It’s impossible to work your way through college nowadays • Hacker News Board

Re: It’s impossible to work your way through college nowadays

#161

Post by Crake » Mon, Mar 24, 2014, 2:30 AM UTC

glenra wrote: post #80

frostmatthew wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What you need to chart this is some measure of how much college students actually are earning over time, not a measure of the lowest wage it's legally permissible to pay them. That would only be useful if either a) we knew there were no students working minimum wage jobs or b) we were unconcerned with students unable to obtain higher paying jobs

I'm responding to the headline claim that it's allegedly impossible to work oneself through college. The corrected claim is that it's quite difficult to work through college on a minimum-wage job . But probably still possible for some if you're a CS major or an architectural major or any number of other majors. Basically, if your degree is one that promises to be lucrative or if you have any other valuable skills or…

You need to have the money upfront to pay for the first two years of college, though. You can't use money you won't earn for another two years to pay a tuition bill that's due now.

At the amount I was getting paid in 2007, it would have taken me 33.3 years to save up for the first two years of in state public college.

Re: It’s impossible to work your way through college nowadays

#162

Post by rahimnathwani » Mon, Mar 24, 2014, 2:32 AM UTC

gambiting wrote: post #114

jdreaver wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. Most of those loans, however, are sponsored by the government and can't be defaulted on. No normal lender would give an 18 year old $50,000 to get a degree in anthropology, because they are unlikely to get it back. When the student is legally obligated to pay it back, then there is much little risk to the lender. If defaulting on student loans were possible, then the cost of college would decrease.

But this is exactly how UK student loans work - you only pay them off if you make more than X amount of money per year(and then the amount of money you pay off is proportional to how much you make), and if you never make that much money, then you never pay it off and after 40 years the loan is forfeit.

The same loan/tuition dynamics don't apply in the UK, because:

- The government controls undergraduate tuition fees for UK/EU students (currently capped at 9k per year).

- Until about 25 years ago, undergraduates' tuition fees and living expenses were paid by the state. These two direct subsidies have gradually been replaced by student loans. It will take some time for people's tolerance for larger and larger student loans to match that in the US.

Re: It’s impossible to work your way through college nowadays

#163

Post by stefan_kendall3 » Mon, Mar 24, 2014, 2:35 AM UTC

mbesto wrote: post #142

jdreaver wrote: post #17

We have to ask ourselves why college is so expensive. When some people read articles like this, they call for more government aid to students. "We need to help young, hard working students from unprivileged backgrounds to pay for college!" Their hearts are certainly in the right place, and it isn't an unreasonable idea at first glance. However, could this idea be part of the problem? Maybe giving people free money fo…

> We have to ask ourselves why college is so expensive. I think there is a more simplistic answer to this question. 1. Obama said everyone should go to college. (demand increases) 2. Supply is scarce (we don't have enough good teachers, so people are battling to go to the best university however way - money - possible) 3. If demand increases, and supplies decrease, it means price elasticity expands (prices go up) 4.…

1.) No.

2.) False. There are waaaaaaay too many professors, to the point where most aren't tenured and make barely livable wages. There is a limited supply of universities, but it seems like most collude on prices, or at least refuse to compete on price. At any rate, universities seem to scale pretty well to handle extremely large population bodies, aside from a few statistical outliers that don't matter for this conversation.

3.) Demand has been constant for a while, along with supply. Easy credit is the driver of price change here, not a radical shift in supply or demand.

4.) "We are trying to increase supply". Education isn't what's lacking. You can learn a lot from independent study and books. What's lacking is degree factories. MOOCs aren't degree farms, so they are not an equivalent good.

Re: It’s impossible to work your way through college nowadays

#164

Post by Crake » Mon, Mar 24, 2014, 2:35 AM UTC

danpat wrote: post #26

wambotron wrote: post #23

Isn't this just basic supply and demand? There are more students trying to go to university now than there were in the 70s. It's basically become the next version of high school socially (and, sadly, also academically in many cases). What we need is a culture that respects people who want to just work at a factory, a big box store, a mall, whatever, without pushing them into doing something they don't want to do (sch…

The demand is artificially inflated by the ready availability of loan money. Many loans cannot legally be denied. This removes what otherwise would be a barrier to frivolous spending.

Well, the most you can take out is $5,500 as an 18 year old. They're more than happy to legally deny you any other loans if you don't have the support of a rich family to cosign some private ones for you.

