4 ms·

This is where good voice recognition would come in handy. I'm interested in the topic but I'm not the least bit interested in watching a 10 minute video; I'd mu

by smokinn 17y ago

This is where good voice recognition would come in handy. I'm interested in the topic but I'm not the least bit interested in watching a 10 minute video; I'd much rather have the text.

nazgulnarsil 17y ago
if your interest is more than passing you may want to delve into the more general principle of supply/demand distortion. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidy
- shaddi 17y ago
  Come on, there is more to federal college loans than supply/demand distortion. Easily accessible student loans have much further reaching societal and economic implications than "inflating tuition costs", and those should play into the calculus of whether government-sponsored student loans are worthwhile. This guy's example of Yale's 42 year stint of $33 tuition and so forth is pretty poor, too. "What has changed? Back in the 1800's there was no Department of Education, no government guaranteed student loans..." Gee, mainly that there were only a few sons of aristocrats going to the few universities in the country, and all they did there was read Great Books. Today universities are centers for research and have much broader educational missions. Guess what? Tuition isn't the primary source of income for universities (at least not mine, a Tier I research university). It's /research grants/. Tuition allows you to pay for high-caliber faculty that can bring in huge grants. Schiff misses this point /entirely/. We keep raising tuition so we can offer salaries competitive with our peer institutions and keep getting top-notch faculty (as an out-of-state student at a public university, I'm quite cognizant of these increases). "If the government didn't guarantee student loans, no one would give them, it'd be too risky." Completely false. Student loans are some of the least-risky loans to give: the expected income of future doctors, engineers, etc easily justifies the risk of a loan. That's why there is a thriving private market for non-government guaranteed student loans.
  - noelchurchill 17y ago
    Then maybe universities and research centers should be separated. My tuition should be applied towards the professors who will be teaching me. I'm going there for my own personal progress. If I want to go to a university that's doing the research then I would be willing to pay the extra tuition to go there.
    - shaddi 17y ago
      Fortunately for you, these already exist. Just avoid any university that calls itself a "research university". All community colleges and many other schools (notably liberal arts colleges) fall into this non-research category. Turns out, however, that research and teaching are complementary, so the best faculty and the most gung ho students will often be at the research universities, and that you can often learn more in a research setting than in a classroom.
    - skolor 17y ago
      That would be very hard to separate. There are very few professors who (in my experience) are professors simply because they want to teach students. The vast majority of them see teaching as simply a requirement to do research. One of the key factors in combining the two is that you are not learning from someone who kind of studied the subject a decade or two previous like you would in high school, you're being taught by someone who is actively research the subject (or a similar subject).
    - jbooth 17y ago
      University of Phoenix is open 24 hours a day, go for it.
      - kingkongreveng_ 17y ago
        You're probably being facetious, but I suspect that University of Phoenix and similar programs are, as an idea, higher education done right. My bet is the for-profit colleges will give establishment education a serious run for their money in coming years.
  - 17y ago
- nazgulnarsil 17y ago
  Gee, mainly that there were only a few sons of aristocrats going to the few universities in the country, and all they did there was read Great Books. Today universities are centers for research and have much broader educational missions. um....history would like a word with you. I do however agree that Sciff's assertions on this matter are grossly oversimplified.
  - shaddi 17y ago
    I realize I oversimplified my point there, but I think it's hard to argue that the Yale of 1810 has the same educational and social mission of the Yale of 2010.
  - nazgulnarsil 17y ago
    this is annoying. there's a bug where i often don't get "reply" buttons on replies to my own comments. anyway, yes the problem with this topic is that it is a synthesis of so many things that you could literally write several books on the subject. the modern college system is a leviathan in its own right.
    - shaddi 17y ago
      FWIW, if you click on "link" you can reply directly to the item. Definitely annoying though...
    - chrisa 17y ago
      Is it just your comments, or were you trying to reply too quickly? In April, PG added a delay on the "reply" links for deeply nested comments in order to prevent flame wars. Announcement: http://ycombinator.com/newsnews.html#29apr09 http://ycombinator.com/newsnews.html#29apr09 Discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=585507 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=585507
jrwoodruff 17y ago
I agree. All video/audio clips on the web should have transcripts with them. I usually skip it if they don't.
vlad 17y ago
While not a transcript, this article from 2008 contains the same arguments as the linked video: http://thebivouac.wordpress.com/2008/04/27/economist-peter-schiff-april-25-2008/ http://thebivouac.wordpress.com/2008/04/27/economist-peter-s...

