Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => Politics => Topic started by: Pb on March 07, 2016, 12:04:51 PM
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How much should 4 years of tuition at a public university be?
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8a. Whatever the university can get. The market needs to decide.
If it becomes an extension of our public education, then public universitiy costs will be free all whacked out by subsidies and graft inherent in the system even worse than they are now.
Private universities, 8a.
edit: forgot that "free" really means "paid for by somebody else"
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While I chose 8, mine is an 8b.
As a public university, they can't charge whatever they want with my taxpayer dollars. They can charge whatever the amount is for efficient operation of the particular university. A school with a big engineering or physics dept (assuming they do good work) will cost a lot more to operate than a university that focuses on liberal arts. Also, I have no problem with a private university paying a great professor $500K a year, but because of the way public universities work, if you pay a great professor $500K a year, all the crappy professors have the opportunity for the same pay based on seniority, etc. Plus all the university employees end up on unsustainable Cadillac state employee retirement systems.
So private university, whatever the market will bear. Public university paid for by tax dollars, there has to be some oversight. I would have no problem with an English degree costing $10K, while a physics degree at a renowned physics dept at the same school might cost $80K because of equipment costs, etc. Though I think all costs would come down if you could circumvent dealing with public employee unions.
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Really can't answer this honestly. Tuition is only part of the equation. Add in books, fees, room and board, and you easily will more than double your costs to attend.
Tuition for my son at Oklahoma is around $40K for four years but when it is all said and done OU will wind up getting $100K plus or minus for four years if he stays in the dorms all four years. Even if he lives off campus you will have the expense of rent and utilities to factor in.
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Uh, it depends? Question doesn't take into account location, type of school, etc.
Obviously private college should charge whatever the market demands.
Non-profit schools should be whatever their charter says it should be. Some go for 'excellence', others do go for sane costs so everyone can get an education.
PUBLIC universities, owned and operated by the state, have a different set of demands. But that isn't market forces, per se, because they are not private industry.
But obviously the costs involved are very different for a college or university in Manhattan and middle of nowhere Kansas. Anything that would cost $10k in boonies is the same cost as $20k or higher in Manhattan. Buildings, staff, maintenance costs, food pricing, and a million other things are impacted by cost of living. That alone makes it impossible to say how much a college should cost. Medical or law school is more expensive than English or teaching schools.
Impossible to answer the question, too open ended.
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Right there.
NOW, we ought to be doing something about the artificial shifting of the demand curve, but that has nothing to do with the college's response to it.
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But obviously the costs involved are very different for a college or university in Manhattan and middle of nowhere Kansas.
Yup, forgot to mention that in my reply. I think that could easily account for a 50% difference in costs between opposing ends of the real estate market.
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I would have no problem with an English degree costing $10K, while a physics degree at a renowned physics dept at the same school might cost $80K because of equipment costs, etc. Though I think all costs would come down if you could circumvent dealing with public employee unions.
My recommendation for this would be a simple rule stating that if you teach any courses that aren't required for a real, in-demand degree, you only get minimum wage, must teach evenings and weekends, and must wear a hairnet, polo shirt with name tag and shapeless khakis at all times so you can give your students a better example of what they should expect from their degree.
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Right there.
NOW, we ought to be doing something about the artificial shifting of the demand curve, but that has nothing to do with the college's response to it.
This, that's all that's needed.
And there shouldn't be such a thing as a "public" university anyway. Seems like it's mostly a way to create a tax-funded farm league for the various pro sports more than anything else anyway.
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While I can't prove this, it is my assertion that public universities are about as efficient as most government agencies, for much the same reason. Unlike .gov, you can opt out altogether, but I think the analogy is sound. The incentive to drive cost (and presumably, price) down is non-existent. I further assert, without proof, that the "tooth to tail" ratio has been skewing way toward the staff/admin side, compared to teachers, for decades. Add to this the cost shifting, either to other payers, or to the student's future, and there's just no incentive to streamline or compete.
