13 ms·

In order to achieve this we will need to dramatically re-evaluate our priorities for higher education. Although it is empirically true that college administrati

In order to achieve this we will need to dramatically re-evaluate our priorities for higher education. Although it is empirically true that college administrations and associated costs have grown in recent decades, we have much higher expectations of colleges today than we did 30+ years ago. Health centers, rec centers, dining halls, transportation agreements, student clubs, etc., all contribute to a need for...more administration. So long as colleges have to compete for the funding students supply, they're in an arms race to have at least some minimum of amenities that modern students have been conditioned to expect. Judging by enrollment trends, "rigorous academics" is not ranked favorably in the decision of where to attend. This is one of the reasons that I favor increased public funding of public universities and junior colleges, because many students would forego elaborate benefits in exchange for lower costs -- especially after watching Millenials take on a lifetime of debt to finance an expensive "pre-adult" development phase. I think there is plenty of room in the market for private colleges (who can spend their money however they like), but public schools should have more modest expectations of what they provide.

yummyfajitas 11y ago
Why would giving more money to colleges cause them to reduce elaborate benefits? Wouldn't they just spend the money on more elaborate benefits (and salaries for admins)? Would raising tuitions also cause the quantity of elaborate benefits to go down?
- cgearhart 11y ago
  First, I don't think that increased funding should be granted without conditions. It's not just a matter of dumping buckets of cash into the system and hoping for the best, but rather about targeting investment of public resources into higher education to achieve specific goals. Secondly, I don't think raising tuition would have the same effect. As prices rise, fewer students will have access to the resources required to attend at all, in which case the existing schools would be competing for a smaller group of buyers at that price. The schools would be competing with each other to provide the optimal experience those students desire in order to attract as many as possible. And this speculation isn't entirely academic (pun intended, maybe?) -- schools have been raising their prices for a few decades, and we have seen an escalating "arms race" to provide more and more "experience" benefits from public and private schools alike. Because as I mentioned before, enrollment numbers suggest that "academic rigor" and "long-term value to society" don't seem to be the driving concerns for college students.
bradleyjg 11y ago
>> we have much higher expectations of colleges today than we did 30+ years ago Who is 'we'? I see this argument sometimes, but I've never heard of anyone choosing to go to school A versus school B because school B didn't have a gym. It seems like the people who want rec centers, dining halls, new dorms, etc. are school presidents -- both so they'll have something to fund raise for and so they'll have additional staff to boss around.
- cgearhart 11y ago
  "We" is "students", and they vote with their feet, bringing their dollars with them. The enrollment numbers are below, but the total funding (including public funding) for "party" schools is about 1.22x the total funding of the overall best schools. We can argue about rankings, public/private funding, personal debt, etc., but the overall point seems to be that people like party schools, and they love taxpayer-funded "party" schools. Top10 Party Schools: Tulane - 13531; U. of Georgia - 35197; WVU - 29175; Miami - 18456; U. of Iowa - 31387; UofT - Austin - 51313; U. of Wisconsin - 43193; UCSB - 23051; Howard - 10265; Ohio University - 29217 Total: 284785 Top10 Schools (overall): Princeton - 8125; Harvard - 21000; Yale - 12336; Columbia - 29870; Stanford - 16136; U. of Chicago - 14467; MIT - 11319; Duke - 14850; U. of PA - 24806; Caltech - 2209 Total: 155118
  - me2i81 11y ago
    This makes no sense as a comparison. All of the top 10 schools get many more applications than they have spaces, and that's true of many of the "party" schools as well.
irl_zebra 11y ago
Isn't the ease with which students can get sizable, non-dischargable, government-backed student loans the primary driver of these problems? Universities can practically charge whatever they want and they will always get paid, which leads to extravagant health centers, rec centers dining halls, etc. If anything, I think decreased incentives for schools to charge such high tuitions would lead to cutting lots of these high-salaried administrative deans and perhaps the universities thinking twice about building that new $5M rec center.
- cgearhart 11y ago
  Guaranteed loans are part of the problem. That's why I think the funding should be provided to the school rather than the student. Same money, different mechanism. It would also force schools to justify their extravagant investments, and limit their ability to borrow against future tuition revenues.
- mpweiher 11y ago
  Yes and no. In Germany, universities are essentially free, even for foreign students[1] (experiments to charge higher "tuition" that's still ridiculously low by U.S. standards have largely failed), and low-income students can get loans to cover some of their living expenses while attending. As far as I can tell, costs for educating one student average around 1/4th of U.S. levels[2], despite also having a very high administrator/educator ratio. We generally don't have lush campuses or dorms, university sports exist but are something completely different etc. My sister went to Stanford, so yes, U.S. unis are really nice. But maybe not all of that is strictly necessary. It seems to me that you can get away with government funding if both sides are government-controlled. It's the "Public Private Partnership" angle where you combine the profit motive with effectively unlimited government funding that you get in trouble. "Privatize profits, socialize losses(/costs)". [1] http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32821678 http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32821678 [2] http://www.marketplace.org/topics/education/learning-curve/how-german-higher-education-controls-costs http://www.marketplace.org/topics/education/learning-curve/h...
slg 11y ago
>because many students would forego elaborate benefits in exchange for lower costs Isn't this pretty much disproven by your previous paragraph? The reason why the arms race happened is because students chose schools that offered these amenities regardless of how much that increased the price.
- cgearhart 11y ago
  >students chose schools that offered these amenities regardless of how much that increased the price. Not really. Consider the alternative: public universities are 100% free to students, who must in turn maintain their GPA and achieve minimum progress to remain enrolled. Some public funds are allocated to student services, even while we pare back subsidized loans and grants. Students who are price sensitive will go to a public uni, while others with different objectives and expectations are free to take on loans or self-fund attendance at their preferred private uni that better caters to their goals.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - tsotha 11y ago
    We don't do that because we don't want to create a two-tier college system where people without money all get shuffled into the same colleges. Under the current system it's already difficult for non-rich kids to get into a Harvard or a Yale, but at least it's possible.
    - jessaustin 11y ago
      Harvard and Yale both have need-blind admissions and generous tuition grants for median-and-lower-income families. Those policies are quite affordable for institutions with their endowments. Do you really think they'll stop admitting median-income students as soon as state schools return to low tuition?
Retric 11y ago
Dining halls are actually a profit center at many collages and most of the others where around 30 years ago. The main drivers of administration overhead is mismanaged IT, and external administration requirements such as the certification song and dances.