by smokinn 17y ago

This is where good voice recognition would come in handy. I'm interested in the topic but I'm not the least bit interested in watching a 10 minute video; I'd much rather have the text.

nazgulnarsil 17y ago

if your interest is more than passing you may want to delve into the more general principle of supply/demand distortion. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidy

shaddi 17y ago
Come on, there is more to federal college loans than supply/demand distortion. Easily accessible student loans have much further reaching societal and economic implications than "inflating tuition costs", and those should play into the calculus of whether government-sponsored student loans are worthwhile. This guy's example of Yale's 42 year stint of $33 tuition and so forth is pretty poor, too. "What has changed? Back in the 1800's there was no Department of Education, no government guaranteed student loans..." Gee, mainly that there were only a few sons of aristocrats going to the few universities in the country, and all they did there was read Great Books. Today universities are centers for research and have much broader educational missions. Guess what? Tuition isn't the primary source of income for universities (at least not mine, a Tier I research university). It's /research grants/. Tuition allows you to pay for high-caliber faculty that can bring in huge grants. Schiff misses this point /entirely/. We keep raising tuition so we can offer salaries competitive with our peer institutions and keep getting top-notch faculty (as an out-of-state student at a public university, I'm quite cognizant of these increases). "If the government didn't guarantee student loans, no one would give them, it'd be too risky." Completely false. Student loans are some of the least-risky loans to give: the expected income of future doctors, engineers, etc easily justifies the risk of a loan. That's why there is a thriving private market for non-government guaranteed student loans.
- noelchurchill 17y ago
  Then maybe universities and research centers should be separated. My tuition should be applied towards the professors who will be teaching me. I'm going there for my own personal progress. If I want to go to a university that's doing the research then I would be willing to pay the extra tuition to go there.
  - shaddi 17y ago
    Fortunately for you, these already exist. Just avoid any university that calls itself a "research university". All community colleges and many other schools (notably liberal arts colleges) fall into this non-research category. Turns out, however, that research and teaching are complementary, so the best faculty and the most gung ho students will often be at the research universities, and that you can often learn more in a research setting than in a classroom.
  - skolor 17y ago
    That would be very hard to separate. There are very few professors who (in my experience) are professors simply because they want to teach students. The vast majority of them see teaching as simply a requirement to do research. One of the key factors in combining the two is that you are not learning from someone who kind of studied the subject a decade or two previous like you would in high school, you're being taught by someone who is actively research the subject (or a similar subject).
  - jbooth 17y ago
    University of Phoenix is open 24 hours a day, go for it.
    - kingkongreveng_ 17y ago
      You're probably being facetious, but I suspect that University of Phoenix and similar programs are, as an idea, higher education done right. My bet is the for-profit colleges will give establishment education a serious run for their money in coming years.
- 17y ago
nazgulnarsil 17y ago
Gee, mainly that there were only a few sons of aristocrats going to the few universities in the country, and all they did there was read Great Books. Today universities are centers for research and have much broader educational missions. um....history would like a word with you. I do however agree that Sciff's assertions on this matter are grossly oversimplified.
- shaddi 17y ago
  I realize I oversimplified my point there, but I think it's hard to argue that the Yale of 1810 has the same educational and social mission of the Yale of 2010.
- nazgulnarsil 17y ago
  this is annoying. there's a bug where i often don't get "reply" buttons on replies to my own comments. anyway, yes the problem with this topic is that it is a synthesis of so many things that you could literally write several books on the subject. the modern college system is a leviathan in its own right.
  - shaddi 17y ago
    FWIW, if you click on "link" you can reply directly to the item. Definitely annoying though...
  - chrisa 17y ago
    Is it just your comments, or were you trying to reply too quickly? In April, PG added a delay on the "reply" links for deeply nested comments in order to prevent flame wars. Announcement: http://ycombinator.com/newsnews.html#29apr09 http://ycombinator.com/newsnews.html#29apr09 Discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=585507 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=585507

jrwoodruff 17y ago

I agree. All video/audio clips on the web should have transcripts with them. I usually skip it if they don't.

vlad 17y ago

While not a transcript, this article from 2008 contains the same arguments as the linked video: http://thebivouac.wordpress.com/2008/04/27/economist-peter-schiff-april-25-2008/ http://thebivouac.wordpress.com/2008/04/27/economist-peter-s...