High tuition costs mostly stem from the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act 1993 • Hacker News Board

Re: High tuition costs mostly stem from the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act 1993

#291

Post by gamblor956 » Tue, May 31, 2022, 11:19 PM UTC

devwastaken wrote: post #192

Agamus wrote: post #24

"The solution is and always has been to cut the fluff from the academies. For context, go add up the salaries the 'student services' area of the expensive school of your choice. Having worked for one such office for ~15 years, the most appalling part was that they are largely antagonistic toward the faculty and mission of the schools. The waste is dizzying." I made the above comment on another thread with a similar t…

I work at a well known public uni. We can get state and federal funding for anything that aligns with democrat political talking points. We cannot get funding for basic tech and projects. We have a program where students design and build actual tech related directly to their degree and future employment, and we have to beg people to fund us. The school nor grants will find us in any way yet we are entirely bound to a…

I work at a well known public uni. We can get state and federal funding for anything that aligns with democrat political talking points. We cannot get funding for basic tech and projects.

Uh huh. Totally believe you. Convenient of you to leave out the name of your school while trying to make a ideological point so that nobody can refute your claims.

Apparently your school's tech program must be quite bad, if it's alumni are unwilling to donate to fund student's basic tooling requirements. However, it means your school can't be located in the Pac12 or California.

Across the board no more public funding, if it's worthwhile then private industry will fund it like they do for any other trade.

If you think that publicly funded schools are bad, you should look into how much worse privately funded schools are. (Here's a tip: you won't just be paying for your own tooling. The school will charge you for it at a huge markup.)

Re: High tuition costs mostly stem from the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act 1993

#292

Post by devwastaken » Wed, Jun 01, 2022, 12:18 AM UTC

schlauerfox wrote: post #277

devwastaken wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work at a well known public uni. We can get state and federal funding for anything that aligns with democrat political talking points. We cannot get funding for basic tech and projects. We have a program where students design and build actual tech related directly to their degree and future employment, and we have to beg people to fund us. The school nor grants will find us in any way yet we are entirely bound to a…

So Democrats fund institutions and Republicans want them to go away entirely, is what I'm reading from this.

Not a republican, that thinking is exactly why we are here.

Re: High tuition costs mostly stem from the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act 1993

#293

Post by devwastaken » Wed, Jun 01, 2022, 12:24 AM UTC

gamblor956 wrote: post #291

devwastaken wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work at a well known public uni. We can get state and federal funding for anything that aligns with democrat political talking points. We cannot get funding for basic tech and projects. We have a program where students design and build actual tech related directly to their degree and future employment, and we have to beg people to fund us. The school nor grants will find us in any way yet we are entirely bound to a…

I work at a well known public uni. We can get state and federal funding for anything that aligns with democrat political talking points. We cannot get funding for basic tech and projects. Uh huh. Totally believe you. Convenient of you to leave out the name of your school while trying to make a ideological point so that nobody can refute your claims. Apparently your school's tech program must be quite bad, if it's alu…

Too bad, I don't want to be fired. The tech program is bad, it's bad because there is not funding and instructors are a revolving door due in part to that. We have private industry instructors hire on, look at the state of the institution, and run. The only things that can be even partially funded are classes and dedicated individual student projects. There is 0 budget outside of that.

Alumni don't make enough to be contributing any significant amount of money. Programmers outside of Cali bubble economy are not making that kind of bank.

I'm telling you the facts of what I've personally worked with and how students are being scammed by this system for political gain.

Re: High tuition costs mostly stem from the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act 1993

#294

Post by devwastaken » Wed, Jun 01, 2022, 12:31 AM UTC

bumby wrote: post #276

devwastaken wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work at a well known public uni. We can get state and federal funding for anything that aligns with democrat political talking points. We cannot get funding for basic tech and projects. We have a program where students design and build actual tech related directly to their degree and future employment, and we have to beg people to fund us. The school nor grants will find us in any way yet we are entirely bound to a…

> Across the board no more public funding, if it's worthwhile then private industry will fund it like they do for any other trade. If you think university is solely vocational training, then this makes sense. However, that leaves a lot, including fundamental research unfunded. Research seems to suggest that reductions in public funding is the single most important variable in increases in tuition. I'd be worried that…

Can't increase tuition if there's no public institutions. :).

You can't fix the ship. The political culture is far too ingrained. This makes perfect sense when you realize that public means government controlled and funded. Of course it's going to be largely politically motivated.

As an example there are now new required classes that preach about equality and white privilege with dubious accreditation. Not as a concept, but as a requirement of students. That's a real thing, I wish I were making it up.

Be a fly on the wall in your admins offices and you'll want to scorch earth that system too.

Re: High tuition costs mostly stem from the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act 1993

#295

Post by devwastaken » Wed, Jun 01, 2022, 12:41 AM UTC

veilrap wrote: post #217

devwastaken wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work at a well known public uni. We can get state and federal funding for anything that aligns with democrat political talking points. We cannot get funding for basic tech and projects. We have a program where students design and build actual tech related directly to their degree and future employment, and we have to beg people to fund us. The school nor grants will find us in any way yet we are entirely bound to a…

My experience in higher ed is exactly the opposite. Funding is quite easy to get for STEM research projects through grants and other research programs. Projects that just "align with political talking points" tend to be much more challenging to fund because there's significantly less money available in those domains. Economically, an educated populace produces positive externalities on society. As such it makes sense…

Then your state may be doing something right, unfortunately here the students are not getting a quality education for the cost. We try but we can't pull $2000 out of our pocket every semester to have group projects or other students programs.

