Going to plug Bill Gates' recommendation again. I enjoyed reading and thought the data was eye opening.
http://www.trustmedia.co/test/Books/Why-Does-College-Cost-So...
The Real Reason College Tuition Costs So Much
41–50 of 135 posts
Re: The Real Reason College Tuition Costs So Much
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
This. It basically holds true for any product: price doesn't increase linearly as quality goes up. I go to college in U.S., and a lot friends of mine attend one of the best universities in China. I have the freedom to take practically any course in the university, and my friends basically know what their four years look like before freshman year. I never worry about finding seats in the library, and my friends someti…
To give a comparison closer to the States, in Quebec (Canada), I paid about 5k (3 semester per year, one as paid internship) in tuition plus ~10k for a ~450ft^2 apartment. Obviously I will pay all my life in taxes, but that make higher education much more accessible and less intimidating that it could be elsewhere. As a modern western state, the main source of GDP require college educated workforce, so it probably ma…
> As a modern western state, the main source of GDP require college educated workforce, so it probably make sense to invest "other peoples money" into it.
Absolutely. There are some issues though with brain drain. Look at Germany, free education. Or Norway, you pay like $500 a year. I have friends who went to study there and then left and never came back.
And it's not inexpensive. Here in the Netherlands we pay about $2k a year on tuition, but the gov pays the uni an additional $10k or so per student. And then the unis get various extras from the government, so they have about $15-20k to work with for tuition per student. In any of these three countries, most or all of that comes from the government, who don't have a way of keeping that investment locked in to their countries.
Which is why a lot of countries nowadays keep tuition high, but create language scholarships. Study in Korea? Gotto pay up. Unless you want us to pay, great, we'll even pay you a monthly stipend, but you need to take this 4 year Korean language course and it's intensive, if you fail, you lose your scholarship.
4 years later, that person will be speaking Korean and tied to Korea for the rest of their lives. Even if they won't live their, they might go back to Europe and do business with Korean companies, make investments, etc. That's a much more sensible investment for them.
The second issue is that of cashflow. Investments are great, but paying $50k into an 18 year old, will start to pay off maybe a decade or two later in taxes on average. That's an easy decision for Sweden, it's a tricky decision when you're dealing with austerity measures, unemployment, failing healthcare, crime etc right now, something a lot of countries are facing.
But yeah beyond those issues, I'm damn glad I live in Europe, my education has been amazing. $10k student debt, got a 4y degree here, and did an exchange, a minor and summer school in 3 other countries (Quebec, too by the way :)!
Re: The Real Reason College Tuition Costs So Much
#43what they taught me in econ 1a: 1. limited supply (even when you count the fake for-profit schools) 2. increased demand (EVERYONE wants to go to college) 3. easy financing which increases 2. (student loans) results in inflating prices. not really sure what the mystery here is.
This is the fallacy in government providing low-cost loans to everyone. Unless the supply of colleges increases, it just ends up increasing demand for the same supply, driving up prices - and producing a boatload of graduates with mortgage-sized student loans. All on the assumption that the degree will give them increased earning power, which is increasingly unlikely in today's economy.
It's not just the fact that they're low-cost loans. They're almost zero-risk loans (you can not declare bankruptcy on student loans), which benefits lenders and encourages schools to increase prices.
Re: The Real Reason College Tuition Costs So Much
#44Part of it is also a social signaling factor. Because eduction is a superior good and a positional good, there's pressure for it to get ever more expensive (at least on paper). After all, if the Johnsons' kids are going to a $40,000/year school, you want to make sure your little darling goes to at least a $45,000/year school. The secret is that many elite colleges give such generous financial aid that only the extrem…
> The secret is that many elite colleges give such generous financial aid that only the extremely wealthy are paying full freight. But it still makes the college looks good to have an astronomically high sticker price.
Unfortunately, this is not at all true for grad school. I'm from India and a large swathe of my friends from college are studying in the US without any sort of aid.
Re: The Real Reason College Tuition Costs So Much
#45I would say quantitative easing has a lot to do too. It didn't create the broad inflation everyone expected. Instead some sectors went into high inflation: housing, stocks, tuition fees, etc.
Re: The Real Reason College Tuition Costs So Much
#46The real reason college tuition costs so much=because they can!
