Biggest Offender in Outsize Debt: Master’s Degrees

They charge 2-3X higher tuition.

In the US, 4-year private (non-profit) college tuition averages somewhere around $60K/year, while 4-year public (in-state) college tuition is closer to $20K. Out of state tuition is much higher, and state schools make a "profit" on out of state student ($50K tuition). But they are still competitive because similar private colleges cost even more.

Lots of government-sponsored social programs manage on shoe-string budgets.

In the US, it really comes down to how Republicans feel about a program. The programs they hate are often forced to run at maximum efficiency because they face an large amount of scrutiny and budget instability.

It's the programs that Republican fail to scrutinize that become symbols of waste and mismanagement. The biggest and most obvious case is the military. I can't imagine the HHS being in a situation where they are forced by Congress to spend a few hundred million dollars on equipment they don't need, so it's given away, or having any project that costs $1,500,000,000,000.

I hate to be political like this, but it's an observable trend. Scrutiny over the use of public funds by officials is an efficient means of cost-control. But the country has an issue with selective enforcement based, it seems, on how much of a program's budget is funneled into the hands of private government contractors.

>The difference between math and philosophy is that having a pure maths degree will provide someone with a number of job prospects. But that isn't really the intent of math programs.

I realize this, but the reality, as you stated yourself, is that it really does make you employable. The intent doesn't matter; the actual employability the degree confers does.

Theater degrees are basically the opposite here. The goal of that degree is surely to produce people who can act on stage (and have it transferrable to TV/movies too I suppose), but the reality is that it isn't very employable because there just aren't many job openings in that field compared to the number of people who want to work in it.

The intent doesn't matter if you're in control of allocating money for degrees for prospective students; the only thing that matters is how likely those borrowers will be to pay back their loans, or if this is a grant (i.e. free university), how likely this investment will be to produce someone who will pay back society with taxes. A degree that has a very poor likelihood of leading to a decent-paying job is not a good investment from this point-of-view, and the "intent" of that degree is irrelevant.

Does the model from high school actually work that well?

High schools definitely seem cheaper (though I’m not sure how much cheaper), but I don’t think high schools have as much incentive to increase performance.

Regardless, I think the bigger problem here is we don’t really know what we want from colleges. They’re a status symbol, a rite of passage, a place to learn about the world, a place to try out adulthood, a place to party, a place to demonstrate intelligence, a place to learn career specific skills, and a place that promises to lift people out of poverty.

Those are all very different things.

I think we’d be better off if each of those goals were separated into different institutions. Colleges have become little utopian towns in which everything a young adult would want is wrapped into a single package. It’s like the space shuttle: it’s been designed by a committee that wants it to do everything. Expense and compromised performance is inevitable.

I think parents, kids and employers are as much to blame as the institutions themselves. You can get a lot of what college promises from different sources for a fraction of the cost. But we don’t accept the alternatives that should be driving the cost down because college is such a deeply ingrained institution, and is considered the only onramp for most forms of success. We accept the price because we feel like we have to.

The key to a good negotiation is the willingness to walk away. Until we accept that there are alternatives to the fantasy package that is modern day college, I don’t think the price will lower.

One thing I wish the article touched on: Why aren't we asking ourselves how current tuition rates got so high in the first place? If the federal government allows public universities to get away with creating administrative roles like 'Director of Picking Blue or Yellow Gatorade for the Football Team', that demands close to six-figure salaries, there's no wonder students have to incur debt to go to school. They aren't paying for their degree, they are paying the salaries of ballooning administrative chaff.