Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983 • Hacker News Board

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#451

Post by UncleMeat » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 7:08 PM UTC

koube wrote: post #19

toomuchtodo wrote: post #2

The only service category that has outpaced higher education is hospital services. https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/chart-of-the-day-or-century/

I generally see charts like this in relation to Baumol's cost disease, I'm surprised the linked article never mentions Baumol, but goes on to talk about government regulation and foreign competition. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect (See also section on education https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect#Education ) Basically as scalable goods and services get cheaper, non-scalable goods and services bec…

Cost disease can't be the primary cause here. Cost disease happens when wages need to rise for people who have jobs that cannot become more efficient. But the wages of people teaching college courses have not gone up 710%. In fact, more and more of the teaching work is being done for lower pay and with more ruthless efficiency through the use of adjuncts or teaching faculty who teach 5/5s or worse.

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#452

Post by chaxor » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 7:08 PM UTC

willcipriano wrote: post #180

Xeronate wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems wrong to influence your son's decision based on your financial situation rather than his desires/passions. Of course if he's naturally interested in the trades then sure.

Most people desire not being poor over most other things.

If you don't want to be poor, don't go to university.

Academia should be a place for people who run away from money, because it's the last thing upon the list of interests for them. Academia should be a place for joy in learning concepts, and in some circumstances, which strive to be useless. Mathematics is one of the most exemplary fields for this, which is summed up quite nicely with the following quote:

"The mathematician does not study pure mathematics because it is useful. He studies it because he delights in it, and he delights in it because it is beautiful."

Never go to a university expecting to improve your wealth status, because it very likely won't happen. Turn elsewhere to find wealth.

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#453

Post by nathan_compton » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 7:09 PM UTC

hospitalJail wrote: post #415

burkaman wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Postdocs are paid, and that's basically what a residency is. Or you can think of it as a co-op during a CS degree, which is also paid.

Postdocs/PhDs theoretically are supposed to be paid to advance scientific knowledge. Physicians are not advancing scientific knowledge. Also a co-op during a CS degree isnt paid with taxes.

> Physicians are not advancing scientific knowledge.

Yes, but they are providing a similarly valuable service. And, in fact, almost all medical practice contributes to the development of knowledge as well. Lot's of physicians (even residents) write papers.

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#454

Post by soundslikeapop » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 7:09 PM UTC

eschulz wrote: post #10

Makes sense when you have student loans backed by the federal government. If an 18 year old with no money and no credit history gets accepted into a qualifying university, she will be able to receive a loan since the bank knows that the government will protect their investment if she fails to pay them back. So now young people have this easy access to credit, and universities can greatly increase tuition and fees wit…

[dead]

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#455

Post by cosmojg » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 7:09 PM UTC

koube wrote: post #19

toomuchtodo wrote: post #2

The only service category that has outpaced higher education is hospital services. https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/chart-of-the-day-or-century/

I generally see charts like this in relation to Baumol's cost disease, I'm surprised the linked article never mentions Baumol, but goes on to talk about government regulation and foreign competition. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect (See also section on education https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect#Education ) Basically as scalable goods and services get cheaper, non-scalable goods and services bec…

Is that lack of scalability in hospital services and education completely inevitable due to the constraints of reality or is it mostly artificial? For example, would completely uncapping medical residencies increase the supply of doctors enough to significantly reduce the rate at which medical costs increase?

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#456

Post by ralmidani » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 7:10 PM UTC

hospitalJail wrote: post #216

ralmidani wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Medical school is education, and in the US it’s astronomically expensive (some people graduate with half a million dollars of debt). Residency is more like on-the-job training (a hospital still makes money when a resident sees and treats you). It just takes longer to train a physician because there are human lives at stake. Yes, teaching fellows and others in academia are often taken advantage of and work for free, b…

>It just takes longer to train a physician because there are human lives at stake. Airbags? Our electrical infrastructure? Our plumbing? Please, there are plenty of of industries that have lives at stake and we don't have a cartel controlling the supply of people. The issue is that we don't have enough Physician(By design), so they need to operate independently. Any other industry has multiple layers of qualified peo…

I don’t want to trivialize the amount of work that goes into airbags, electrical infrastructure, or plumbing.

However, the human body is much more complicated. Would you trust the life of a loved one who, God forbid, has cancer or needs surgery to a person with a fraction of the education and training physicians receive?

By the way, I’m reminded of a joke: a doctor called a plumber for a faucet leak. The plumber fixed it in 5 minutes and charged $175. The doctor said “how can you charge that much for 5 minutes of work? I spend a whole hour with a patient and charge less!” The plumber said “that’s exactly what I used to say when I was a doctor.”

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#457

Post by idiotsecant » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 7:10 PM UTC

Xeronate wrote: post #230

willcipriano wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people desire not being poor over most other things.

There are a lot of ways to make money. Picking a job based on money is a good way to be absolutely miserable. My parents pushed me towards making money my entire life and there is nothing I regret more than following that advice. Every day I wake up dreading going to work and it seeps into every aspect of my life.

The world is cruel and wants to see us all ground to dust. The typical HN denizen might know this at an intellectual level, but few of us have the lived experience. I sincerely hope you never have to learn how much of a privileged perspective you have.

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#458

Post by japhyr » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 7:11 PM UTC

I would love to know how other HN parents are thinking about postsecondary education for your kids. I started undergrad in 1990, and I have a 12yo now.

I understand financial planning, but I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around how to think about college. Does anyone have insight beyond "Don't pay a tuition amount that's out of line with likely earnings"?

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#459

Post by adhesive_wombat » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 7:11 PM UTC

maxbond wrote: post #226

pixelatedindex wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m a newbie, what’s a CDO?

Collateralized Debt Obligation, sort of like a bond that's composed from many loans on something you can repossess, like houses or boats. They're notorious because they were involved in the 2008 financial crisis. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/cdo.asp Or if you prefer the Big Short explanation: https://youtube.com/watch?v=EEXTqtH-Oo4

The Big Short also has an earlier explanation of a non-synthetic CDO ("we just repackage it [low-quality risky debt] along with a bunch of other shit that didn't sell and put it into a CDO"):

https://youtu.be/xbiDrzTd8fE?t=260s

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#460

Post by YeBanKo » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 7:11 PM UTC

whyenot wrote: post #395

Tuition and fees in California's CSU system are still only about $8k per year. The CSU system provides a very good education, in some ways better than the more prestigious UC system because there tends to be more opportunities for direct contact with instructors. In the sciences, there are often more research opportunities and spaces for undergraduate students in labs. It's a real bargain, and you can save even more…

Some of my favorite most professional colleges are from San Jose State, which is a part of CSU. Obviously, it is anecdotal, but I do see in them very practical no bullshit attitude, yet strong theoretical fundamentals.