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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

#401

Post by coffeecat »

Qwertious wrote: post #326
BurningFrog wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You do not need a degree 30 years ago to do lots of jobs that now require one This is part of the problem. Stop demanding a formal degree for jobs, allow anyone who can do the job to do it, and much/some of these problems will go away.

>Stop demanding a formal degree for jobs, allow anyone who can do the job to do it, and much/some of these problems will go away. It's a symptom of people needing more jobs than are available - if there's a massive labour shortage these unnecessary requirements will evaporate overnight, and if people stop needing to work to survive these unnecessary requirements will evaporate overnight.

Excellent observation. I expect this is one problem among many which would be solved by a UBI or some other form of guaranteed economic security.

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

#402

Post by ineedasername »

This is not the only reason. There are at least 4 other major reasons:

1) Future debt is irrelevant: The US has a culture of "having the college experience". Easy loans facilitates this, but they would never be made without families ignoring their future debt in favor what has become less about education and more about a right of passage. For many, economics is not part of the fundamental decision making process.

2) Demand. High demand means there's little need to compete on price. Enrollment spiked up during the Great Recession as people went to retool for job changes, and while it's come down since then, it's still at historic highs compared to pre-recession enrollment. This might change over the next decade as the %of HS grads entering college has been relatively flat the past few years, and # of total graduating seniors is on a slight downward trend, projected to continue for the next decade.

3) Reduced State Funding: Many states have been systematically reducing their funding to public colleges & universities for a few decades. Right after the Great Recession, higher ed was low hanging fruit for cash-strapped state budget cuts, and dropped another 17%

4) Institutional Debt: With high demand eliminating much need to compete on price, institutions have to compete on amenities & facilities. Beautiful new dining halls, recreation facilities, dorms, academic buildings. Universities borrow, build, and bill the students.

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

#403

Post by peter303 »

Various tax breaks introduced in the past 30 years contributed. Direct tax breaks like cost and loan credits. Plus indirect breaks like tax-advantaged savings plans like 529.

A similar thing has happened in housing. Various tax breaks introduced in the past 30 years allow people buy a much higher list price of house (in terms of annual salary multiples) than 30 years ago.

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

#404

Post by GlennS »

georgeecollins wrote: post #127
Dannymetconan wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Are Universities in Europe really that high quality? Certainly some are, but as a parent researching schools I have been really surprised by how many European colleges are a bit mediocre by the criteria I was evaluating. For example, Spain and Italy have some of the oldest colleges in the world. But in many ways there are four or five colleges in California that are better, four or five colleges in Texas, and across…

I always find it a little suspicious that all the university rankings in English-speaking newspapers rate English-speaking unversities the highest.

That said, there are definitely opportunities in the USA that aren't available elsewhere.

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

#405

Post by eru »

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. Pick two.

You can get all three. At leat if by high quality you mean that people learn stuff.

What conventional education gives you is signalling.

And part of the whole point of signalling is to burn resources to show off.

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

#407

Post by tnecniv »

throwawaygh wrote: post #288
lordnacho wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My issue with the rankings is how they emphasise research. Why would it matter to an undergraduate how highly decorated his prof is? We used to joke that the more titles a guy had, the worse he was at teaching. I think this is true because the guys with the titles have moved on to managing research and finding funding, rather than having daily tasks to do with the research. I went to a very well known university that…

Well, a few things: 1. Research is part of the pedagogy. Getting involved in a research lab as an undergraduate is a great way to land in the top 5-10 percentile. 2. I think what you're saying is roughly correct, but would warn that you can very easily go way too far in the other direction. For example, check out some of the smaller colleges and state branch campuses launching data science departments staffed entirel…

> Research is part of the pedagogy. Getting involved in a research lab as an undergraduate is a great way to land in the top 5-10 percentile.

I just want to point out for any newer undergrads that might be reading that research is really one of the best things you can do during your time at school. Even if you don't plan on going into academia, it looks great on a resume and professors are often have industry connections that can get you an internship easily.

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

#408

Post by galaxyLogic »

AdrianB1 wrote: post #221
Hokusai wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The cost is low for the student but it's pretty high for the taxpayers. That is a supposition that proves to be false. The same happens for health care. To have a centralized state sponsored education or health care system allows it to be more efficient that smaller for profit institutions that have incentives to increase cost to the students as their profit depends on that. Also, I would like to notice, that for E…

> To have a centralized state sponsored education or health care system allows it to be more efficient that smaller for profit institutions that have incentives to increase cost to the students as their profit depends on that. There is a major flaw in this argument: mixing incentive with potential. Yes, governments have the potential to be more efficient due to scale, but there is no incentive to do it. Smaller for p…

> while free state colleges have zero motivation to improve and compete

Couldn't this argument be extended also to primary schools? Shouldn't they too be profit-maximizing businesses? Or are they already?

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

#409

Post by dragonwriter »

7thaccount wrote: post #340
srtjstjsj wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US college isn't longer because it's remedial, it's because it has more out of major liberal arts required courses. There are a lot of remedial classes at US colleges, but those students wouldn't be in college at all in Europe.

This is true. There are a lot of pointless liberal arts classes for a STEM degree in the US. For example, my engineering degree required 3 English classes, psychology, fine arts, and sociology. These were all incredibly easy and I found the course material was what I was used to as a freshman in highschool (no I'm not exaggerating). So those classes weren't even remedial, but felt like a joke. Please note that I'm no…

> There are a lot of pointless liberal arts classes for a STEM degree in the US

Only in a liberal arts program. In an engineering program, there is almost none. Other programs may fall in between. When I was at UC Davis (which was before Biological Sciences was its own college), the non-major liberal arts course load went (both in general, and where multiple colleges had the same degree program, between those specific programs) College of Letters and Science > College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences > College of Engineering.

> For example, my engineering degree required 3 English classes, psychology, fine arts, and sociology.

That's, what, semester and a half all told? That's an odd basis for claiming “a lot”.

> The university says they're there to make you well rounded, but we all know it's an excuse to charge more money.

No, if they wanted an excuse to charge you more money they'd drop the liberal arts requirement, keep the length of the program constant, and add more engineering courses, whose faculty are much higher paid, and keep the same tuition to cost ratio.

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

#410

Post by realusername »

georgeecollins wrote: post #127
Dannymetconan wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Are Universities in Europe really that high quality? Certainly some are, but as a parent researching schools I have been really surprised by how many European colleges are a bit mediocre by the criteria I was evaluating. For example, Spain and Italy have some of the oldest colleges in the world. But in many ways there are four or five colleges in California that are better, four or five colleges in Texas, and across…

> The quality of the research that comes out of that University

Research in continental Europe does not come from universities but mainly from research institutes, so I'm not sure what you are comparing here...

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