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While I can't prove this, it is my assertion that public universities are about as efficient as most government agencies, for much the same reason.
I think some of the reasons are identical, but remember that universities also have even more of a tendency to cater expensively to even the tiniest special interest groups. Something that .05% of the population could never get passed at any level of government will happen in a heartbeat to appease 3 students in a 6,000 student university if they're portrayed as a "disadvantaged minority."
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Can't remember where I heard it but a few years back I saw a very compelling business essay. It described how any education that could not reasonably expensed over ten year's average income and financials from a good-standing graduate in that discipline was an unwise investment.
Brad
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Purely my opinion, but making college at a public university free is only going to diminish (further) the value of a bachelor's degree, while further diminishing the actual value of trade schools, tech schools, etc. One area where I think Mike Rowe is dead on is that we as a society have failed to appreciate the value of people who do real work for a living. People who do jobs that are very necessary in our world. People who get dirty at work, who build things, fix things, clean things, and tear things down. Start pushing for everyone to go to college because it's free, and suddenly a whole lot of kids who would have gone to work in these areas, and may have done well at it, will go to college if for no other reason than it's free and a way to avoid growing up for another 4-5 years. And when people start treating college the way we used to treat high school, some place you're expected to be, how long until the quality of education goes down? Colleges aren't going to flunk kids out if they're getting .gov funding for each butt in a seat. So suddenly classes get easier in some fields, and a diploma suddenly becomes the higher education equivalent of a participation trophy.
Looks, there are lots of ways to pay for college without making it free. My father worked full time while getting a BA and M.Ed. His friend paid for school via GI Bill. There are tons of scholarships. There are co-op programs. It can be done.
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How much should 4 years of tuition at a public university be?
You may only select up to 6 options.
FREE!
5k
10k
20k
30k
40k
50K
Whatever the university wants
As with medical treatment, by this time we have absolutely no idea what a free market price for college would be.
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Purely my opinion, but making college at a public university free is only going to diminish (further) the value of a bachelor's degree, while further diminishing the actual value of trade schools, tech schools, etc.
This, though IMO, every program including trade cert programs should include a couple semesters of business and economics. Enough to handle most of the day to day running of a business and understand what the newspapers are putting out about market conditions. A fair number of tradesmen end up either limping their own business along or failing at it because they didn't take those classes, and/or end up working for someone in one of those two situations. Two semesters of each really ought to be high school graduate level, but I doubt we'll ever get those on the required curriculum for high schools.
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I chose $40k. I think for tuition $10,000 per year is a reasonable number. I absolutely can't go along with "whatever they want." I know how much the president of our state university is getting paid, and it's obscene. So are the salaries for too many of the professors -- who don't really do much teaching, they just foist it of on graduate students (who are, effectively, indentured servants).
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Yup, forgot to mention that in my reply. I think that could easily account for a 50% difference in costs between opposing ends of the real estate market.
I don't see how real estate values affect the cost of public universities at all. It's not like they pay taxes on their land or buildings, and if they want to enlarge the campus they can use eminent domain to steal[/i] buy the land at below fair market value.
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I don't see how real estate values affect the cost of public universities at all. It's not like they pay taxes on their land or buildings, and if they want to enlarge the campus they can use eminent domain to steal[/i] buy the land at below fair market value.
They're always tearing down old buildings and putting up new buildings, pushing LEEDs, etc. My office for the last two years of my career was on a UC campus because the local congressional rep wanted a federal presence at that UC. Between university and fed dollars, the 15k sqft building cost $13 million. It would have been MUCH less per square foot in Kansas vs 100 yards from the ocean. It would likely not have been built at all at a private university.
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I don't see how real estate values affect the cost of public universities at all. It's not like they pay taxes on their land or buildings, and if they want to enlarge the campus they can use eminent domain to steal[/i] buy the land at below fair market value.
