every developer is working fo…

A shortage is what happens when there is a significant delay between prices rising and supply rising. If demand gradually increases, both quantity and price will rise steadily. If there is a shortage, price first rises sharply with little or no increase in quantity and then falls with a significant increase in quantity.

[deleted]

Re: The college-for-all model isn't working

#106

Post by mrxd »

roc wrote: post #37
mrxd wrote: post #26

It's hard for me to take this article seriously with so many falsehoods. Shortage of STEM workers? Debunked: http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/education/the-stem-crisis-i... College costs out of control? Only because states are cutting subsidies for higher education and forcing students to pay more. That said, towards the end there are some good points. It could be argued that there's a public interest in promoting hi…

Tuition couldn't skyrocket if students had no means to pay it. The enabler in this situation, is the disconnect between the availability of financing and the product being financed. You can't get a $60,000 loan for a $20,000 car, but you can absolutely rack up that much (or more) in college debt, for an education indistinguishable from one at a third of the cost. With that kind of distortion in the market, why would…

If your explanation were true, we should expect tuition to immediately shift to students when federal loans and grants became available in 1965.

But in fact, the data shows that state tuition subsidies for public 4-year colleges have declined slowly, except in the years following recessions when states cut their budgets. These years show much more dramatic declines. This is consistent with my hypothesis that state budget cuts are the primary driver of tuition increases.

It's possible that your point still holds, that the availability of federal loans made it easier for states to cut tuition subsidies. But that's a change in the politics of the issue, not a market distortion. Without federal aid, politicians would be more vulnerable to the charge that they're making college less accessible.

Federal loans have obviously not created a tuition bubble, for the simple reason that the cost of a public 4-year education (the price charged to states + students) is essentially unchanged over the last 25 years.

The story may be different for for-profit colleges. If you want to argue that there's a market distortion there, essentially that for-profit colleges are gouging students and the government, I could easily be persuaded. But since only 10% of students are enrolled in these schools, they're unlikely to be the main source of increasing student debt.

Re: The college-for-all model isn't working

#107

Post by SiVal »

fiesycal wrote: post #86
3pt14159 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are skill shortages, just look to any job that pays over $100k. Data Scientists, Web Developers, Oil Rig Workers, Underwater welders, etc. The problem is that they arn't easy skills to learn or they arn't comfortable tasks to do.

Is it a skills shortage or a won't-pay-market-value shortage? If more MBA's and the like start choosing silicon valley will Wall Street cry shortage or will they just raise the rates of pay and bonuses? If someone making 100k a year couldn't find a helicopter to buy they would be laughed out of the room if they suggested it was due to a shortage of helicopters rather then them not having enough money to buy. But comp…

I'm not sure what you think the "market value" is that employers won't pay. I'd guess it's something reasonable like the minimum you'd have to pay to get all the skilled workers you need. Raise your pay offer slowly, gradually attracting more people, until you have the people you need, and that amount of pay is the market rate.

But what if that rate of pay is more than the new employees are worth to the company, so hiring them would not benefit the company at all? Then it's not a market rate, because market rate isn't just the outer edge of what one side finds acceptable. If both sides don't find the rate acceptable, there's no market rate.

If a "greedy" employer refuses to pay what it takes to hire all the people they need, while their enlightened competitor does pay what it takes to get the necessary additional labor, one of those employers will have higher profits than the other, and the one with lower profits will be pressured by their investors to become more like the other.

That has been going on for centuries, and the result is a "labor shortage" in some areas, meaning companies (that always face competition from other companies) can't get all the labor they want at existing rates and wouldn't benefit from additional labor at higher rates. The problem may well be gradually driving the company out of business, but still, raising their wages would just drive them out of business faster.

Re: The college-for-all model isn't working

#108

Post by chongli »

sliverstorm wrote: post #89
danudey wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also far more valuable to teach your kids to save for their own college. A few years of odd jobs, paper delivery, whatever will make them appreciate that money isn't infinite. My parents didn't (and couldn't) afford to pay for my college, and thanks to that I knew that every year I stayed would be another ten grand in debt I would have to pay off. That led to me leaving university after a pointless year and goin…

I don't know that a paper delivery route will have a meaningful impact on college tuition.

Yeah, unless they plan on delivering papers for about a century or two.

Re: The college-for-all model isn't working

#109

Post by chongli »

mrxd wrote: post #106
roc wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tuition couldn't skyrocket if students had no means to pay it. The enabler in this situation, is the disconnect between the availability of financing and the product being financed. You can't get a $60,000 loan for a $20,000 car, but you can absolutely rack up that much (or more) in college debt, for an education indistinguishable from one at a third of the cost. With that kind of distortion in the market, why would…

If your explanation were true, we should expect tuition to immediately shift to students when federal loans and grants became available in 1965. But in fact, the data shows that state tuition subsidies for public 4-year colleges have declined slowly, except in the years following recessions when states cut their budgets. These years show much more dramatic declines. This is consistent with my hypothesis that state bu…

This is consistent with my hypothesis that state budget cuts are the primary driver of tuition increases.

Two words: administrative bloat!

Re: The college-for-all model isn't working

#110

Post by fiesycal »

SiVal wrote: post #107
fiesycal wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it a skills shortage or a won't-pay-market-value shortage? If more MBA's and the like start choosing silicon valley will Wall Street cry shortage or will they just raise the rates of pay and bonuses? If someone making 100k a year couldn't find a helicopter to buy they would be laughed out of the room if they suggested it was due to a shortage of helicopters rather then them not having enough money to buy. But comp…

I'm not sure what you think the "market value" is that employers won't pay. I'd guess it's something reasonable like the minimum you'd have to pay to get all the skilled workers you need. Raise your pay offer slowly, gradually attracting more people, until you have the people you need, and that amount of pay is the market rate. But what if that rate of pay is more than the new employees are worth to the company, so h…

What I'm saying is if you can't find employees at the current wage you're paying and increasing the wage means the employee is no longer worth it than you have the right amount of employees and there is no shortage. Companies aren't entitled to employees or entitled to be in business. Just because you can't afford something doesn't mean there is a shortage. But companies who are in this situation complain that there is a shortage when really they just can't afford the employees. All I meant was that I was annoyed at the constant talk of 'shortages'.
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