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Why has college gotten so expensive in the last 30 years? A blank check in 1993

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Re: Why has college gotten so expensive in the last 30 years? A blank check in 1993

#271

Post by sudosysgen »

twic wrote: post #126
noetic_techy wrote: post #34

"The question then becomes a matter of how we fix this without diminishing access to a college education." This is the crux of it that everyone needs to get over. Universality, High Quality, Low Cost. Pick two. By letting the government meddle you have guaranteed no one can afford college and will be long in debt to a loan they cannot discharge in bankruptcy. I'd rather have cheap college then universal access for ev…

> This is the crux of it that everyone needs to get over. Universality, High Quality, Low Cost. Pick two. By letting the government meddle you have guaranteed no one can afford college and will be long in debt to a loan they cannot discharge in bankruptcy. No, this is just boring, lazy libertarianism. What the government did was hand the private sector a blank cheque, which they duly deposited into their bank account…

This is true. Just because the US Government isn't able to run public services doesn't mean governments can't run public services effectively. My province runs our utilities as a publicly owned company, we get not only the cheapest electricity and free water, but also technological innovation and profit that goes to everyone.

Re: Why has college gotten so expensive in the last 30 years? A blank check in 1993

#272

Post by sudosysgen »

justinmeiners wrote: post #268
sudosysgen wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you consider the totality of costs, inside and outside taxes, European healthcare and education is significantly cheaper for comparable or better outcomes.

See other comments. That may be the case, but it's wrong to frame it as "free" vs "paid".

I'm not framing it as free vs paid. I'm framing it as public vs private. The public sector just does some things better.

No one in Europe is under the illusion that public services are free. This is a complete strawman. But they are much more cost-effective than the alternative, a lot of the time, and provide universal services to everyone and help maintain the social fabric of a society.

Re: Why has college gotten so expensive in the last 30 years? A blank check in 1993

#273

Post by s3r3nity »

kovek wrote: post #267
bonoboTP wrote: post #264

It's expensive because people can pay for it and we know they can because they do. All this talk about debt is mostly a non issue in real life but generates a lot of heat online. American jobs pay vastly more than any other country on the planet and paying back the debt is quite easy. Otherwise people wouldn't keep enrolling. From a European point of view, US taxes are low, salaries for professionals are sky high, ut…

I have a friend in France who is getting an art education for free. Is she going to be in debt for her whole life? I don’t think so. Yes, some jobs pay very well in the US, but not all of them. Average job often pays enough for rent and living expenses plus a little bit. Student debt has interest and people end up paying that interest for many many years. I’m writing in the declarative, affirmative tone, but it is on…

> I have a friend in France who is getting an art education for free.

Unpopular to admit: we need doctors / engineers / farmers more than we need another art major.

As a US taxpayer, I wouldn't want to subsidize just anyone's education. I'd rather incentivize and subsidize engineering / STEM / agricultural science.

You don't get to just get a free education regardless of what you want to study - different work/study has different value to society.

Re: Why has college gotten so expensive in the last 30 years? A blank check in 1993

#274

Post by guyzero »

Yeah, as many others have pointed out this analysis is facile verging on just wrong.

Do universities not compete for students? Why have costs gone up so much faster than inflation? It's not just a question of there being a huge pool of money, you can buy a car with loans and car prices haven't skyrocketed.

The answer is that education is a weird "good" that's probably a Veblen good, among a lot of other reasons.

Re: Why has college gotten so expensive in the last 30 years? A blank check in 1993

#275

Post by AtlasBarfed »

noetic_techy wrote: post #34

"The question then becomes a matter of how we fix this without diminishing access to a college education." This is the crux of it that everyone needs to get over. Universality, High Quality, Low Cost. Pick two. By letting the government meddle you have guaranteed no one can afford college and will be long in debt to a loan they cannot discharge in bankruptcy. I'd rather have cheap college then universal access for ev…

Universality, High Quality, Low Cost

Oh come on, we do not need the facilities, sports stadiums, plush housing, food options, gaudy offices for professors, and non-professor bureaucrats, and grade inflation in modern "education". None of that actually contributes to High Quality.

You absolutely could have low cost and universality and produce well-educated undergraduates by the current standard of US education.

Re: Why has college gotten so expensive in the last 30 years? A blank check in 1993

#276

Post by danielheath »

srtjstjsj wrote: post #251
dragonwriter wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> CAs tax rate when you factor in federal tax is comparable to the EU Nominal rates might be, but tax burden is not. California tax burden is well under 15% GDP, and federal collections in the state are a tiny bit higher than state tax revenues, together still under 30% tax burden. EU overall tax burden is over 40% of GDP.