This, and if they were concerned about values, they'd build/expand on cheaper land instead of grabbing prime real estate. For example, the local university has EDd a couple of blocks around the main campus to expand some facilities that don't really need to be there, while they still have plenty of unused space at the farm 3 miles away, plus a couple hundred acres around the farm that they could easily buy and use at well below the value of the other property. They also complain about the need for more parking, but ignore the repeated suggestions to put in a couple of lots out at the farm and use their existing shuttle bus system to ferry students from there. Heck, most dorm dwellers don't even need their cars for most of the week unless it's to go to the farm, but instead they get the best spaces. People complaining that they need to build parking garages rather than expanding flat lots (The gym and football field alone have 20 acres of parking and there's now 24 acres of "just off campus" housing with its own parking closer than many of the university owned lots, plus shuttle service to/from three large apartment complexes. Add to that the probably 30-40 acres of "green space" scattered around the campus, and it's pretty clear that lack of space isn't the issue; poor use of available space is.) get repeated "you wouldn't understand why that won't work and we don't have the time to explain it" every year when they start looking at another neighborhood to buy and demolish.
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As with medical treatment, by this time we have absolutely no idea what a free market price for college would be.
QFFT.
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"whatever the university wants" with a caveat:
get the gov out of the business of loaning/forcing others to loan money to students.
It's absurd, and it's driven the cost up. Everyone being able to get near limitless loans is part of the problem.
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I've been thinking on this and for the most part, I just think the public universities should be given the boot. Basically, I think something that is funded by tax payers should be "free" for taxpayers (and their children) But we can't afford the damn things and the academic standards are slipping further down to accommodate the incredibly lax standards of our public K-12 system.
I would only tolerate public universities if the academic standards were kept to a higher standard than anyone else. If they were, the taxpayers could probably afford a few of them, even at a free or incredibly low tuition rate. And we would only need a very few of them, since most students wouldn't be able to achieve the academic standards. I don't mind public spending for some really bright kids who are smart enough to actually make something of themselves and willing to work their asses off for four years to do it, but they best be maintaining 3.5 GPA grades and doing it in some of the hardest classes known to man.
The rest would/could ask for whatever they wanted and I wish them luck on staying in business.
on a side note: I don't think this whole push for free collage would be happening if academic standards had been maintained in the first place.
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I've been thinking on this and for the most part, I just think the public universities should be given the boot. Basically, I think something that is funded by tax payers should be "free" for taxpayers (and their children) But we can't afford the damn things and the academic standards are slipping further down to accommodate the incredibly lax standards of our public K-12 system.
Call me a dreamer, but I'm thinking the entire educational system should be rethought and remade, bottom to top. Those the current system serves are not those it services, and the current system is bringing us into barbarism.
Things have not always been done this way.
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Call me a dreamer, but I'm thinking the entire educational system should be rethought and remade, bottom to top. Those the current system serves are not those it services, and the current system is bringing us into barbarism.
Things have not always been done this way.
I would not argue with this. Education has taken a back seat to wearhousing kids, feelings and social programing. None of which benefit the country.
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Education has taken a back seat to wearhousing kids, feelings and social programing. None of which benefit the country.
Education has also taken a back seat to having a degree. Rather than being something earned by application of intelligence, a college degree has become another meaningless symbol of the entitlement society. The liberals have succeeded in brainwashing the populace into believing that everyone needs a college degree -- and then they're debased the colleges and universities to create a system under which everyone, no matter how ill-prepared and unintelligent, gets a degree ... in return for doing nothing more than showing up on campus for four (or five, or six, or ...) years, and taking out a lifetime of student loans to pay for it.
Meanwhile, the guys who dump garbage cans into the sanitation trucks are earning six figures in larger cities, while graduates of elite law schools (ahem) "can't" find a job.
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Umm, a lot cheaper if you dump athletics? Insane costs going into athletic staff.
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Umm, a lot cheaper if you dump athletics? Insane costs going into athletic staff.
Always felt athletics should be a community activity disconnected from the schools entirely. After all, the schools say that sports brings in enough money to cover its cost, so let them prove that.