yummyfajitas 11y ago

Why would giving more money to colleges cause them to reduce elaborate benefits? Wouldn't they just spend the money on more elaborate benefits (and salaries for admins)? Would raising tuitions also cause the quantity of elaborate benefits to go down?

cgearhart 11y ago
First, I don't think that increased funding should be granted without conditions. It's not just a matter of dumping buckets of cash into the system and hoping for the best, but rather about targeting investment of public resources into higher education to achieve specific goals. Secondly, I don't think raising tuition would have the same effect. As prices rise, fewer students will have access to the resources required to attend at all, in which case the existing schools would be competing for a smaller group of buyers at that price. The schools would be competing with each other to provide the optimal experience those students desire in order to attract as many as possible. And this speculation isn't entirely academic (pun intended, maybe?) -- schools have been raising their prices for a few decades, and we have seen an escalating "arms race" to provide more and more "experience" benefits from public and private schools alike. Because as I mentioned before, enrollment numbers suggest that "academic rigor" and "long-term value to society" don't seem to be the driving concerns for college students.

bradleyjg 11y ago

>> we have much higher expectations of colleges today than we did 30+ years ago Who is 'we'? I see this argument sometimes, but I've never heard of anyone choosing to go to school A versus school B because school B didn't have a gym. It seems like the people who want rec centers, dining halls, new dorms, etc. are school presidents -- both so they'll have something to fund raise for and so they'll have additional staff to boss around.

