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It seems like these thinkpieces about "debt" are really about two separate issues: (1) College debt is a good investment if you learn things and graduate, but

It seems like these thinkpieces about "debt" are really about two separate issues: (1) College debt is a good investment if you learn things and graduate, but too many colleges are failing to educate students and too many students end up dropping out with debt and no degree. The good news is that this problem has a pedagogical solution, but it requires many colleges to hire faculty based on teaching skill rather than research achievements. The US is doing some of the world's best research, but too many academics are doing second-rate research at third-rate institutions. Many of those academics should instead be focused on teaching instead of research. (2) Everyone can benefit from learning new things -- even (or perhaps especially) a liberal arts education -- but many students are attending college to get a credential and land a good job. We should be clearer about what we want institutions of higher learning to teach: life's big questions or job skills? I could imagine a higher education system that does both, but there's no good reason it should cost $50k/year to read literature/philosophy with thoughtful guidance and peer discussion. Maybe our liberal arts educations should look more like structured gap years, while technical education would have specific learning outcomes tied to workforce demand and better information for prospective students about passing rate, job placement rates, and starting salaries so they can make informed decisions about their financial risk. My final complaint: I've never wanted my student debt forgiven, but it does sting to make student loan payments with after-tax income that goes directly to banks bailed out at taxpayer expense during the recession. If lawmakers wanted to help the student debt crisis, a great start would be making student loan payments tax-deductible (up to a certain total, and only below a certain income level) instead of just having student loan interest be tax-deductible.

