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Will Higher Education Be the Next Bubble to Burst?

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Re: Will Higher Education Be the Next Bubble to Burst?

#31

Post by timwiseman »

potatolicious wrote: post #15
adamc wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the real solution is to stop overvaluing university degrees. Most of the folks coming out of universities don't have any particularly valuable job skills. (I'm thinking of majors in business, or liberal-arts fields, or for that matter most people with a BA/BS in the sciences.) Will that happen? Not unless getting university grads gets hard.

There needs to be a real separation between vocational schools and comprehensive universities. I get the feeling that as a society we have a thing against vocational training - even though some of the most celebrated jobs really belong there instead of at a traditional college (e.g. engineering, accounting, etc). The problem here is that people are going to university expecting this to lead nicely into a job - it doe…

I think you have a very good point. Personally, I got a traditional degree and am working on my Master's, but there are people in my family that learned things like welding instead and they are doing quite well for themselves. Similarly, a fully certified mechanic is in an excellent position. Some people need traditional degrees, but we as a society do need to value significant trades more highly.

Re: Will Higher Education Be the Next Bubble to Burst?

#32

Post by heycarsten »

I can't help but think the real bubble is in our own inflated sense of ourselves. Everyone thinks their child is capable of becoming the next great whatever, but the reality is that there are only so many people with original and useful ideas out there.

Higher education is dangled as the carrot that is the means to achieving greatness. Everyone speculates that the future will yield awesomeness, but when it takes too long to reach our unrealistic expectations we overreact in the opposite fashion. We have this never-ending cycle of overinflated possibility followed by reality and an overreaction of conservation.

Is it perhaps a flaw in our culture? Selling an idea is more important than the idea itself. Getting "traction" or "backing" is more important than delivering something real and of actual value.

Re: Will Higher Education Be the Next Bubble to Burst?

#33

Post by timwiseman »

netsp wrote: post #29
tjmc wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on what you're studying. Subjects like medicine, dentistry and chemistry need extensive lab facilities and highly skilled, often personal tuition. That's going to cost a lot no matter where it's done. On a broader level you also need to consider the value of networking opportunities. Is the course content of a Harvard MBA really that much better than elsewhere? Of course not. It's the contacts you make while…

Possibly, but this needn't affect those studying history. I listen to this economist podcast here & there. Recently, they were talking about how strange it is that they need any kind of qualifications to do the thing that they get paid for. They tell undergrads that the demand curve slopes down & the supply curve slopes the other way. That knowledge is freely available and easily accessible. Yet their students bid up…

As others have said, the knowledge in most universities is not what you are paying for. I am currently getting my Master's in Mathematics. I am truly learning a great deal, but that is not what I am paying for. All of the information in the classes I am taking is readily available for free or extremely cheap.

From my perspective I am paying for 3 things: 1. A ready made (albiet small) community of other math grad students that can answer my questions when I don't understand some of the freely available information. 2. A highly educated professor that can provide further explanation and advice if my peer group of math grad students can't explain it well enough to me. 3. (arguably most important) A respected institution prepared to certify to prospective employers that I really have gained gained those skills.

The knowledge is free, you can get #1 on your own with a little work and a little luck, but #2 is hard to get without being an actual student and #3 is is very hard to get without the institution.

And before people say you don't need #3, it helps you get interviews if not necessarily jobs. I have been that hiring manager that has to weed through dozens of resumes to determine who I am going to spend my time interviewing. A degree was certainly a good discriminator for who was worth my time. I certainly didn't require it and I interviewed people who had experience but no degree, but they had to have something else on their resume to show me it was worth my time.

I worked for a small company, when dealing with middle management (or worse, HR) at a big company, they really want to be able to cover themselves and show why they hired someone on paper. To many of them being able to justify the decision is more important then actually getting the best person. The degree makes it alot easier for them to do that.

If you plan to start your own company, a degree is meaningless of course, but even Paul Graham says that path should be approached with great caution if you are married with children.

Re: Will Higher Education Be the Next Bubble to Burst?

#34

Post by hs »

anamax wrote: post #11
baguasquirrel wrote: post #2

This has been discussed before in many other sources. The cause of the bubble is probably the way tuition and financial aid are used by many colleges. Perhaps the most in-depth analysis was by The Atlantic. http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200511/financial-aid-leveragi... If this hypothesis is correct, then it has interesting implications for how a pop in the education bubble might play out. Since a fair portion of col…

> Do the top schools really need Olympic sized swimming pools, or gyms that would require a $100 a month membership in any big city? I'd guess that students are less likely to use their college gym than members are to use their gym. If I'm correct, the per-student cost of a college gym may be in the noise.

if this continues, 'college dropout' will be replaced by 'high school graduate' -- simply because s/he takes high ed as cost-saving bootstrap strategy

Re: Will Higher Education Be the Next Bubble to Burst?

#35

Post by hs »

blhack wrote: post #10
Alex3917 wrote: post #5

A product sold for 1/3 of cost is overvalued?

Perhaps the problem is that they're spending too much on the education. BLASPHEMY! You may be thinking, education is PARAMOUNT to any civilization! We musn't cut spending on education! Does anyone here live in the Phoenix, AZ area? If so, take a tour of ASU's recent campus renovations. The new dorms look like luxury-condos. The buildings around campus match. ASU has gotten into the habit of buying up the most expensi…

if this continues, 'college dropout' will be replaced by 'high school graduate' -- simply because s/he takes high ed as cost-saving bootstrap strategy

Re: Will Higher Education Be the Next Bubble to Burst?

#36

Post by lvecsey »

I'm always surprised when people suggest "community college", as opposed to an elite university, for the masses to flock to. I don't mind if people take on vocational tasks like welding, and as Mike Rowe of dirty jobs explained at his TED talk society definitely has a problem with imbuing meaning towards regular tasks. But all too often I hear that snide remark, which translates to: "Not everyone can excel towards, or afford, an elite education with all the debt and opportunity it offers. But get yourself to a community college and do something basic, to get your portion of the pie. Otherwise you are nothing."

Re: Will Higher Education Be the Next Bubble to Burst?

#37

Post by netsp »

timwiseman wrote: post #33
netsp wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Possibly, but this needn't affect those studying history. I listen to this economist podcast here & there. Recently, they were talking about how strange it is that they need any kind of qualifications to do the thing that they get paid for. They tell undergrads that the demand curve slopes down & the supply curve slopes the other way. That knowledge is freely available and easily accessible. Yet their students bid up…

As others have said, the knowledge in most universities is not what you are paying for. I am currently getting my Master's in Mathematics. I am truly learning a great deal, but that is not what I am paying for. All of the information in the classes I am taking is readily available for free or extremely cheap. From my perspective I am paying for 3 things: 1. A ready made (albiet small) community of other math grad stu…

I'm not saying that these are not important or easily achievable outside of Universities. I am saying maybe they could be. IE, maybe someone can come up with a way of creating the networks & whatever else is important without being a university.

Re: Will Higher Education Be the Next Bubble to Burst?

#40

Post by joe_the_user »

timothychung wrote: post #19
drawkbox wrote: post #4

That or healthcare.

It is disappointing that these service based industries come to a point when making money is becoming so important especially when they are commodities. I hope that some institutions will reduce their price for a greater purpose especially for poor people.

Education and healthcare were once clearly seen as something to be provide by society as a value to society.

Having more educated citizens benefits an entire society, not just those citizen.

Having healthier citizens works similarly.

Certainly both education and healthcare been private for a long time BUT often effectively on a non-profit basis.

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