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Umm, a lot cheaper if you dump athletics? Insane costs going into athletic staff.
At most public universities the athletics dept is it's own independently funded entity. By "independently funded" I mean completely removed from state funding.
Brad
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If there was anything remotely resembling rational pricing signals in university education, I'd say public university tuition should be whatever the market will bear (given other variables like quality of instruction, location, degrees offered, etc) less the local/state taxpayer tolerance to subsidize said tuition. But even private schools are so disconnected from rational price signalling that determining the right base price for tuition is impossible.
The only way to get to something resembling such price signaling would be to get the fed.gov totally out of lending, accreditation, and regulation beyond what the COTUS permits. And a large flock of monkeys are about as likely to fly out of my ass as for that to happen.
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Education has also taken a back seat to having a degree. Rather than being something earned by application of intelligence, a college degree has become another meaningless symbol of the entitlement society. The liberals have succeeded in brainwashing the populace into believing that everyone needs a college degree
Hell, I'm reminded of the firm I read about that wanted to require a master's degree, while paying minimum wage, in a large city with elevated living expenses, to be a mail clerk with no expectation of elevation. IE it was supposed to be a permanent position - not an internship, training, or vetting position.
While they were rightfully wondering why the hell they couldn't fill the position while being lambasted, I think we've subsidized our way into a serious problem.
College graduates are valuable when they're rare. Hell, I'd go so far as to say that a college grad today is as rare, and therefore as valuable, as a high school graduate from my grandmother's time. Yes, the education has some value. But is it worth losing 4-6 years of practical job experience?
As a matter of fact, in order to reach a 90%+ high school graduation rate, and a (googles) 40% college graduation rate, as you say, we've had to water down the value of said degrees. A High school diploma just isn't worth what it used to be - meanwhile we're sacrificing years of productivity. What used to take a High school diploma now takes an Associate. Associates have moved on to Bachelor's and even master's degrees. That's another 2 years of education, right out of productive job work. But, as an employer, I'd be a fool to NOT recognize that those with a degree, even a watered down one, are better on average than those that don't. So the statistics still show - those with a degree earn more money on average, are unemployed less, etc...
And the crazy thing is? They want the rate to be even higher! They want 60% by 2025 (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/percentage-americans-college-degrees-rises-paying-degrees-tops-financial-challenges/). Why? I mean, even they notice the problem: "With more Americans headed to college, the findings of a new Gallup poll may be unsurprising. Paying for college expenses is the most common financial challenge facing those between the ages of 18 and 49."
Now, this might sound crazy. The GI bill and such are fine. If private parties want to put money into scholarships, that's their thing. But we need to get rid of the loans, especially the universal ones. Without access to loan money, young adults won't be able to afford the high tuition rates modern colleges demand. Without students, said colleges will collapse. So what do I predict happening? With far fewer students going to colleges, suddenly the Chancellors, Deans, professors, and such won't be able to justify their inflated salaries. Yes, some colleges will outright collapse. But without the press for new buildings, rec centers, pools, safe zones, protest zones, 'enrichment', etc... They'll be forced to economize. And I figure they can do it.
Sure, we'll get fewer college grads. But the jobs will still be there, people will be able to get into them younger, without loads of debt, and the remaining college grads will be a lot cheaper on everybody's pocket books.
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College graduates are valuable when they're rare. Hell, I'd go so far as to say that a college grad today is as rare, and therefore as valuable, as a high school graduate from my grandmother's time. Yes, the education has some value. But is it worth losing 4-6 years of practical job experience?
This right here. Just after coming out of the sandbox for the last time in 2012 I could have a job as an Intel Analyst making $60K plus with no degree, over 10 years of experience, downside was having to move to and/or commute to Dallas from Tulsa. Wasn't moving because of the school we had just got my son into and really wasn't enough money to commute but is/was good money. Fast forward just a year or so after everything more or less died down overseas, now the same companies want a 4 year degree plus with little to no experience. Plus they have to take on the chance that the person could pass a TS/SCI background check.