cgearhart 11y ago
"We" is "students", and they vote with their feet, bringing their dollars with them. The enrollment numbers are below, but the total funding (including public funding) for "party" schools is about 1.22x the total funding of the overall best schools. We can argue about rankings, public/private funding, personal debt, etc., but the overall point seems to be that people like party schools, and they love taxpayer-funded "party" schools. Top10 Party Schools: Tulane - 13531; U. of Georgia - 35197; WVU - 29175; Miami - 18456; U. of Iowa - 31387; UofT - Austin - 51313; U. of Wisconsin - 43193; UCSB - 23051; Howard - 10265; Ohio University - 29217 Total: 284785 Top10 Schools (overall): Princeton - 8125; Harvard - 21000; Yale - 12336; Columbia - 29870; Stanford - 16136; U. of Chicago - 14467; MIT - 11319; Duke - 14850; U. of PA - 24806; Caltech - 2209 Total: 155118
- me2i81 11y ago
  This makes no sense as a comparison. All of the top 10 schools get many more applications than they have spaces, and that's true of many of the "party" schools as well.

irl_zebra 11y ago

Isn't the ease with which students can get sizable, non-dischargable, government-backed student loans the primary driver of these problems? Universities can practically charge whatever they want and they will always get paid, which leads to extravagant health centers, rec centers dining halls, etc. If anything, I think decreased incentives for schools to charge such high tuitions would lead to cutting lots of these high-salaried administrative deans and perhaps the universities thinking twice about building that new $5M rec center.

cgearhart 11y ago
Guaranteed loans are part of the problem. That's why I think the funding should be provided to the school rather than the student. Same money, different mechanism. It would also force schools to justify their extravagant investments, and limit their ability to borrow against future tuition revenues.
mpweiher 11y ago
Yes and no. In Germany, universities are essentially free, even for foreign students[1] (experiments to charge higher "tuition" that's still ridiculously low by U.S. standards have largely failed), and low-income students can get loans to cover some of their living expenses while attending. As far as I can tell, costs for educating one student average around 1/4th of U.S. levels[2], despite also having a very high administrator/educator ratio. We generally don't have lush campuses or dorms, university sports exist but are something completely different etc. My sister went to Stanford, so yes, U.S. unis are really nice. But maybe not all of that is strictly necessary. It seems to me that you can get away with government funding if both sides are government-controlled. It's the "Public Private Partnership" angle where you combine the profit motive with effectively unlimited government funding that you get in trouble. "Privatize profits, socialize losses(/costs)". [1] http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32821678 http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32821678 [2] http://www.marketplace.org/topics/education/learning-curve/how-german-higher-education-controls-costs http://www.marketplace.org/topics/education/learning-curve/h...

slg 11y ago

>because many students would forego elaborate benefits in exchange for lower costs Isn't this pretty much disproven by your previous paragraph? The reason why the arms race happened is because students chose schools that offered these amenities regardless of how much that increased the price.

cgearhart 11y ago
>students chose schools that offered these amenities regardless of how much that increased the price. Not really. Consider the alternative: public universities are 100% free to students, who must in turn maintain their GPA and achieve minimum progress to remain enrolled. Some public funds are allocated to student services, even while we pare back subsidized loans and grants. Students who are price sensitive will go to a public uni, while others with different objectives and expectations are free to take on loans or self-fund attendance at their preferred private uni that better caters to their goals.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- tsotha 11y ago
  We don't do that because we don't want to create a two-tier college system where people without money all get shuffled into the same colleges. Under the current system it's already difficult for non-rich kids to get into a Harvard or a Yale, but at least it's possible.
  - jessaustin 11y ago
    Harvard and Yale both have need-blind admissions and generous tuition grants for median-and-lower-income families. Those policies are quite affordable for institutions with their endowments. Do you really think they'll stop admitting median-income students as soon as state schools return to low tuition?

Retric 11y ago

Dining halls are actually a profit center at many collages and most of the others where around 30 years ago. The main drivers of administration overhead is mismanaged IT, and external administration requirements such as the certification song and dances.