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Break Up The Elite College Seats Cartel

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Re: Break Up The Elite College Seats Cartel

#81

Post by egypturnash »

xbar wrote: post #25

Dumb. Leave the elite game to the elite game players. Here's the solution: 1. Invest $50 Billion in a big computer. 2. Stuff it full of standard courseware 3. Hire 10,000 PhDs @ $100,000/yr remote ( 4. Have them grade tests 5. Declare it an accredited university. 6. Make it free to attend 7. Never expire units accumulated Congratulations, you have created a national public college for pennies. The quality of the educ…

This solution is missing the chance at connections made by attending a school teeming with the useless scions of the rich, who will be handed plum jobs upon graduations. You're not going to have a chance to hook up with something like Skull & Bones sitting there doing remote learning the way you will by coughing up the fees to attend one of the Ivy League schools.

Re: Break Up The Elite College Seats Cartel

#82

Post by blobbers »

Not everyone in the USA needs to go to an elite, great or even good school. What they need is to be taught a little bit about the world, and they need to be taught the value of hard work.

These days all the poor people just want to be fed dreams of "passive income" and have "fulfilling jobs". Most jobs = trading time for money. Harder the job, more money you get. So work hard at school, you get more money at your job, maybe. Or you go into sales, marketing, leadership or business.

Why do people always try to blame someone else for their problem? The "elites". Because they don't realize that the only thing stopping them is the person they see in the mirror.

Re: Break Up The Elite College Seats Cartel

#83

Post by rgrieselhuber »

ryan93 wrote: post #32
rgrieselhuber wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much have those endowments grown through tuitions paid (and increased) by the growth of student loan debt? If there is to be loan forgiveness, it should be paid back from the endowments.

The endowments would run out instantly. And you would destroy great research institutions. Some people just enjoy destruction

It’s not about destruction but equity. Tax-funded student loans should not be used to grow endowments and should be sequestered. Let donors fund the endowments if they care about the research institutions. Return the people’s money to the people.

Re: Break Up The Elite College Seats Cartel

#84

Post by longtimegoogler »

These days we seem to be obsessed with tearing down any successful institution.

I am skeptical that redistributing endowments will have a large net positive impact.

That said, I never attended an "elite" institution and have lamented that they are so revered in our society. The German system of higher education where schools are relatively inexpensive and similar in quality seems to incentivize students to attend in order to learn something whereas the main incentive for attending an elite institution is to open doors to high paying careers.

Re: Break Up The Elite College Seats Cartel

#85

Post by bnralt »

rootusrootus wrote: post #70
quadrifoliate wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From sources like this [1], it looks like the cohort of high school graduates is usually between 3 and 4 million. So that means the total college-eligible cohort is 12 - 16 million. Let's say 25% (a fourth) of them end up attending this magical national public college. That's a 3000000 / 10000 = 300:1 ratio of students to teachers. That's a lot of students per PhD to handle, for a $100k salary with greatly reduced ca…

> By comparison, the student/faculty ratio at a typical "good" college is about 5:1. Even knocking down the projected enrollment one order of magnitude (so 1/40th of the college-age cohort) gets you a 30:1 ratio which is still 6 times worse. What qualifies as a good college, for this description? Typical state school, e.g. Oregon State University? What counts in the 5:1 ratio? Because it sure isn't just teachers, tha…

Indeed, 300:1 is pretty common in large lecture courses, even ones at relatively high ranked schools in fairly important topics (algorithms, for instance). And that's with the teacher having to give a different lecture to every single section every year, instead of just recording one lecture for everyone for the next several years.

Even more time is saved if we unbundled university education in general, so that the various paths and credentials are their own thing. IE, Intro to Poetry 101 isn't necessary for someone who's pursuing finance credentials.

Re: Break Up The Elite College Seats Cartel

#86

Post by chrischen »

geodel wrote: post #68
chrischen wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They operate a filter to bring in quality people for the benefit of the other legacy students who pay to get in. It’s like how Google shows and gathers organic results… so they can get eyeballs on their paid results. In fact google doesn’t even need to improve their organic results past a certain point as long as it’s good enough to bring eyeballs. Elite institutions thus only need to get a good enough sample of extr…

So why would those who deserve exceptional education go elite universities if there is no value to it?

