Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ about education • Hacker News Board

Re: Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ about education

#331

Post by v4dok » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 6:46 PM UTC

I always found the US model of colleges so outlandishly short-sighted. Problems of non-bankruptcy and wage slavery are just the very apparent outcomes that you would have a system like this.

"Free" education is the only thing that separates us from a dystopian society of social immobility. And hence people in US defend it.

I came from poor background and the fact that Uni education is free allowed me to, first of all, receive it, and also take risks that I wouldn't be able to do if I had to repay a 100k+ loan. These kinds of risks are what in essence allow social class movement, otherwise, we are talking about more comfortable wage-slavery.

On the other hand, belief in higher education wanes, people question if degrees like philosophy are "useful" (whatever that means) and then question why voters have no critical thinking to decide their own future.

I would love to see if there is historical data supporting my intuitive belief that free access to higher education made significant differences in the advancement of otherwise similar nations. USA is throwing its education down the drain and the decay is already visible.

Re: Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ about education

#332

Post by c9fc42ad » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 6:47 PM UTC

mywittyname wrote: post #103

basch wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The job can be done better for much less. First and foremost, the lecture part of education is extremely inefficient. I know "watch the video" just doesn't work for some people, but charging for a live rendition of a repeated script, and then not valuing the person who watched the same recording equally, is absurd. Education needs to acknowledge a couple things. 1) Theres probably a "best" lecture or lecturer out th…

I remember when MIT first started publishing their lectures online. I would watch them for my chemistry and physics classes and was astounded by the fact that the lectures were basically identical. Ivy league schools had this mystique around them and I always wondered what it would be like to be there instead of a community college. Turns out, the difference is absolutely not in the lectures or tests. At least, for f…

I had a similar experience about 8 years ago in Intro to Linear Algebra. I had been attending lectures at my school but I ended up missing a day so I decided to find the corresponding lecture from MIT. It turns out, I was able to watch a lecture from the author of the textbook we were using. Even crazier, the lecture I watched online ended with him working through an example problem but he did not finish.

When I went to the next class in person, our professor was finishing up the exact same example problem from the lecture video. It could have just been coincidence that that exact lecture lined up the way it did, but it kind of opened my eyes to how silly it was to have professors repeating the same thing year after year.

Re: Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ about education

#333

Post by twic » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 6:47 PM UTC

teh_infallible wrote: post #264

0xffff2 wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that bad? Humanities departments are already shrinking without any changes because there's just no demand. It doesn't seem entirely unreasonable to me that if you are determined to get a degree in philosophy, which has virtually no job prospects outside of teaching the next generation of philosophy students, you have to go do that at one of a handful of schools that carve out a niche for themselves with a philosop…

As someone who majored in English, I assert that the emphasis on STEM and shift away from the humanities is causing serious problems in our society. Specifically, having a population lacking in critical reading skills makes everyone more susceptible to propaganda, and less able to critique and assess flawed arguments in writing. If you want to know why, for example, our political “debates” are shallow circuses of mis…

You don't have to look very hard at all to find people who are participants in and cheerleaders for those debates who have degrees in the humanities. Most journalists, for example.

Re: Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ about education

#334

Post by skizm » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 6:47 PM UTC

Justsignedup wrote: post #224

The fairly recent law that you cannot bankruptcy out of a college load caused all this. - Lenders are willing to lend to anyone knowing they will HAVE to pay. - Colleges over-inflated costs, way beyond inflation - It balanced out to this shit. In the past, colleges had to be careful, and so did lenders, because lots of people just didn't go to college due to cost. So they had to sell their worth.

Also, the best thing (for banks) is that since the borrower can't discharge the loans in bankruptcy, the banks have the borrower's entire working life to garnish wages and levy penalties.

Re: Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ about education

#335

Post by alexpetralia » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 6:47 PM UTC

Justsignedup wrote: post #224

The fairly recent law that you cannot bankruptcy out of a college load caused all this. - Lenders are willing to lend to anyone knowing they will HAVE to pay. - Colleges over-inflated costs, way beyond inflation - It balanced out to this shit. In the past, colleges had to be careful, and so did lenders, because lots of people just didn't go to college due to cost. So they had to sell their worth.

This is remarkably similar to the subprime bubble (in part instigated by a federal policy to encourage homeownership).

Re: Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ about education

#336

Post by jedberg » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 6:47 PM UTC

gwd wrote: post #318

jedberg wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All of us should be regularly lobbying our lawmakers to make student loans dischargeable by bankruptcy, just like any other loan. The reason they aren't dischargeable is because what bank in their right mind would give a loan to an 18 year old with no collateral? They only guarantee they get that it will be paid back is the fact that it can't be discharged. Student loans would dry up overnight if they could be disc…

> The reason they aren't dischargeable is because what bank in their right mind would give a loan to an 18 year old with no collateral? If it's a bad bet for the bank , it must be far worse of a bet for young adults. That's the point -- right now we're essentially suckering millions of naive young adults into a life of wage slavery by giving them a "bet" which they are completely unequipped to evaluate; and many of t…

To be clear, I don't think college should be paid for with loans. I agree with you that we shouldn't be enslaving people.

But I also don't think allowing these loans to be discharged in bankruptcy will solve anything (and will arguably make things worse) without systemic changes in the way college is paid for.

Re: Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ about education

#337

Post by iguy » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 6:48 PM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #279

panzagl wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are not enough upper class to go to all of the schools currently operating- colleges would have to lower prices or disappear.

Yes exactly. The small schools would just disappear, and the big names would keep going.

Clearly both would happen, right? Harvard doesn't set their prices based on loans, they wouldn't care. Some mid-rank colleges would disappear, and some would adapt to serve the new market.

Re: Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ about education

#338

Post by eli_gottlieb » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 6:48 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #232

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then an 18-year-old, potentially with parents who aren't great at math but have great aspirations for their child, is sat down and asked to sign a load of papers, not realizing that this will lock them into decades of unforgiveable debt and wage slavery. Well yeah, because us "adults" don't wanna pay the state and local taxes necessary to keep public universities affordable.

Attitudes such as this are the problem. Civilization has a cost, that cost is paid with taxes. Edit: I didn’t pickup in the sarcasm. Mea culpa.

You know I sarcasm-quoted "adults" to indicate the immaturity of not paying for civilization-upkeep costs, right?

Re: Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ about education

#339

Post by JadeNB » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 6:48 PM UTC

N1H1L wrote: post #284

dmoy wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do we include math and physics in there? If so there might be a couple other exceptions there.

Basically Harvard, and maybe Columbia and that's it. UIUC, Wisconsin-Madison, Berkeley, Michigan-Ann Arbor are orders better schools in the sciences than Dartmouth or Brown.

In math, Princeton tops all the non-Ivy's you list, and UPenn has at least a fighting chance, maybe depending on speciality.

Re: Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ about education

#340

Post by pc86 » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 6:48 PM UTC

Macha wrote: post #229

jedberg wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't European colleges the same price as American colleges if you're not European?

Depends where you go. I know we had some Chinese students in my college, they paid €10000 a year, compared to the Irish students who paid €3000 a year. As far as I've heard, US colleges are on the order of $10000+ per semester.

There's also a point about sticker price vs. actual price. Anyone actually paying six figures for a Bachelor's degree is not only getting fleeced by an expensive school, but also can probably afford it (no need-based scholarships or grants?) and is also not very smart (no merit-based scholarships or grants?).