jdmichal 10y ago
> We should be clearer about what we want institutions of higher learning to teach: life's big questions or job skills? This used to be easy to answer. The first is a university and the second is a trade school or apprenticeship. However, the latter has fallen out of favor (for some reason?), and universities are having to pick up both roles. I don't think this is the right answer, but it's the only one that seems to have political / financial support. Interestingly, software rediscovered "trade school light" in the form of coding bootcamps. > If lawmakers wanted to help the student debt crisis, a great start would be making student loan payments tax-deductible ... instead of just having student loan interest be tax-deductible. Tuition is deductible. So you effectively deduct the principle payments the year you pay tuition. It makes perfect sense for only the interest to be deductible the second time around.
- the_watcher 10y ago
  Tuition is only deductible up to $4000 per year. Which would be reasonable if that were remotely close to what any college (outside of a few notable, laudable exceptions) are charging.
  - jdmichal 10y ago
    Which would be included in the "up to a certain total" that I elided from the original quote.
jseliger 10y ago
College debt is a good investment if you learn things and graduate, but too many colleges are failing to educate students and too many students end up dropping out with debt and no degree I teach college and will also add that there are a large number of students who have no business being there. They aren't prepared, don't know why they're in college, don't have the skills (and frequently disposition) to succeed, and only go because parents / teachers told them they should. Many are poorly served by sitting quietly and doing abstract symbol manipulation; they'd be better served by schools of shorter duration that teach practical skills. This is pretty obvious to anyone teaching at non-elite schools.
- ghostcat0248 10y ago
  Out of curiosity, what sorts of skills/etc would you want to see for students to succeed in college, that they don't have now?
  - dhimes 10y ago
    Not the poster to whom you posed the question, but in my experience as a prof * Self discipline * Study skills/how to study * Motivation for learning, not just getting credentials.
    - mulcahey 10y ago
      Often kids have lots of motivation for learning but classes can really take the fun out of it. They add friction by poorly presenting the material (I prefer a well formed book or document over chalkboard scribbles and ambiguous powerpoint slides), competition, deadlines (read: mastery learning), or failing to connect the material to applications. For all of theses reasons, I learn way more on my own than I do in my classes. Many of my peers do the same.
      - dhimes 10y ago
        Not the one downvoting you, but I think that what is needed for college is the drive to learn despite these issues that you raise. We've all had teachers like that. Sometimes a prof can add brilliant insight; sometimes you are better off following along in the book and not bother taking notes except in the margin; and sometimes (rarely, hopefully) you are better off skipping class and reading, perhaps from a text different than the one assigned. The class is important for giving you an organization of the material that helps to solidify your foundation for future learning, and also to hold you accountable for the pace. This doesn't work for everybody, admittedly; but often it is an intellectual maturity thing, and by making ourselves go through it we are much better off in our fourth year than our first.
dsr_ 10y ago
The problems with student debt are (a) it is not affected by bankruptcy and (b) the Federal government guarantees it, either via the pre-2010 program or the subsequent direct loan program. The result is that colleges and universities do not experience meaningful declining rates of acceptance (demand) when they raise their prices. One alternative would be to stop government support of loans entirely. That would tend to re-price college at a level closer to its actual value. Another alternative would be to nationalize higher education.
- r00fus 10y ago
  What about rolling back the disastrous 2005 bankruptcy "reform" legislation? I mean, in terms of political viability, that'd be just as viable as the two options you mentioned...
rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
There is literally nothing wrong with studying the humanities. I am amazed at how many brilliant engineers skip history and literature and become predictable consumerist cogs because "that's how the world works" as far as they've ever known. Time was you'd go to college, get a job, and get trained while you work. Of course I'm not saying a rocket scientist opening should cater equally to the engineer and the artist, but we have become so addicted to pedigree that we forget how differently things can be done when we don't expect a new CS graduate to build a mobile API on their first day.
- enraged_camel 10y ago
  >>Time was you'd go to college, get a job, and get trained while you work. You got trained while you worked because most people stayed at the same company from the day they started until the day they retired. So it was easy for companies to justify investing time and money into training: barring unusual circumstances, they expected that person to remain an employee for a long time. Nowadays though, job-hopping is the norm. If the company cannot expect you to stay for longer than X years, they're going to adjust their hiring practices to make sure new hires are "safe", i.e. have degrees from prestigious colleges. Of course that still doesn't guarantee they will have the necessary skills from the get-go, but if things don't work out the hiring manager can at least cover his/her own ass by saying, "well, he/she was a <prestigious college> graduate..."
  - rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
    Absolutely. Seriously this cannot be stressed enough: there is a huuuuge amount of influence in the decision-making process, whether it's choosing a vendor or hiring an employee, that ultimately goes back to someone preemptively covering their ass. When I tried an Ed-tech startup in college, our biggest barrier was that nobody wanted to sign off on an untested product in case it went wrong and they got the blame.
- caseysoftware 10y ago
  The opposite is just as bad. If all you learn is history and literature and nothing about how the world around you works - aka science and math - your deficiencies are just in other areas. If something is "well rounded," it has shape in all directions.

jdmichal 10y ago

> We should be clearer about what we want institutions of higher learning to teach: life's big questions or job skills? This used to be easy to answer. The first is a university and the second is a trade school or apprenticeship. However, the latter has fallen out of favor (for some reason?), and universities are having to pick up both roles. I don't think this is the right answer, but it's the only one that seems to have political / financial support. Interestingly, software rediscovered "trade school light" in the form of coding bootcamps. > If lawmakers wanted to help the student debt crisis, a great start would be making student loan payments tax-deductible ... instead of just having student loan interest be tax-deductible. Tuition is deductible. So you effectively deduct the principle payments the year you pay tuition. It makes perfect sense for only the interest to be deductible the second time around.

the_watcher 10y ago
Tuition is only deductible up to $4000 per year. Which would be reasonable if that were remotely close to what any college (outside of a few notable, laudable exceptions) are charging.
- jdmichal 10y ago
  Which would be included in the "up to a certain total" that I elided from the original quote.