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IMO, the first step is to end all govt funded scholarships and grants for education. They are artificially increasing demand allowing schools to increase costs with less affect on the student. Beyond that, I am less certain.
When I attended Texas A&M in the early 90's, the most expensive semester I had was still around $2500 for books, fees, tuition. Room and board not included. It is a bit more now. They were talking about raising tuition fees then and I think they kept doing it. It is still cheaper than a lot of schools, but much more than when I went. I went to school with people who were working their way through school without loans. Soon after I graduated, we had an intern who went there. She was from Wisconsin. The out-of-state tuition (about 3 times in-state) was still cheaper than going to school in Wisconsin.
I would also mention that I went to junior college for two years first. It was close to home and much cheaper. Got a lot of the basic classes out of the way.
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Umm, a lot cheaper if you dump athletics? Insane costs going into athletic staff.
At both of our state flagship universities, the UW and WSU, the football coach is the highest paid employee.
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At both of our state flagship universities, the UW and WSU, the football coach is the highest paid employee.
While this sort of thing is true, some teams pull in huge amounts of money and fund themselves.
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Hell, I'm reminded of the firm I read about that wanted to require a master's degree, while paying minimum wage, in a large city with elevated living expenses, to be a mail clerk with no expectation of elevation. IE it was supposed to be a permanent position - not an internship, training, or vetting position.
While they were rightfully wondering why the hell they couldn't fill the position while being lambasted, I think we've subsidized our way into a serious problem.
College graduates are valuable when they're rare. Hell, I'd go so far as to say that a college grad today is as rare, and therefore as valuable, as a high school graduate from my grandmother's time. Yes, the education has some value. But is it worth losing 4-6 years of practical job experience?
As a matter of fact, in order to reach a 90%+ high school graduation rate, and a (googles) 40% college graduation rate, as you say, we've had to water down the value of said degrees. A High school diploma just isn't worth what it used to be - meanwhile we're sacrificing years of productivity. What used to take a High school diploma now takes an Associate. Associates have moved on to Bachelor's and even master's degrees. That's another 2 years of education, right out of productive job work. But, as an employer, I'd be a fool to NOT recognize that those with a degree, even a watered down one, are better on average than those that don't. So the statistics still show - those with a degree earn more money on average, are unemployed less, etc...
And the crazy thing is? They want the rate to be even higher! They want 60% by 2025 (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/percentage-americans-college-degrees-rises-paying-degrees-tops-financial-challenges/). Why? I mean, even they notice the problem: "With more Americans headed to college, the findings of a new Gallup poll may be unsurprising. Paying for college expenses is the most common financial challenge facing those between the ages of 18 and 49."
Now, this might sound crazy. The GI bill and such are fine. If private parties want to put money into scholarships, that's their thing. But we need to get rid of the loans, especially the universal ones. Without access to loan money, young adults won't be able to afford the high tuition rates modern colleges demand. Without students, said colleges will collapse. So what do I predict happening? With far fewer students going to colleges, suddenly the Chancellors, Deans, professors, and such won't be able to justify their inflated salaries. Yes, some colleges will outright collapse. But without the press for new buildings, rec centers, pools, safe zones, protest zones, 'enrichment', etc... They'll be forced to economize. And I figure they can do it.
Sure, we'll get fewer college grads. But the jobs will still be there, people will be able to get into them younger, without loads of debt, and the remaining college grads will be a lot cheaper on everybody's pocket books.
Pretty much spot on.
I think a lot has to do with curriculum being watered down coupled with a vast expansion of social promotion.
A HS school degree isn't worth anything anymore because it no longer represents any ability to do critical thinking, let alone basics like math.
A BS/BA degree is about on par with what a HS degree might have been 30 years ago- it does weed out some of the people who don't have the capability to learn or who lack basic reading, writing, and math skills.