Because the value is in the education?

Re: Break Up The Elite College Seats Cartel

#87

Post by jcranmer »

rootusrootus wrote: post #70
quadrifoliate wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From sources like this [1], it looks like the cohort of high school graduates is usually between 3 and 4 million. So that means the total college-eligible cohort is 12 - 16 million. Let's say 25% (a fourth) of them end up attending this magical national public college. That's a 3000000 / 10000 = 300:1 ratio of students to teachers. That's a lot of students per PhD to handle, for a $100k salary with greatly reduced ca…

> By comparison, the student/faculty ratio at a typical "good" college is about 5:1. Even knocking down the projected enrollment one order of magnitude (so 1/40th of the college-age cohort) gets you a 30:1 ratio which is still 6 times worse. What qualifies as a good college, for this description? Typical state school, e.g. Oregon State University? What counts in the 5:1 ratio? Because it sure isn't just teachers, tha…

> Because it sure isn't just teachers, that's probably more like 50:1.

How do you figure that?

Mean class size at a university is probably in the neighborhood of 30 students. Yes, there are some classes that have monster, 200+ class sizes, but this is also balanced out by senior- or grad-level classes that have a dozen students in them.

Students also take several classes, and on average, each instructor only teaches ~1 class a semester (especially consider research professors who may not teach a course every semester). So if students are taking ~5 courses a semester on average, I'd expect to see a ratio somewhere around 6:1, nothing even close to 50:1.

Re: Break Up The Elite College Seats Cartel

#88

Post by peterlk »

blobbers wrote: post #82

Not everyone in the USA needs to go to an elite, great or even good school. What they need is to be taught a little bit about the world, and they need to be taught the value of hard work. These days all the poor people just want to be fed dreams of "passive income" and have "fulfilling jobs". Most jobs = trading time for money. Harder the job, more money you get. So work hard at school, you get more money at your job…

I think you're out of touch with the realities of being poor. Are you familiar with the ghetto tax?

Let me tell you the situation of an old friend. He was working his ass off to put himself through college even with scholarships because his family was too poor to pay for anything and could not qualify for a loan. He worked one job taking care of his special needs brother, and another job at a brewery while getting his degree. Over the summer, he worked three jobs to cover the bills for college. After college he got a job, but still needed to take care of his brother along with his mom (who has no money, dad's out of the picture) - extra cash went to help his mom. His brother could not get a job because as soon as a special needs person has more than 2k in assets, they no longer qualify for help and the extra cash needed to shepherd him through the time with no help is not available. His mom doesn't really make money, but how many people are going to not take care of the single mom that raised them? _Everything_ is a struggle - constantly. It is exhausting for him, and I dare say that most humans would not match his grit. Passive income is a desperate hope to bridge the gaps.

There are plenty of dumbass florida-man people, but writing off poor people for lack of effort is not a useful generalization.

Re: Break Up The Elite College Seats Cartel

#89

Post by killjoywashere »

From a national security perspective, I feel like the flywheel effects of the biggest universities are advantageous. I want to encourage emergent properties at as many universities as possible, and the idea that properties emerge at quasi-stable breakpoints seems pretty defensible. So if I want 10-20 at max emergent level, then I would be happy to also get 50-200 at max-1, 100-500 at max-2, and so on. Why do I care about thenet benefit accrued to any given student or students? At the limit, shouldn't I prefer to bring in as many foreign students as possible, the American students be damned, as long as those foreign students stay in the US after their training? Humans live long enough that education acquisitions approximate a zero sum game, so better to deprive the world, no?

Re: Break Up The Elite College Seats Cartel

#90

Post by geodel »

chrischen wrote: post #86
geodel wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So why would those who deserve exceptional education go elite universities if there is no value to it?

Because the value is in the education?

Even more value in exceptional education. So why go to elite university if its not providing that?
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