5 ms·

Who is going to hold the screws to them? As it's set up currently, costs have been rising for 30 years at insane rates. I know I'm biased because I've been in

Who is going to hold the screws to them? As it's set up currently, costs have been rising for 30 years at insane rates. I know I'm biased because I've been in Boston for quite some time (it's probably different elsewhere), but all of the colleges in the area have been spending money on completely non-academic things. Building elaborate new dorms & cafeterias, immaculate landscaping, bringing in various pop stars for campus events. None of it moves the needle on "education", but it for damn sure enriches the colleges. Speaking for my own alma mater, they spent $8m/year to lure the president away from a California school, because he's apparently very good at luring in sponsorships/donations from alumni (I never really understood WTF that meant). Then the college paid ~$10m for him to have a house in the "hip" part of the city. On top of that, the university spent many millions building new dorms with sushi bars and excellent views. The costs rose a steady 4-5% a year while I was there, and I believe it's been at that clip for decades now. Sure, you can make the argument that it's to pay for their investments, but remember that the university also received in the neighborhood of $100m to rename an existing building on campus. And of course don't forget the monthly phone calls to solicit donations "for the students of tomorrow". Unfortunately I think that the idea of everyone feeling that they are "above average" feeds into this--kids who can't afford it really, really want to go to this school. And subsidized loans make it very possible for people to borrow $65k a year to do it. It's a vicious cycle, because as prices rise, the more it seems that politicians want to make it easier for kids to go to any college they want to. Unfortunately I don't really know of a good way to stop people from making dumb decisions. There aren't many careers that can pay off $150-$200k in loans in any reasonable amount of time, and I'm not sure that it would work out well for the government to step in and say that you can't borrow more than $X for college from any source.

logfromblammo 11y ago
Building a new university is difficult. Buying investment paper from Sallie Mae is easier. Building a traditional bricks-and-mortarboards university with actual tenured professors and students seeking valuable skills and knowledge is difficult. Making a half-assed university that gets all its revenue from government grant and loan programs while its graduates can't find jobs decent enough to pay off their loans is easier. As long as there are ways for people to invest and reap the benefits rather than spend money and do the actual work, there will be investment bubbles, because there will never be any shortage of humans who would prefer to sit on ass and cash fat checks than to sweat all day for little visible return. You alma mater pisses me off. It could have hired 80 non-adjunct employees, and built a new building with 40 classrooms and 100 offices in it. Instead, it hired one guy, whose job is apparently to beg people to give the school more of their money. And specifically, beg from alumni, many of whom will now be debt-encumbered and underemployed because they spent too much in tuition, learning things that don't help them to create beneficial economic activity, from people who are essentially underpaid temps with no future career path within the school. The availability of the loans just makes it easier for schools to raise tuition without providing better service. If you take away the loans, it's true that people who want degrees will have fewer opportunities, but one of those opportunities will likely be to attend school in a strip mall cubicle, learning from robot-assisted professors, for $500 a semester, plus $50 per credit-hour. That dude is going to learn just as much as the guy in the swanky dorm with theater-quality lecture halls and famous professors, but it'll cost him $10k instead of $200k. Throwing money at a problem does not help, unless you are throwing it specifically at those people who are capable of fixing it.

logfromblammo 11y ago

Building a new university is difficult. Buying investment paper from Sallie Mae is easier. Building a traditional bricks-and-mortarboards university with actual tenured professors and students seeking valuable skills and knowledge is difficult. Making a half-assed university that gets all its revenue from government grant and loan programs while its graduates can't find jobs decent enough to pay off their loans is easier. As long as there are ways for people to invest and reap the benefits rather than spend money and do the actual work, there will be investment bubbles, because there will never be any shortage of humans who would prefer to sit on ass and cash fat checks than to sweat all day for little visible return. You alma mater pisses me off. It could have hired 80 non-adjunct employees, and built a new building with 40 classrooms and 100 offices in it. Instead, it hired one guy, whose job is apparently to beg people to give the school more of their money. And specifically, beg from alumni, many of whom will now be debt-encumbered and underemployed because they spent too much in tuition, learning things that don't help them to create beneficial economic activity, from people who are essentially underpaid temps with no future career path within the school. The availability of the loans just makes it easier for schools to raise tuition without providing better service. If you take away the loans, it's true that people who want degrees will have fewer opportunities, but one of those opportunities will likely be to attend school in a strip mall cubicle, learning from robot-assisted professors, for $500 a semester, plus $50 per credit-hour. That dude is going to learn just as much as the guy in the swanky dorm with theater-quality lecture halls and famous professors, but it'll cost him $10k instead of $200k. Throwing money at a problem does not help, unless you are throwing it specifically at those people who are capable of fixing it.