Anecdote- 20-some years ago, I did an internship at a company (since bought out by Monsanto) that created transgenic organisms. While interviewing the president of the company, I asked about what kind of degrees they were looking for, his reply was:
"A degree shows the ability to reason and learn, not to mention the ability to prioritize one's life and manage their time well. While most of the people here have degrees in chemistry or biochemistry, one lady you were working with had a BA degree in English, and another has a degree in psychology (referring to scientist associates in the genetics lab)."
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My mother has said she remembered kids that were teenagers in 6th grade. They never passed and stayed in school long enough to avoid truancy issues before quitting. That was before they passed kids on who couldn't pass. Now days they look at a high school degree like a right. You can pass even if illiterate.
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Many of you are missing further government meddling:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griggs_v._Duke_Power_Co.
Griggs v. Duke Power Co. also held that the employer had the burden of producing and proving the business necessity of a test. However, in Wards Cove Packing Co. v. Atonio,[8] the Court reduced the employer's (Wards Cove Packing Company) burden to producing only evidence of business justification. In 1991, the Civil Rights Act was amended to overturn that portion of the Wards Cove decision.
David Frum asserts that before Griggs, employers did not have to separate intentional wrongs from unintentional wrongs if they treated all applicants equally by appearances.[9]
Justice Ginsburg's dissent in Ricci v. DeStefano suggests that the Griggs conclusion (that Congress aimed beyond “disparate treatment”; it targeted “disparate impact” as well and proscribed not only overt discrimination but also practices that are fair in form, but discriminatory in operation) has been effectively overturned by the Ricci decision.
Businesses can no longer use their own assessments of the skills of prospective employees. (Ok, they CAN, but they will be forced to prove the "necessity" of using such an assessment.)
Therefore, they outsourced that work- hence the increasing requirements of a college degree. (It is "proof of aptitude" of at least some level.)
So, government meddling to fix one problem (racial discrimination) created more problems than it solved. And, of course, now that the vast majority of such racism has been eradicated... we still can't assess individuals on their own merits because it might cause "disparate impact." Because we're still treating the world like it's 1960.
Thanks, Uncle Sam!
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Anecdote- 20-some years ago, I did an internship at a company (since bought out by Monsanto) that created transgenic organisms. While interviewing the president of the company, I asked about what kind of degrees they were looking for, his reply was:
"A degree shows the ability to reason and learn, not to mention the ability to prioritize one's life and manage their time well. While most of the people here have degrees in chemistry or biochemistry, one lady you were working with had a BA degree in English, and another has a degree in psychology (referring to scientist associates in the genetics lab)."
Did you ask him how he figured that spending four years and thousands of dollars getting educated in a field they wouldn't be using demonstrated good prioritization and time management skills?
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Did you ask him how he figured that spending four years and thousands of dollars getting educated in a field they wouldn't be using demonstrated good prioritization and time management skills?
:rofl:
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Did you ask him how he figured that spending four years and thousands of dollars getting educated in a field they wouldn't be using demonstrated good prioritization and time management skills?
Who says they didn't use those degrees and changed careers? These weren't millennials with McDegrees, they were in their 40s and 50s, and this was in the early 1990s..
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Who says they didn't use those degrees and changed careers? These weren't millennials with McDegrees, they were in their 40s and 50s, and this was in the early 1990s..
Neither English nor psych is going to get you much of a career at the Bachelor's level, and for the most part, folks with advanced degrees don't go looking for total career changes, nor does either of those have any significant relevance to biochem. (Not in the way that, for example, a math, horticulture or even engineering major could bring handy specialized skills to the table.)
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Neither English nor psych is going to get you much of a career at the Bachelor's level, and for the most part, folks with advanced degrees don't go looking for total career changes, nor does either of those have any significant relevance to biochem. (Not in the way that, for example, a math, horticulture or even engineering major could bring handy specialized skills to the table.)
Erm, you missed the whole point on how degrees, especially liberal arts degrees used to be considered proof that a person is able to think and learn, not simply a narrow set of skills to be plugged into a temp agency's recruitment website.
