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Interest surges in top colleges, while struggling ones scrape for applicants

nytimes.com

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Re: Interest surges in top colleges, while struggling ones scrape for applicants

#61

Post by leetcrew »

colinmhayes wrote: post #14
leetcrew wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Both will leave a student heavily in debt to the tune of 150-300k unless you have a very weird financial situation, no US student is going into anything like that much debt to go to either of those two schools. it looks like you got those numbers by just taking the tuition and multiplying it by four. both schools offer substantial aid packages for eligible families. the average yearly tuition contribution for MIT i…

Plenty of middle class families making low to mid 100k but not contributing to their children's tuition bill because they live in HCOL area. But yes, low income students don't pay.

$100k is not enough to totally phase out financial aid from top schools, but sure, there are some families that could afford to pay but refuse to. still, no one is writing $40k+ loans each year for students with no cosigner. if you have rich parents who won't pay and the school considers you a dependent, you're pretty much SOL.

Re: Interest surges in top colleges, while struggling ones scrape for applicants

#62

Post by wl »

DC-3 wrote: post #11
awillen wrote: post #7

I think this is generally a good thing. I believe there are really two positive things that can come out of going to college - either you get a name-brand degree that opens doors and gets your resume looked at, or you get useful skills that enable you to go down a particular career path (e.g. CS degree). Obviously in some cases it'll be both. The reality is it's really tough to make any case that a humanities degree…

Did it ever occur to you at all that people might value education for its own sake and not for potential financial yield alone?

I value education for its own sake. So I got my degree from a well regarded university in a lucrative field that I'm good at and enjoy. A roof over my head and money in my bank account, I can study anything I want without worrying about the financial yield. Sometimes that takes the form of free MOOCs. Sometimes that takes the form of paid classes taken through university extension programs. Unlike when I was taking classes for degrees, I'm learning things I want to learn, not things I have to. It's very nice.

Re: Interest surges in top colleges, while struggling ones scrape for applicants

#63

Post by throwaway0a5e »

sct202 wrote: post #4
lumost wrote: post #2

Colleges should have more price stratification than they do. At present the price difference between MIT and Umass Amherst out of state is only 41%. Both will leave a student heavily in debt to the tune of 150-300k, the difference likely doesn't materially matter to the student as they are looking at is as a ticket to a better life.

The top colleges have very complicated pricing schemes and are basically free to middle and lower income students, for example a student to MIT only pays if their family earns more than $90k a year which is above the median household income of $68k.

You need to look at this from the perspective of someone who has little to no familial safety net and cannot rely on family resources to help them out when things get tough.

Boston area schools being "basically free on paper" to middle income families is a reflection of the fact that a student from a ~100k income family has better options for getting ahead in the world than attending these institutions at any cost but these institutions would lose legitimacy without "economic diversity" tokens so they have to reduce the price. Going to Harvard (or similar) if you're not from the kind of people who go to Harvard is a high risk, high reward gamble with years of your life. These schools have to reduce the potential downside in order to get the quality of candidates they want to get from the demographics they want to get them from (i.e. they want to be able to pick the very best people from the "can't afford to attend" demographic). Also it's good PR.

If you're the son of a plumber and your options are going to MIT for CS, or UMaine's "we match your local in-state tuition" deal paired with their crappy CS program the Maine one actually looks attractive because you're going to be surrounded by people a heck of a lot more like you (on a life experiences level), you're not gonna be bottom of your class and you won't be running the Boston rat race when it comes to housing, a part time job, commuting, and all the other "life" stuff". If you're the kind of high-achieving individual who goes to Harvard from a middle class background you're all but guaranteed to live more comfortably than your parents and retire comfortably regardless of the choice you make. Rolling a degree from a lesser state school into a stable job at BigCo isn't something you're worried about. The networking value add from Harvard or MIT isn't as much of a value add because you have no frame of reference for it and won't be making the kinds of life choices where it can be most helpful anyway (remember, no safety net, you're gonna be the one that builds it). So if you're gonna "win" no matter what you choose why add the additional risk of Harvard, MIT or some other program you could wash out of?

Re: Interest surges in top colleges, while struggling ones scrape for applicants

#64

Post by gandalfian »

gonehome wrote: post #17
awillen wrote: post #7

I think this is generally a good thing. I believe there are really two positive things that can come out of going to college - either you get a name-brand degree that opens doors and gets your resume looked at, or you get useful skills that enable you to go down a particular career path (e.g. CS degree). Obviously in some cases it'll be both. The reality is it's really tough to make any case that a humanities degree…

There is so much broken with modern universities and incentives around pricing - why are all degrees four years? Why does a classics degree cost the same as a CS degree when the market value of a classics degree is basically zero? I wrote a little about it in the context of Lambda School, but it mostly applies: https://zalberico.com/essay/2019/04/08/lambda-school.html “The current university system in the US is a mes…

why are all degrees four years?

The university of Buckingham in the UK will do a two year official BA with no holidays. about $15000 a year. Americans are welcomed. It does OK but most students still choose a university with longer courses but more holiday and students interested in greater, let us say, "cultural development".

Re: Interest surges in top colleges, while struggling ones scrape for applicants

#65

Post by minitoar »

mrweasel wrote: post #56
minitoar wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think most people going to 3rd-tier college to study humanities are doing it out of some abstract love of education. They’re doing it because every adult or counselor in their life told them they have to go to some college no matter what.

