Colleges are full of it: Behind the three-decade scheme to raise tuition • Hacker News Board

Re: Colleges are full of it: Behind the three-decade scheme to raise tuition

#71

Post by hga » Sun, Jun 08, 2014, 10:07 PM UTC

muzz wrote: post #68

hga wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" guaranteed pay back to the banks " Not as of June 30, 2010: part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act AKA Obamacare was using the profits from those student loans to fund it, the government is originating all "guaranteed" loans after that date.

The taxpayer savings don't fund Obamacare but rather go back into higher education: "The Congressional Budget Office said the direct-lending approach would save taxpayers about $61 billion over 10 years. Roughly $40 billion of the savings will be redirected to higher education. Education programs will get an additional $10 billion from the health care package." http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/26/us/politics/26loans.ht…

OK, 1/3 of the profits, per CBO scoring.

Assuming the arrangement isn't changed in the future.

There was a reason to attach it to Obamacare after all, it helped make the CBO's numbers, artificial as they are, add up.

Re: Colleges are full of it: Behind the three-decade scheme to raise tuition

#72

Post by tomaskafka » Sun, Jun 08, 2014, 10:09 PM UTC

vilhelm_s wrote: post #63

jcalvinowens wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Without minimum coverage it's just a subsidy Sorry, I was unclear: the idea would be that a college that accepts the $N tuition would be prohibited from charging the students attending any additional tuition.

Note that this is how things work in many European countries (e.g. Sweden): universities cannot charge any tuition from students, but they get a certain amount of money per student from the government. This way the government can control the price exactly, so there are no risk of runaway tuition levels.

Yes, this happens, and it results in one of two (or both) logical reactions:

1) schools accepting any students and doing the filtering at the outflow instead, kicking out people that should not have passed the entry test after three years of studies.

2) schools lowering the bars and just pulling through them as many students as possible, because you need a lot of balls to do 1) and there are not that many balls in academic environment

Re: Colleges are full of it: Behind the three-decade scheme to raise tuition

#73

Post by hga » Sun, Jun 08, 2014, 10:10 PM UTC

ruswick wrote: post #56

withdavidli wrote: post #4

I'm very opinionated about colleges / tuition. Many people find value in it, or they justify it somehow like they couldn't get the education / experience some other, more affordable, way. My thoughts on the solution is the same for housing increases. Get rid of the government loans. In this situation also make student loans able to discharge by bankruptcy, that way banks will think twice about it as well. The easier…

Yes. This article makes the ridiculous error of totally ignoring the fact that trivial access to loans and overall exuberance around college creates NO downward pressure on prices. So long as people are willing to pay almost anything and have access to the money to do so, prices will continue to rise. In my opinion, the "spiral" is largely the fault of excess government subsidization and price insensitivity. College…

Can't believe I forgot to mention this earlier: student tuition is pure gold for colleges, because the money is not earmarked like most donations, many government sources (e.g. overhead charged on research grants), etc.

Re: Colleges are full of it: Behind the three-decade scheme to raise tuition

#74

Post by programminggeek » Sun, Jun 08, 2014, 10:11 PM UTC

Cheap money means prices can go up and it's all based on an old sales trick... "3 easy payments of $19.95!"

That makes people feel like what they are buying is $20, or closer to $20 than $60.

Imagine you are selling an expensive piece of fitness equipment like a Bowflex or Nordick Track, or Total Gym or whatever. Those things retail for $500-1,500. How many people go to the store and drop $1,000 on a home gym? Not many. However, a lot of people buy equally expensive products via infomercials, QVC, and Home Shopping Network because of the payment plans.

Low interest mortgages and student loans spread out over a 30 year period make these huge ticket purchases more "affordable". They also totally distort the cost of the purchase.

The fact is, people make decisions to solve short term pain, not for long term gain.

The universities, credit card companies, banks, etc. are taking advantage of a system that we all built and participate in. It might not be what is best, but it is certainly our own creation and at some point society should take ownership of our own flaws, not continue to blame other people.

College and homeownership are a choice. There are alternatives. If we don't like the current system, it's up to us to change it or not participate in it.

Re: Colleges are full of it: Behind the three-decade scheme to raise tuition

#75

Post by adminprof » Sun, Jun 08, 2014, 10:15 PM UTC

forrestthewoods wrote: post #35

adminprof wrote: post #19

I'm a professor at an ivy league university who has gotten some insight into the budgets. There's a few things that are often not reported in the media: 1) The tuition sticker price is going up, but the actual price paid remains about the same due to increasing financial aid given to students. 2) The largest cost driven in the past decade is partially due to a successful increase in recruiting+admitting underrepresen…

Can you break down the numbers for #1? If Stanford is $60,000 how much if that is the actual sticker price? How much of that is being given to other students in free financial aid? As a follow-up, how fucking INSANE is it for someone who can't afford a school to take out a loan to pay for that school and a portion of that loan pay for someone else who also can't afford to go? For me to take out a loan to pay for some…

I googled a bit and Stanford actually has some nice numbers posted online: http://ucomm.stanford.edu/cds/2013

It says tuition=fees is 43K/year, and Stanford provides 126M in institutional financial aid (i.e. not from the government). They had about 7K undergrads, so it looks like 18K/year per student. That's just my guess because I don't know how graduate students are counted, or other accounting anomalies.