jseliger 10y ago

College debt is a good investment if you learn things and graduate, but too many colleges are failing to educate students and too many students end up dropping out with debt and no degree I teach college and will also add that there are a large number of students who have no business being there. They aren't prepared, don't know why they're in college, don't have the skills (and frequently disposition) to succeed, and only go because parents / teachers told them they should. Many are poorly served by sitting quietly and doing abstract symbol manipulation; they'd be better served by schools of shorter duration that teach practical skills. This is pretty obvious to anyone teaching at non-elite schools.

ghostcat0248 10y ago
Out of curiosity, what sorts of skills/etc would you want to see for students to succeed in college, that they don't have now?
- dhimes 10y ago
  Not the poster to whom you posed the question, but in my experience as a prof * Self discipline * Study skills/how to study * Motivation for learning, not just getting credentials.
  - mulcahey 10y ago
    Often kids have lots of motivation for learning but classes can really take the fun out of it. They add friction by poorly presenting the material (I prefer a well formed book or document over chalkboard scribbles and ambiguous powerpoint slides), competition, deadlines (read: mastery learning), or failing to connect the material to applications. For all of theses reasons, I learn way more on my own than I do in my classes. Many of my peers do the same.
    - dhimes 10y ago
      Not the one downvoting you, but I think that what is needed for college is the drive to learn despite these issues that you raise. We've all had teachers like that. Sometimes a prof can add brilliant insight; sometimes you are better off following along in the book and not bother taking notes except in the margin; and sometimes (rarely, hopefully) you are better off skipping class and reading, perhaps from a text different than the one assigned. The class is important for giving you an organization of the material that helps to solidify your foundation for future learning, and also to hold you accountable for the pace. This doesn't work for everybody, admittedly; but often it is an intellectual maturity thing, and by making ourselves go through it we are much better off in our fourth year than our first.

dsr_ 10y ago

The problems with student debt are (a) it is not affected by bankruptcy and (b) the Federal government guarantees it, either via the pre-2010 program or the subsequent direct loan program. The result is that colleges and universities do not experience meaningful declining rates of acceptance (demand) when they raise their prices. One alternative would be to stop government support of loans entirely. That would tend to re-price college at a level closer to its actual value. Another alternative would be to nationalize higher education.

r00fus 10y ago
What about rolling back the disastrous 2005 bankruptcy "reform" legislation? I mean, in terms of political viability, that'd be just as viable as the two options you mentioned...

rm_-rf_slash 10y ago

There is literally nothing wrong with studying the humanities. I am amazed at how many brilliant engineers skip history and literature and become predictable consumerist cogs because "that's how the world works" as far as they've ever known. Time was you'd go to college, get a job, and get trained while you work. Of course I'm not saying a rocket scientist opening should cater equally to the engineer and the artist, but we have become so addicted to pedigree that we forget how differently things can be done when we don't expect a new CS graduate to build a mobile API on their first day.

enraged_camel 10y ago
>>Time was you'd go to college, get a job, and get trained while you work. You got trained while you worked because most people stayed at the same company from the day they started until the day they retired. So it was easy for companies to justify investing time and money into training: barring unusual circumstances, they expected that person to remain an employee for a long time. Nowadays though, job-hopping is the norm. If the company cannot expect you to stay for longer than X years, they're going to adjust their hiring practices to make sure new hires are "safe", i.e. have degrees from prestigious colleges. Of course that still doesn't guarantee they will have the necessary skills from the get-go, but if things don't work out the hiring manager can at least cover his/her own ass by saying, "well, he/she was a <prestigious college> graduate..."
- rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
  Absolutely. Seriously this cannot be stressed enough: there is a huuuuge amount of influence in the decision-making process, whether it's choosing a vendor or hiring an employee, that ultimately goes back to someone preemptively covering their ass. When I tried an Ed-tech startup in college, our biggest barrier was that nobody wanted to sign off on an untested product in case it went wrong and they got the blame.
caseysoftware 10y ago
The opposite is just as bad. If all you learn is history and literature and nothing about how the world around you works - aka science and math - your deficiencies are just in other areas. If something is "well rounded," it has shape in all directions.