Even 'just' an English degree used to mean something. My college GF got a technical writing job right out of college making around $40K (not shabby at all in 1995 FRNs) with 'just' an English degree.
When you have Obama saying things like 'everyone should go to college' it simply translates to 'college degree today is what a HS degree was 30 years ago to what an 8th grade education was 60 years ago.'
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Umm, a lot cheaper if you dump athletics? Insane costs going into athletic staff.
At the Iowa regent institutions the athletic programs are supposed to be 100% self funding. I worked for a public university for just shy of 13 years, it is crazy how much upper administration they have and all the support staff to support them. Need to trim from the top, except they always grow the top and trim the bottom.
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IMO, the first step is to end all govt funded scholarships and grants for education. They are artificially increasing demand allowing schools to increase costs with less affect on the student. Beyond that, I am less certain.
Actually, I'd argue that it's not the scholarships and grants that are the problem. Relatively few people qualify for them. The problem is the unlimited loans that are handed out. I could borrow like $30k of federal money each year for my program, and I'm covered by the GI Bill!
As for the increased costs, I'm going to say this: Inevitable. Because back in the day we could select only the best 10%-20% or so to go to college. 40% or so went to high school with intent to graduate and go on to college. That means that the kids that are having trouble in school? Dropped. They get a technical education and go to work in the economy as whatever. You don't waste 4 years training a retail clerk. Those that graduated high school are, after a few years of experience, trusted to be floor leads, low level supervisors, and such.
As you train a larger percentage of the population, you see more and more need for remedial classes, because they're coming in not ready for the work.
When I attended Texas A&M in the early 90's, the most expensive semester I had was still around $2500 for books, fees, tuition.
Well yes, economizing on how much you pay for your education is always good, but the cost of a college education over the last decade or so has been rising at 2-4 times inflation.
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Actually, I'd argue that it's not the scholarships and grants that are the problem. Relatively few people qualify for them. The problem is the unlimited loans that are handed out.
I would go even farther and say it's not so much the loans themselves, but the lack of customization and monitoring thereof; want to borrow $10k/semester, you should have to show good performance in a program with actual potential. If you can do well at 16-18 hours in the engineering, business or IT program, then fine; the lender should take that into account when deciding if (and at what interest rate) they want to lend enough for all your living expenses so you don't have to work 2-3 part time jobs on the side. (After all, in theory, you'll be starting to pay them back a lot sooner than the guy taking 6 hours, and you'll be able to pay back a lot more/faster than the one taking minority studies with a sociology minor.)
Obviously, first semester, or first semester back for nontrads, they would be better off to use some other metric to predict performance, (I know my last semester as a 19 year old wasn't at all representative of my first semester as a 33 year old.) which would have to be tailored by program, but it's not much of a stretch to do that.
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As with medical treatment, by this time we have absolutely no idea what a free market price for college would be.
http://surgerycenterok.com/
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I would go even farther and say it's not so much the loans themselves, but the lack of customization and monitoring thereof; want to borrow $10k/semester,
That's what I was trying to get at with 'unlimited'. 'unrestricted' would be a better term to use. They don't care what your GPA is, they don't care whether you're full time or not, whether you're in a 'useful' degree program, etc...
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Actually, I'd argue that it's not the scholarships and grants that are the problem. Relatively few people qualify for them. The problem is the unlimited loans that are handed out. I could borrow like $30k of federal money each year for my program, and I'm covered by the GI Bill!
As for the increased costs, I'm going to say this: Inevitable. Because back in the day we could select only the best 10%-20% or so to go to college. 40% or so went to high school with intent to graduate and go on to college. That means that the kids that are having trouble in school? Dropped. They get a technical education and go to work in the economy as whatever. You don't waste 4 years training a retail clerk. Those that graduated high school are, after a few years of experience, trusted to be floor leads, low level supervisors, and such.
As you train a larger percentage of the population, you see more and more need for remedial classes, because they're coming in not ready for the work.
There is a lot of truth in this.