Re: It’s impossible to work your way through college nowadays

#165

Post by stefan_kendall3 » Mon, Mar 24, 2014, 2:45 AM UTC

dobbsbob wrote: post #134

WriteYourRep wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked my way through university from 2006-2010. I was able to pay for my freshman year due to a gift from grandparents and random saving (2005-2006). Spring 2006 I got a full time job with the university. I worked for the school because they give great benefits to full time employees. My tuition was cut from ~6k/semester to ~2k. I was making more than minimum wage, nearly double at the time at $13/hour. This helpe…

How did you do assignments? I was given about 2hrs work per lecture, and usually a long term project as well so would do around 5-6hrs of after school work often longer if I was stuck on some essay writing. Phil essay/argument to write, 2 chapters in Phys to do, 2 Math chapters, write a polisci essay and read 3 chapters, then churning out a small program while working on the midterm larger program was a typical night…

My CS degree cost me about an hour a day in homework on bad days. I skipped many classes, only took relevant coursework, and graduated in 3 years.

Re: It’s impossible to work your way through college nowadays

#166

Post by spacehome » Mon, Mar 24, 2014, 2:46 AM UTC

stefan_kendall3 wrote: post #163

mbesto wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We have to ask ourselves why college is so expensive. I think there is a more simplistic answer to this question. 1. Obama said everyone should go to college. (demand increases) 2. Supply is scarce (we don't have enough good teachers, so people are battling to go to the best university however way - money - possible) 3. If demand increases, and supplies decrease, it means price elasticity expands (prices go up) 4.…

1.) No. 2.) False. There are waaaaaaay too many professors, to the point where most aren't tenured and make barely livable wages. There is a limited supply of universities, but it seems like most collude on prices, or at least refuse to compete on price. At any rate, universities seem to scale pretty well to handle extremely large population bodies, aside from a few statistical outliers that don't matter for this con…

Why would universities need to compete on price if there are surplus qualified professors? It sounds like the low wages are a function of excess supply.

Re: It’s impossible to work your way through college nowadays

#167

Post by Crake » Mon, Mar 24, 2014, 2:57 AM UTC

davidf18 wrote: post #127

In years past, states contributed a much larger proportion of public school budgets than they do today. Much of that money now goes towards Medicaid. Much of that Medicaid money does not go towards the poor but rather middle class who go to nursing homes. They spend down their assets and transfer them to their children. Hence, at least partially because of the middle class not buying nursing home insurance, the publi…

I actually moved from the midwest to NYC for exactly that reason. I can't afford the in state public university in my home state, so I had to move here, as ridiculous as that sounds. Luckily, NYC is not nearly as expensive as people make it out to be. I pay about $200/month more in living expenses, but it's $10,000/year cheaper to go to school here and I get free health care through medicaid (important since I have a very painful health condition). I have no family support, so I have to make it work through, well, work and what little money I can get from federal financial aid.

I'm really grateful CCNY still exists to provide me a path out of poverty. However, they're hiking tuition by $800/year for the next few years, so soon it'll be unaffordable, too...

Re: It’s impossible to work your way through college nowadays

#168

Post by zymhan » Mon, Mar 24, 2014, 2:58 AM UTC

aspensmonster wrote: post #141

Actually, I think HN user mrxd hit the nail on the head here: >Here's another graph showing that the recent rise in tuition in Michigan is due to declining state education appropriations. > http://i.imgur.com/5gYHQK5.png ==================================== DING DING DING! Why did I have to scroll to the bottom to see this? As far as I'm concerned this is the major symptom that few people ever look at, much less ever…

I had to scroll halfway down the page to find your comment, which still depressed me.

As another young 20-something, I always wonder why people are so quick to use the "administrative bloat" or "federal loans" arguments when discussing rising tuition. The data seems to clearly support the relation between state funding and tuition costs, and yet less substantiated claims continue to rise to the top.

Do I think college administrations could stand to lay off some people? Sure. Does that mean that those extra employees are the reason I'm saddled with $40k in loans? Hell no. If you don't want to pitch in to fund college educations, then fine, but don't act like the reason students are paying more isn't because of you.

Re: It’s impossible to work your way through college nowadays

#169

Post by kd0amg » Mon, Mar 24, 2014, 2:59 AM UTC

Fomite wrote: post #109

RyanZAG wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic. "

The vast majority of people have no aspiration towards being an academic administrator, and academic administrators aren't exactly a powerful voting block.

One might argue that in decisions about how to allocate a university's budget, they are the most powerful voting bloc.

Re: It’s impossible to work your way through college nowadays

#170

Post by glesica » Mon, Mar 24, 2014, 3:54 AM UTC

sp332 wrote: post #154

glesica wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know that it has anything to do with voting since, as I pointed out, the bloat-causing rules come from both parties.

Voting doesn't always (or even usually) mean choosing Democrat vs. Repulican. Here, it means choosing between passing a law and not passing a law.

True, but then you're talking about legislative votes, so more important than voting is action by pressure groups. Maybe it's accurate to say that they are "lobbying" themselves money.