Fun fact with many of the external programs is you are actually paying them to do it. Though it's a "grant" the institution wants you to fundraise to pay them. Yeah, no.

Because of this most students never touch a project outside of classes.

Re: High tuition costs mostly stem from the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act 1993

#296

Post by devwastaken » Wed, Jun 01, 2022, 12:52 AM UTC

hfern wrote: post #206

devwastaken wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work at a well known public uni. We can get state and federal funding for anything that aligns with democrat political talking points. We cannot get funding for basic tech and projects. We have a program where students design and build actual tech related directly to their degree and future employment, and we have to beg people to fund us. The school nor grants will find us in any way yet we are entirely bound to a…

So it seems that your complaint is that certain things are not funded enough at a university. Why is your conclusion then to defund universities entirely? It seems like a non sequitur.

Think of the whole picture. The why. If you hear how admins and the "inner circle" professors talk you start to pick up on how they run things.

It's a bandwagon culture that believes they have a responsibility to be activists and force that upon students. There is no fixing that by just replacing leadership. The whole boat must go.

Re: High tuition costs mostly stem from the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act 1993

#297

Post by gamblor956 » Wed, Jun 01, 2022, 1:43 AM UTC

devwastaken wrote: post #293

gamblor956 wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work at a well known public uni. We can get state and federal funding for anything that aligns with democrat political talking points. We cannot get funding for basic tech and projects. Uh huh. Totally believe you. Convenient of you to leave out the name of your school while trying to make a ideological point so that nobody can refute your claims. Apparently your school's tech program must be quite bad, if it's alu…

Too bad, I don't want to be fired. The tech program is bad, it's bad because there is not funding and instructors are a revolving door due in part to that. We have private industry instructors hire on, look at the state of the institution, and run. The only things that can be even partially funded are classes and dedicated individual student projects. There is 0 budget outside of that. Alumni don't make enough to be…

And I'm telling you that if your school was for-profit, it would be even worse.

For-profit schools are significantly worse than non-profit schools in every way. And it seems that your real beef is that the taxpayers have decided not to provide adequate funding to the school for basic supplies. You should take that up with your fellow taxpayers, not the school.

Re: High tuition costs mostly stem from the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act 1993

#298

Post by imtringued » Wed, Jun 01, 2022, 7:38 AM UTC

veilrap wrote: post #223

Agamus wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this is at least partially wrong. Are you only speaking of public universities? I worked at an expensive, private, liberal arts, non-profit college, where I witnessed revolting inefficiency. Do such schools receive _significant_ state funding? Any? One example of the waste I witnessed: at the end of the financial year, the student services departments where I worked would blow wha…

The spending all the money you have so that you don't lose it is a problem actually created by anti-corruption bureaucracy, and is very common in government funded areas. The problem is that in an effort to avoid being wasteful, the bureaucracy aggressively tracks money spent, and forces a return of unused funds. This in turn disincentivizes saving because there is literally no benefit to spending efficiently or savi…

Just pay a fixed bonus if the budget is 3% smaller than last year's.

Re: High tuition costs mostly stem from the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act 1993

#299

Post by imtringued » Wed, Jun 01, 2022, 7:43 AM UTC

bumby wrote: post #272

GlenTheMachine wrote: post #219

Wait, the claim doesn't match the little data presented and the primary claim is not examined or supported. 1) The Omnibus bill passed in 1993, but from the graph tuition was already increasing at 200% greater than inflation, and appears to have started in the mid 1980's; and 2) Why would the fact that the loans are now from the government mean that universities no longer had to compete on costs? The bill ultimately…

> Why would the fact that the loans are now from the government mean that universities no longer had to compete on costs? I think an economist would say that the loans increase the number of "customers" who could now afford to go to college. Accordingly, when the demand increases faster than the supply, an economist would say increases prices are the result. There's an old op-ed by former Education Secretary William…

It doesn't make sense because competition is supposed to lower prices regardless of how the money was obtained. If competition is driving prices down then you would expect that people are falling for the veblen goods trap which has nothing to do with loans.

Re: High tuition costs mostly stem from the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act 1993

#300

Post by imtringued » Wed, Jun 01, 2022, 7:49 AM UTC

AbrahamParangi wrote: post #281

bumby wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why would the fact that the loans are now from the government mean that universities no longer had to compete on costs? I think an economist would say that the loans increase the number of "customers" who could now afford to go to college. Accordingly, when the demand increases faster than the supply, an economist would say increases prices are the result. There's an old op-ed by former Education Secretary William…

Cheap capital raises prices everywhere- for homes, for equities, for land, and certainly for education. Student loans are cheaper than cheap, they are government subsidized and not even close to their appropriate cost.

From a macroeconomic theory perspective that is completely incorrect. There is zero empirical evidence for this. Interest rates have been zero in Japan for decades and the biggest effect they had was keep inflation near 0%.

Cheap capital lowers the prices of all non-monopoly goods. Monthly payments on your mortgage are lower which reduces the cost of housing, it becomes cheaper to produce food or anything that can be produced in arbitrary quantities. It is only the monopolies that go up in price because they offer rent seeking revenue which is a direct result of their monopoly nature and actually distorts the market. Higher stock prices mean it becomes advantageous to start your own company.