Over here, we used to have free tuition and a grant to support living costs, albeit the grant was means-tested and so miserly that you had to achieve what the university asked in grade terms before they would fund you (ie: you had to get a certain set of grades before they would let you in), and you had to cope with some very spartan conditions because universities had no money and you had only a pittance to live on (I think it was about 25% - 30% of what people on the dole got). There was only ever enough money in the county education budget for a certain number of students to go, so they only paid for realistic degrees at decent universities for students who had demonstrated some academic potential up until that point. People who didn't qualify could still go, providing that their parents had the money, but costs for them were kept low because conditions were so bad.
Since they brought the loan system in, the living conditions in universities have massively improved (in my old college they have decent heating, internet connections and a phone line in every room now, whereas in my day we had one phone, that didn't dial out, between 18), anyone can go if they can get the required grades, pay for university staff has increased massively (some Vice-Chancellors are on quite a bit more than £200,000 a year now) but all the students between £27,000 and £40,000 in debt (and thats for a three year Arts degree) when they leave, its questionable if the academic quality is any better and the actual importance of having a degree in terms of getting a job has declined massively; loads of them are now working as unpaid interns trying desperately to get on the career ladder.
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I guess I should have said something along the lines of "all government subsidy of student expenses" not just scholarships and grants. That is what I was getting at in the first place.
I say that with the knowledge that in the 60's, oil revenues from some public lands in Texas was earmarked for public universities. I really don't care of states fund public universities, I mainly just want to keep the Feds out.
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Texas A&M is up on the high end of athletic program funding. Yes, they seem to spend more money the more they get, but the university itself isn't funding athletics. Football attendance averaged over 100,000 last year and the SEC TV contract is bringing in truck loads of money.
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I guess I should have said something along the lines of "all government subsidy of student expenses" not just scholarships and grants. That is what I was getting at in the first place.
Ah. I have to be careful with that as well. See 'unrestricted' vs 'unlimited'. Do you consider the GI bill a scholarship or grant? I think that if you make them work 4 years for it it's not bad. Also, things like scholarships for the children of fallen soldiers aren't bad.
But any scholarship or grant should be earned. Whether it's by service before the grant, or agreeing to serve after - IE get the military to pay for your medical degree, but they have you for a decade once you graduate to pay for it.
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Ah. I have to be careful with that as well. See 'unrestricted' vs 'unlimited'. Do you consider the GI bill a scholarship or grant? I think that if you make them work 4 years for it it's not bad. Also, things like scholarships for the children of fallen soldiers aren't bad.
But any scholarship or grant should be earned. Whether it's by service before the grant, or agreeing to serve after - IE get the military to pay for your medical degree, but they have you for a decade once you graduate to pay for it.
The GI bill is neither I would say, not sure what to call it but it is neither.
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Ah. I have to be careful with that as well. See 'unrestricted' vs 'unlimited'. Do you consider the GI bill a scholarship or grant? I think that if you make them work 4 years for it it's not bad. Also, things like scholarships for the children of fallen soldiers aren't bad.
But any scholarship or grant should be earned. Whether it's by service before the grant, or agreeing to serve after - IE get the military to pay for your medical degree, but they have you for a decade once you graduate to pay for it.
Whenever we talk about people getting free money from the government (like welfare and food stamps), someone always seems to assume we are talking about armed forces benefits and retirements. Why is that? GI Bill and military retirements benefits are not free or unearned.
I guess it is similar to talking about money giveaways that are under the umbrella of social security.
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The GI bill is neither I would say, not sure what to call it but it is neither.
Earned job benefit. No less than an education benefit in any other job contract.
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http://www.businessinsider.com/8-things-boomer-parents-could-afford-that-millennials-cant-2015-11/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+businessinsider+%28Business+Insider%29&utm_content=FeedBurner+user+view
An interesting article showing the relative price increases of things bought by baby boomers vs. millennials.
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It's GOT to be free!
How else will anyone ever be able to afford a 4 year degree in the Sexism and the Origins of Proto Incan Basket Weaving?