(Most schools found that students/families will find ways to come up with the money. These schools will blame everyone, and everything, but they still raise tuition. When questioned, they brag about the scholarships. I understand some state schools, but really question schools like Haarvard with a billion/year coming in through endowments.)
Re: The Real Reason College Tuition Costs So Much
#47I think a more interesting question is, how has the ROI of college changed over the past 40 years? The cost has gone up much faster than inflation. The number of people going to college has also risen dramatically. This means there are a lot more college educated peers competing with you in the workplace. This means that the college degree is not as rare, and thus has lower scarcity value. Finally, I think it's quite…
One criticism I have of education systems is that they structurally encourage only superficially studying content. Let's take my compilers class as an example. I go to a 75 minute lecture 2 times a week and I do about 4 hours of homework a week. I do this over 18 weeks. That's only roughly 120 hours of study over the course of a semester. That's only as many hours as most full time employees work every 3 weeks! And t…
> This brings me to another point. Programmers are necessarily autodidacts because shit changes incredibly fast. You can't be a one trick pony. So if we're pushing kids through these incredibly formulaic methods of learning, what are we really preparing them for? A life of being an enterprise code monkey? The student who taught themselves anything, even if they are missing a few core details, are more equipped to fix those gaps in their understandings.
depends where you go and what their objective is. some schools focus on teaching real-world tools. which is great for getting a job, but less useful because there are completely new tools every few years.
other places focus on the theory of it all so when you see "new" things, you already have the knowledge to understand the basics.
chances are your professor is cherry-picking the parts to implement because while you could fully implement all parts, the learning probably bleeds off quickly. Also, based on your calculations, assuming you take a full course-load (5 courses), 3 weeks * 5 = 15 weeks = ~3.5 months, which is roughly a semester.
sure, you could get an education without a school. nothing stopping you. but, ultimately, people put a value on the piece of paper, the connections can be valuable, and school does a good job of educating/exposing you to a lot of things in a fair amount of rigor in a decent amount of time.
0.02
Re: The Real Reason College Tuition Costs So Much
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
To give a comparison closer to the States, in Quebec (Canada), I paid about 5k (3 semester per year, one as paid internship) in tuition plus ~10k for a ~450ft^2 apartment. Obviously I will pay all my life in taxes, but that make higher education much more accessible and less intimidating that it could be elsewhere. As a modern western state, the main source of GDP require college educated workforce, so it probably ma…
> As a modern western state, the main source of GDP require college educated workforce, so it probably make sense to invest "other peoples money" into it. Absolutely. There are some issues though with brain drain. Look at Germany, free education. Or Norway, you pay like $500 a year. I have friends who went to study there and then left and never came back. And it's not inexpensive. Here in the Netherlands we pay about…
i think that's why you can't have western governments investing in students, because they don't have any money.. in fact my friend and i have applied to this yc batch with our idea for a 'vc firm for people' where you pay for students university education in return for a % of their annual income (i.e. in return for taxing them).
Re: The Real Reason College Tuition Costs So Much
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
> As a modern western state, the main source of GDP require college educated workforce, so it probably make sense to invest "other peoples money" into it. Absolutely. There are some issues though with brain drain. Look at Germany, free education. Or Norway, you pay like $500 a year. I have friends who went to study there and then left and never came back. And it's not inexpensive. Here in the Netherlands we pay about…
i think that's why you can't have western governments investing in students, because they don't have any money.. in fact my friend and i have applied to this yc batch with our idea for a 'vc firm for people' where you pay for students university education in return for a % of their annual income (i.e. in return for taxing them).
Private debt slavery! This is a terrible idea. Moreover, your cost of capital cannot possibly be lower than the interest rates paid by Western governments.
Re: The Real Reason College Tuition Costs So Much
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
I went to college in Sweden and had all that you had, I didn't pay anything. I received about 1000-1500$ a month for attending school from the government.
Sweden also doesn't have universities that match up to the US when it comes to a ~$50k tuition tier. $50,000 per year is a lot, and buys you access to the best universities on earth, most of which are in the US. Harvard's tuition is around $44,000 for example.
Sweden is a country with the population of New York, but have one (sometimes two) universitites in a global top ten ranking of their respective subjects. So if you must compare to something US, do it with a large city.