Too little is known about whether money spent on higher education is worth it • Hacker News Board

Re: Too little is known about whether money spent on higher education is worth it

#81

Post by rsfern » Fri, Mar 27, 2015, 11:49 AM UTC

tricolon wrote: post #61

drabiega wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That 57k is the lifetime amount for undergrad, not the per semester amount.

CMU is, I believe, the most extreme example at $65K per year: http://www.cmu.edu/hub/tuition/1516-undergraduate.html

CMU's tuition is indeed quite high, but it's actually 50k$ per year for undergraduates. The 65k$ you quote includes campus housing and dining services, so it's not really fair to compare that figure to tuition costs elsewhere.

Re: Too little is known about whether money spent on higher education is worth it

#82

Post by delg » Fri, Mar 27, 2015, 12:04 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #25

Too little is known about whether money spent in education is worth it, period. The US spends more on education per capita than almost all OECD countries, but performs worse on international metrics. What's the value proposition?

That isn't a helpful comparison if what we want to know is, will spending more in the US lead to better outcomes given our diverse, high ESL immigrant, large income gap, population. So a better thing to look at is, say, do test scores go up when we throw money at a low-performing US school? And the answer there is generally yes. Which, of course. Being able to afford quality ESL instructors would mean the world in rural Eastern Washington.

Re: Too little is known about whether money spent on higher education is worth it

#83

Post by fwn » Fri, Mar 27, 2015, 1:12 PM UTC

roguecoder wrote: post #50

As an economist, if people are willing to pay the price being charged it is almost by definition worth it.

As an unfinished economist I thought people willing to pay a specific price is an indicator for expected - not guaranteed - value/utilization.