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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

#451

Post by baskire »

7thaccount wrote: post #415
dragonwriter wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 specifi…

I've looked at many programs and most schools claim that they want students to be "well rounded". I think that is pretty common and a scam, but that's just my opinion. We may have a difference of opinions here, but six classes that I have no actual need for IS a lot to me. I still had to show up for those classes, listen to the instructors, do homework, buy stupid textbooks, and briefly study for the tests even thoug…

Curious what university you attended. From my experience the engineering liberal arts courses were still engineering focused. E.g. English was about writing ieee formatted papers.

I had an engineering ethics course where we discussed sensitive issues such as a medical radiology device which accidentally delivered 10x the dose due to sticky keyboard keys.

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

#452

Post by ridaj »

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.

I understand, this was my outlook when I left school too, but I changed my mind about that.

It took me maybe 5 years of work experience before I realized that no matter how "technically" smart I was, my technical skills were worth shit if I couldn't communicate better with my teammates. My writing was poor, I couldn't explain myself concisely, I could get flustered when someone didn't understand a point that looked straightforward to me... I had no notion of how I might go about convincing someone to do something I needed, especially someone who wasn't working in the same field as me or didn't have the same educational background. Not saying I'm a rockstar at this either now, but at least I understand the benefits of well-roundedness in a way that I didn't see earlier in my career.

I also see this with some of my younger colleagues now, who seem to care about technical output and cranking out smart stuff, but they're having problems communicating or taking feedback, and it's really clamping their future professional opportunities until they work on that...

Anyway - I don't mean this to disclaim your experience of feeling like you were wasting your time, and maybe the classes weren't the right level for you, just pointing out that at least for some people in the tech field, lack of skills in the humanities dept eventually prevents their professional advancement, hence it's not necessarily a waste of time for everyone to take classes outside of their major even if they're studying in a STEM field...

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

#453

Post by mola »

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…

I dunno, colleges in Europe fair well, there most countries just subsidize tuition. And rely on tradition and non rational incentives to keep quality reasonable.

The failure modes arise when the actors are rational and profit oriented.

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

#454

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#455

Post by astura »

narag wrote: post #381
jldugger wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Americans expect college campuses to be like resorts You say that but the typical dorm room offers no privacy or air conditioning, and the showers and bathrooms are shared. They're similar in nature to SROs which the US pretty much abolished anywhere else, but way more expensive. And then universities have the audacity to demand that students live in them freshman year, even though living off campus would be cheape…

...demand that students live in them freshman year What? I've been watching movies and series made in USA for decades and didn't know that. I assumed that students living there was a way to save money or the parents wanted it. I had no idea it was required. If it's in the same city, can students just keep living with their parents?

Most schools don't require you to live in a dorm freshman year, at least mine certainly didn't and plenty of my peers at other schools didn't have problems getting off campus accommodations freshman year.

Students live on campus for convenience and/or for socialization/environment - its not to save money, depending on a bunch of factors it's usually possible to live cheaper off campus.

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

#456

Post by dehrmann »

bonoboTP wrote: post #259
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…

A lot of the cost of American college doesn't go towards education but things like sports stadiums and teams, various non-academic events, administrators, various other non-academic staff, uniquely-expensive American legal costs and insurance, on-campus police (a big wtf for Europeans), and then there are also those people who decide which Halloween costumes are appropriate for students, investigate various misconduc…

> things like sports stadiums and teams

I went to a large school in one of the big NCAA athletic conferences. Their stadium cost around $100M in 2020 dollars, and they bring in roughly $100M in revenue from all sports annually. They call football and basketball "revenue sports" because they fund all the others. I'm not sure how much tuition goes to sports, but the big ones are very self-sufficient. That, and they serve as marketing for the school, and that can add value to the degree.

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

#457

Post by gnopgnip »

narag wrote: post #381
jldugger wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Americans expect college campuses to be like resorts You say that but the typical dorm room offers no privacy or air conditioning, and the showers and bathrooms are shared. They're similar in nature to SROs which the US pretty much abolished anywhere else, but way more expensive. And then universities have the audacity to demand that students live in them freshman year, even though living off campus would be cheape…

...demand that students live in them freshman year What? I've been watching movies and series made in USA for decades and didn't know that. I assumed that students living there was a way to save money or the parents wanted it. I had no idea it was required. If it's in the same city, can students just keep living with their parents?

97% of Stanford student undergrads live on campus. At many other colleges students are not allowed to live off campus unless they submit a formal request and receive approval to do so, and 90%+ is common. Then there are other types of schools with few or no students living on campus.

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

#458

Post by bjt »

jlebar wrote: post #437

The central claim in TFA is that when the government gives out loans directly, instead of guaranteeing loans made by banks, it's easier for students to get student loans, and therefore college prices go up. a) Zero evidence is provided in TFA that it is in fact easier for students to get loans under the government program. I could make an equally compelling argument and say, when the private sector provides loans gua…

> the government does not succeed if students are stuck in debt forever. Therefore when government gives the loans, incentives are aligned and lending goes down.

That's a double edged sword. Yeah, the government doesn't have the profit motive that predatory lenders do, but they also lack the incentive to say no to students who are borrowing money to study things that won't do much to help them pay it back. Politicians don't get re-elected on a platform of "let's reduce student loan amounts" or "let's give less money to students who are studying subjects that won't help them earn much". And the bureaucrats running the program don't have the power or the incentive to impose discipline here either.

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

#459

Post by mschuster91 »

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.

In Germany we have all three: everyone with the proper credentials ("Abitur" plus a couple side ways for those who didn't manage it, like a Master certification in a trade) can attend university, our universities are top notch, and free (even for foreigners).

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

#460

Post by mschuster91 »

coredog64 wrote: post #219
JamesBarney wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Americans are over 300 million people, and like Europe we are not homogenous. And many Americans believe European healthcare, education, and infrastructure are far superior to the U.S. The problem is that despite Europe being far more efficient at health, education, and infrastructure spending it also has a wide range of policies. So it's difficult to determine which policies are driving the increase in efficiency an…

There’s no such thing as “European healthcare”. European countries (and I’m going to ignore Brexit and include the UK) approach provision of healthcare in a unique way. For example, the UK has the NHS, Switzerland has insurance mandates, and France has strict regulation of private insurance companies.

Yet all of Europe has one thing in common: people don't go bankrupt over surgeries because 99.99% of people have an insurance.
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