How do these numbers look when you count health care/insurance cost for CA instead of only for EU?

Count school fees and student debt too - public schools in most of the EU are good enough that you don’t have to go private the way the US does.

Re: Why has college gotten so expensive in the last 30 years? A blank check in 1993

#277

Post by Aperocky »

noetic_techy wrote: post #34

"The question then becomes a matter of how we fix this without diminishing access to a college education." This is the crux of it that everyone needs to get over. Universality, High Quality, Low Cost. Pick two. By letting the government meddle you have guaranteed no one can afford college and will be long in debt to a loan they cannot discharge in bankruptcy. I'd rather have cheap college then universal access for ev…

> Similar to what Google is doing with its certificate program they are rolling out.

Will Google hire someone coming out of its certificate programs who didn't go to an actual college?

Re: Why has college gotten so expensive in the last 30 years? A blank check in 1993

#278

Post by TempLogsForOne »

Dannymetconan wrote: post #40
noetic_techy wrote: post #34

"The question then becomes a matter of how we fix this without diminishing access to a college education." This is the crux of it that everyone needs to get over. Universality, High Quality, Low Cost. Pick two. By letting the government meddle you have guaranteed no one can afford college and will be long in debt to a loan they cannot discharge in bankruptcy. I'd rather have cheap college then universal access for ev…

Universities in Europe are generally high quality and low cost. It does have it's problems but it is not one or the other. You do not need a degree 30 years ago to do lots of jobs that now require one. Higher education for a lot of organizations is just an easy way to cut the application stack down

You are quite mistaken on the low cost, you pay wildly higher taxes all your life, even if you never went or benefit from a University degree, let alone benefit from paying for the eduction of foreign nationals who never paid a dime in taxes and then leaves Europe for the USA once they have a degree and can get higher income at a lower tax rate there.

I find it rather annoying that otherwise supposedly intelligent people that likely frequent this site simply cannot understand basic economics, let alone accounting and have essentially no moral compass for lacking any thorough understanding for these matters.

Not even that, but your fake low cost European education that that poor commoner pays ~50% of their income in taxes to support, is also not universal at all and is actually quite corrupt, with the children of academics and politicians getting into University at far higher rates than a system that were not corrupt would allow for.

So, no, not only is the Europeans education model horribly immoral and unethical as foreigners and the ruling class's children get "low cost" education, while the working class slaves pay for it with their taxes and are stifled in their life due to that enslavement through taxes, but it is also not low cost.

Re: Why has college gotten so expensive in the last 30 years? A blank check in 1993

#279

Post by Terr_ »

silvestrov wrote: post #57
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Universities in Europe are generally high quality and low cost. The cost is low for the student but it's pretty high for the taxpayers. Not US high but still, it's not free, there's lots of bloat in the system that thrives on volume of students not on quality so they try to push forward legislation and programs to increase the number of students, especially from abroad and build more faculties/universities with more…

No, the cost to tax payers in Europe is less than what people in USA have to pay the college. This is because my University (in Europe) had no sport facilities whatsoever , not even a soccer field. It also had no dormitories, canteens, no fancy library, sport teams etc. It did teaching + research, and nothing else.

One theory goes that the whole "College ranking" apparatus has created a "race to the most affluent" situation, since high tuition costs have no negative effect on a College's ranking, and if you don't spend on facilities and things to up your ranking, then you'll lose customers to the competitor who does.

Re: Why has college gotten so expensive in the last 30 years? A blank check in 1993

#280

Post by WrtCdEvrydy »

AdrianB1 wrote: post #227
Ericson2314 wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer is we have UBI, and embrace the positional value going to 0. Just about everyone is already overqualified for the jobs that they do. It's a bullshit job economy. Let's drive up the cost of labor, educate for non-job-related reasons, and see if the the two paths meet again in some vastly different economy.

Please tell anyone that is overqualified at their current job to contact me, about everyone in my company in IT is underqualified, many times incompetent because we don't compete on salaries with the FAANG companies paying 3-5x more.

> about everyone in my company in IT is underqualified

Downward spiral, the people who get stuff done get babied to death and decide to change jobs, the ones who are just along for the ride stay. Wash and repeat 3-4 times and you end up with a dysfunctional company.

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