The article is about colleges in the US, so I have no reason to doubt you. It’s just a ready bleak observation for someone who is raised to pursue a career that would make me happy, and be lucky enough to live in a country that allows me to do that. More and more the Internet makes me feel that the US somehow lost the cold war and it’s now a dystopian nightmare.

I wouldn’t know. I went to college for a topic I’ve always loved and that happens to be lucrative. I actually think the narrative of “pursue a career you love” is still the basic message. It’s just framed as requiring a college education in order to achieve that. There is some truth in it, as it’s hard to even get your foot in the door without the credential.

Re: Interest surges in top colleges, while struggling ones scrape for applicants

#66

Post by minitoar »

Jtsummers wrote: post #51
minitoar wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think most people going to 3rd-tier college to study humanities are doing it out of some abstract love of education. They’re doing it because every adult or counselor in their life told them they have to go to some college no matter what.

And, worse, many office jobs that were satisfied with high school diplomas or 2-year degrees in 1980 were requiring a bachelors by 2000. Even when the degree was irrelevant. Seriously, data entry does not require a history degree. At one place I worked nearly every one in the data entry positions had a history degree, and all had 4-year degrees of some kind. (NB: Talking about in the US)

Requiring a 4 year degree for a job even if the major isn’t relevant doesn’t seem wrong to me. Maybe data entry is taking it too far? Maybe the data was really sensitive and complicated.

Re: Interest surges in top colleges, while struggling ones scrape for applicants

#67

Post by lumost »

akhilcacharya wrote: post #22
lumost wrote: post #2

Colleges should have more price stratification than they do. At present the price difference between MIT and Umass Amherst out of state is only 41%. Both will leave a student heavily in debt to the tune of 150-300k, the difference likely doesn't materially matter to the student as they are looking at is as a ticket to a better life.

How much worse off is someone going to UMass by your calculation?

Umass opens doors, MIT opens more - in 2010 when I graduated, my friends who went to MIT and did ok landed at 90k/yr in comp-sci fields, my friends from Umass who did ok made 40-70k in comp-sci fields.

Given that everyone was living in Boston post-graduation and the base CoL is somewhere between 40 and 50k per year. The MIT folks had somewhere between 2 and 20x the disposable income at graduation. Meaning their debt burden was much lower.

Re: Interest surges in top colleges, while struggling ones scrape for applicants

#68

Post by throwaway0a5e »

borski wrote: post #29
a-posteriori wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was there, less than 8% of the students were paying full tuition (of which a good chunk were international students). At a certain point, the colleges start to look like perfectly price discriminating monopolists: rather than charging the highest price to each customer, they set a maximum price ceiling and then subsidize the gap to the customer's marginal ability to pay.

iirc, it was even lower when I went. And this is probably the most common mistake I see made about MIT, etc.; the lack of acknowledgment that the financial aid within top schools runs deep , which simply isn’t as true for smaller or less popular schools. Going to a “top tier” school can, depending on your financial situation, actually cost you roughly what a state school would. You can argue there are too many hoops…

> the lack of acknowledgment that the financial aid within top schools runs deep,

I think you're confusing depth and breadth. It's like the Harbor Freight coupon. Everyone gets 20% off with a few exclusions. But the people paying less than 80% (to continue the Harbor Freight metaphor) are few and far between.

Re: Interest surges in top colleges, while struggling ones scrape for applicants

#69

Post by throwaway0a5e »

lumost wrote: post #67
akhilcacharya wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much worse off is someone going to UMass by your calculation?

Umass opens doors, MIT opens more - in 2010 when I graduated, my friends who went to MIT and did ok landed at 90k/yr in comp-sci fields, my friends from Umass who did ok made 40-70k in comp-sci fields. Given that everyone was living in Boston post-graduation and the base CoL is somewhere between 40 and 50k per year. The MIT folks had somewhere between 2 and 20x the disposable income at graduation. Meaning their debt…

A huge fraction of the college educated people in MA have been to Umass. It's not an exclusive club.

Umnass opens doors in MA the way smoking pot makes it easier to make friends in college. You instantly have some token thing in common with a sizeable minority of the people around you and that gets you a head start on developing relationships.

Re: Interest surges in top colleges, while struggling ones scrape for applicants

#70

Post by awillen »

offtop5 wrote: post #50
awillen wrote: post #7

I think this is generally a good thing. I believe there are really two positive things that can come out of going to college - either you get a name-brand degree that opens doors and gets your resume looked at, or you get useful skills that enable you to go down a particular career path (e.g. CS degree). Obviously in some cases it'll be both. The reality is it's really tough to make any case that a humanities degree…

I'll disagree with this. A very rough fact of life is not everyone will be able to go to a top school. For example the language requirement most top schools have excludes many people who didn't grow up with a second language, and lack the extra money to afford language tutoring.( Or a stable home life in highschool as most college language classes work much better if you took it in high school). I literally couldn't…

I don't actually think you're particularly far off from my point.

In general, I think it's an ROI thing - the vast majority of non-technical degrees from low-tier schools have abysmal ROI. That said, ROI obviously depends on the I and the R - you intelligently kept the R down, and it sounds like you got a good I, so yeah, no disagreement. I just think you're very much the exception.

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