Re: Colleges are full of it: Behind the three-decade scheme to raise tuition

#76

Post by adminprof » Sun, Jun 08, 2014, 10:18 PM UTC

guelo wrote: post #36

adminprof wrote: post #19

I'm a professor at an ivy league university who has gotten some insight into the budgets. There's a few things that are often not reported in the media: 1) The tuition sticker price is going up, but the actual price paid remains about the same due to increasing financial aid given to students. 2) The largest cost driven in the past decade is partially due to a successful increase in recruiting+admitting underrepresen…

This comment is like a bad parody of the excuses in the article. 1) So are all the stats that say that students are paying more, and are graduating with more debt, lies? 2) Blaming poor people is the latest trend in elite apologias. Same with the real estate bubble, it's the poor people that blew up the economy! 3) Student orgs, TAs and tutors are a totally new thing that didn't exist before tuition exploded, oh wait…

I was referring specifically to private research universities, which maybe account for 1% of students. Public universities have gotten more expensive, and there have been a lot of students enrolling in for-profit colleges. There's plenty of ways you can count the numbers.

Re: Colleges are full of it: Behind the three-decade scheme to raise tuition

#77

Post by sergiosgc » Sun, Jun 08, 2014, 10:20 PM UTC

tomaskafka wrote: post #72

vilhelm_s wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that this is how things work in many European countries (e.g. Sweden): universities cannot charge any tuition from students, but they get a certain amount of money per student from the government. This way the government can control the price exactly, so there are no risk of runaway tuition levels.

Yes, this happens, and it results in one of two (or both) logical reactions: 1) schools accepting any students and doing the filtering at the outflow instead, kicking out people that should not have passed the entry test after three years of studies. 2) schools lowering the bars and just pulling through them as many students as possible, because you need a lot of balls to do 1) and there are not that many balls in ac…

The correction mechanism is twofold, and in-place throughout Europe: a) Universities must publish employment statistics with indicators for salaries at different horizons; b) Students have k years of extra runway to graduate or drop out. Dropouts cost school budget.

They correct both errors. One almost immediately, the other when/if the market recognizes low graduate quality.

Re: Colleges are full of it: Behind the three-decade scheme to raise tuition

#78

Post by maxerickson » Sun, Jun 08, 2014, 10:22 PM UTC

adminprof wrote: post #75

forrestthewoods wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you break down the numbers for #1? If Stanford is $60,000 how much if that is the actual sticker price? How much of that is being given to other students in free financial aid? As a follow-up, how fucking INSANE is it for someone who can't afford a school to take out a loan to pay for that school and a portion of that loan pay for someone else who also can't afford to go? For me to take out a loan to pay for some…

I googled a bit and Stanford actually has some nice numbers posted online: http://ucomm.stanford.edu/cds/2013 It says tuition=fees is 43K/year, and Stanford provides 126M in institutional financial aid (i.e. not from the government). They had about 7K undergrads, so it looks like 18K/year per student. That's just my guess because I don't know how graduate students are counted, or other accounting anomalies.

One of the tables (H2) specifies that 3,485 undergrads receive an average of $40,460.

Re: Colleges are full of it: Behind the three-decade scheme to raise tuition

#79

Post by jcalvinowens » Sun, Jun 08, 2014, 10:24 PM UTC

tomaskafka wrote: post #72

vilhelm_s wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that this is how things work in many European countries (e.g. Sweden): universities cannot charge any tuition from students, but they get a certain amount of money per student from the government. This way the government can control the price exactly, so there are no risk of runaway tuition levels.

Yes, this happens, and it results in one of two (or both) logical reactions: 1) schools accepting any students and doing the filtering at the outflow instead, kicking out people that should not have passed the entry test after three years of studies. 2) schools lowering the bars and just pulling through them as many students as possible, because you need a lot of balls to do 1) and there are not that many balls in ac…

> schools accepting any students and doing the filtering at the outflow instead

I'm not arguing that anybody be allowed to go to college on the public dime. There would need to be some sort of qualification involved. Otherwise we would see shoddy colleges pop up that admit everybody that applies.

What that qualification would be is another problem entirely of course...

> 2) schools lowering the bars and just pulling through them as many students as possible, because you need a lot of balls to do 1) and there are not that many balls in academic environment

In my opinion, this is already a significant problem in the US. Short of having standardized exams required to earn a degree (a bar exam for every discipline), it's not an easy problem to solve.

Re: Colleges are full of it: Behind the three-decade scheme to raise tuition

#80

Post by larrys » Sun, Jun 08, 2014, 10:26 PM UTC

jcalvinowens wrote: post #32

withdavidli wrote: post #4

I'm very opinionated about colleges / tuition. Many people find value in it, or they justify it somehow like they couldn't get the education / experience some other, more affordable, way. My thoughts on the solution is the same for housing increases. Get rid of the government loans. In this situation also make student loans able to discharge by bankruptcy, that way banks will think twice about it as well. The easier…

> Get rid of the government loans. I'm going to make an argument I imagine many here will disagree with: perhaps the solution to the cost problem is to have publicly financed post-secondary education? Imagine this: the US government tells colleges it will pay $N per semester on behalf of any student who meets certain qualifications to attend that college. Colleges would be free to refuse to accept this, but with the…

" it will pay $N per semester on behalf of any student who meets certain qualifications to attend that college"

Well right off the top how do you define "qualifications". I mean if your answer is (and this is a question not a statement) "meets certain testing standards" or "belongs to certain clubs and does certain activities" you will almost certainly disadvantage certain students that might get accepted because the total "package" of them (as a student and a person) balances out the student body.

Then what we will have is even more of a system that feeds students in that are trained in high school only one way - to test well. This of course has already been happening with test prep however my feeling is any "qualifications" will push us more in that direction.