211–220 of 259 posts
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I work at a college and we are required by the federal government to report all kinds of numbers. I know grad rate is among them, and I am 99% sure it is broken down by major. Those reports are public.
Where can I find them? Interested in mining the data
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Who is going to lend tens of thousands of dollars to an 18 year old with no income, no assets, and no credit?
The HN reality distortion field is all kids will use their Stanford CS degree to work in tech for huge salaries. The reality is at least half of kids don't use their degree anyway. My waitress at the local restaurant isn't any better at waitressing because she has small mortgage sized student debt; in a hypothetical world where she couldn't get that education degree paid for, she'd merely be a happier less stressed w…
The real problem with higher education is really how we finance it. Give the lenders the ability to discriminate based on major and borrowers the ability to default easier and all of a sudden you’ve got some banks seriously motivated to ensure students get economic return on their investments. Besides, it just shouldn’t take a decade or more for someone to discharge a bad debt. Student debt seems uniquely oppressive…
Or instead, like most other advanced societies, we could stop trying to quantify higher education in purely personal economic return on investment grounds and consider an educated populace a public good.
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I absolutely did not classify all rich people. I specifically called out the extra wealthy that go out of their way to avoid taxes via loopholes or accounting tricks. Do you think Apple's billions of dollars in avoided tax is the same as someone shitting on the BART escalator? Do you think it's the same as McDonald's Corp not paying a living wage and as a result its employees being poor enough to need food stamps? (W…
It sounds like you're drawing the "extra wealthy" line at "can afford to spend $300 with a CPA"? Nobody wants to pay more taxes than they have to pay.
Just because a CPA can do it for $300 doesn't change that.
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That implies that college is only important for skill transfer towards an occupation. Historically, part of college was to help an individual grow personally and intellectually, to learn not just what to think, but how to think clearly, in order to better engage with civil society as an active participant. It's always a little off-putting when I see people suggest that higher education is just for a job, and discount…
> Historically, part of college was to help an individual grow personally and intellectually, to learn not just what to think, but how to think clearly, in order to better engage with civil society as an active participant. Do you mean elementary school? Historically, that is the level of schooling that was provided to all citizens to learn how to think and allow them to become active participants in a civil society.…
If you go back far enough you are absolutely correct, and there certainly is a history of elitism in colleges (and a legacy of discrimination).
However land grant colleges, the higher education act, Deweys ideas on pedagogy, all were premised on the idea that people needed more then rote learning and instruction in the trades to succeed.
I think you are also ignoring the influence of the Progressive educational movement and the G.I. Bill.
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Who is going to lend tens of thousands of dollars to an 18 year old with no income, no assets, and no credit? So, just to be clear 18 year olds getting tens of thousands in dischargeable loans is ridiculous, but 18 year olds getting tens of thousands in non-dischargeable loans makes total sense? I mean, I understand why if you are a person making money off student loans, the latter is a great situation to have. But f…
I think you're missing the point. I believe they intend to mean that we should fix this problem without irreparably screwing over an entire generation of potential college students
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It's a well-known fact that your car will go faster if it is painted red.
Did you mean "won't go faster"? This reads like an unmarked sarcasm.
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The supply/demand equation for college is broken precisely because student loans are can’t be discharged. Every student essentially has an infinitely deep pocket to borrow against so colleges continue to raise prices.
Sure, loans help increase prices just as with cars and housing. But the supply/demand equation is still the same. A high number of high school graduates want those few freshman seats at top colleges and are willing to pay X over the next 10-20 years to attend. College prices will rise until they hit that number. The structure of the loan (interest rate, terms, etc.) is factored into the value of X. The problem comes…
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Who is going to lend tens of thousands of dollars to an 18 year old with no income, no assets, and no credit?
The HN reality distortion field is all kids will use their Stanford CS degree to work in tech for huge salaries. The reality is at least half of kids don't use their degree anyway. My waitress at the local restaurant isn't any better at waitressing because she has small mortgage sized student debt; in a hypothetical world where she couldn't get that education degree paid for, she'd merely be a happier less stressed w…
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This is missing the point. There are plenty of flexible educational opportunities in the US too (e.g. community colleges). Both the UK and the US (and I say this as someone who's taught at universities in both countries) face the problem that the majority of people going to college now are going just because they need a degree to get a job, not because they have any interest in learning anything. Education is a publi…
Part time education in america is still expensive