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Summary: Political rant with editorialized title. Speaker advocates for cuts to student loan programs to produce massive cuts the university budgets leading to

Summary: Political rant with editorialized title. Speaker advocates for cuts to student loan programs to produce massive cuts the university budgets leading to decreased program quality but affordable prices. I'm not sure this is even worth criticizing because frankly this guy is completely clueless, but: * The decreased program quality part seems to be skimmed over. * Educational institutions that just react to market forces are bad educational institutions. Market forces result in grade inflation and low graduation standards, something I think most people agree are extremely unfortunate trends. Alternative proposal: Redirect student loan subsidies from students towards institutions directly, possibly also bias the subsidies towards public institutions. The result should be lower tuition for everyone, mild downward forces on private institutions' tuition costs, hopefully no cuts to program quality and reasonable levels of affordability for reduced income students who will still rely on need-based aid more than loans and continue to have fairly cheap public schools they can opt to go to.

djcapelis 17y ago
I'd love to hear comments and replies rather than simply seeing your downvotes or your upvotes.
- DanielBMarkham 17y ago
  If you have to know, I accidentally downvoted you. I was torn between downvoting, commenting and ignoring you, and I clicked before I thought it through. Giving money directly to the schools is not even wrong. Costs are totally out of control as it is. But you are correct that we have a great university system, so I figure you're at least hitting on something and are best left to your own devices. Sorry for the downvote. No conspiracy was afoot.
  - djcapelis 17y ago
    Sorry for the mistaken assumption. I've edited the post to just be a kind reminder to others that I would appreciate replies to accompany votes. :) To clarify: I completely agree costs are out of control. I just don't agree the solution is simply to defund it.
    - AndrewS 17y ago
      Perhaps "they" could see how higher education is funded in other countries. I finished a decent four year software engineering degree a few years ago here in Australia and it set me back around AU$18k. That debt is CPI indexed (I think) and paid for by a levy on top of my income tax. The rest of the cost was covered by the government. The system isn't perfect (and one of many issues is unis compromising difficulty/quality for full fee paying overseas students), but I'm pretty happy with it and paid off my debt easily enough. I assume some other countries do a better job again.
      - djcapelis 17y ago
        We have this system in several states in the US, it does quite well. Unfortunately states are defunding their systems right now because of lower revenues and so tuition prices at public universities are beginning to rise at unfortunate rates. I'm all for reinvesting in our public education systems. Unfortunately, this particular video advocates simply cutting funding without actually providing any funds to universities. My alternative plan is much closer to what you're saying than what the video's plan was. You don't actually seem to disagree with me at all. I'm curious where you got the impression you did.
        AndrewS 17y ago
        I never said I disagreed with you; just mentioning that there are probably plenty of solutions and this was my experience under a different system.
        tokenadult 17y ago
        states are defunding their systems right now because of lower revenues I observe that in my state, which historically has been a state with quite a high level of funding for higher education. And I observe that nationally there seem to be several states well known for lavish funding of higher education that are in severe economic downturns right now. In light of this, I'm wondering how an advocate of continued high levels of taxpayer funding for higher education makes the case that that is really beneficial for the overall economy of a jurisdiction. Could it be that there is less "investment" with dependable return in such taxpayer funding than people whose incomes derive from higher education claim?
  - ytinas 17y ago
    On this site, downvote doesn't mean "disagree", it means you violated some etiquette.
yummyfajitas 17y ago
The decreased program quality part seems to be skimmed over. Some numbers: students pay $19,869.5 per term (http://www.nyu.edu/bursar/tuition.fees/rates09/ugcas.html http://www.nyu.edu/bursar/tuition.fees/rates09/ugcas.html). If each student takes 6 classes (between 18 and 24 credits), a class of 30 students pays $99,347.5 for one course. Another number: a typical PTL in math gets $4-6,000 per class. Presumably the cost of a PTL in a less marketable subject is lower. Unless rent for a classroom + admin overhead adds up to about $90,000/semester, there is plenty of waste to be cut. Specific examples of waste: the climbing wall, counseling services, latino center, anime club, gym, soccer team, korean formal ball, resident assistants, multiple offices of affirmative action [1]. (These all exist at universities I've attended or worked for.) Educational institutions that just react to market forces are bad educational institutions. Market forces result in grade inflation and low graduation standards, something I think most people agree are extremely unfortunate trends. Come up with uniform standards, and separate the tasks of education and evaluation. Problem solved. [1] If a university has three offices of AA, that's either 2 or 3 too many (depending on your views on AA).
- wisty 17y ago
  "Come up with uniform standards, and separate the tasks of education and evaluation. Problem solved." In the UK, people used to "read" for a subject. Then they would take their exams. I'm not sure that system really worked though.
  - barry-cotter 17y ago
    I don't see any evidence it didn't. Britain ran an Empire and had the industrial revolution all done well before the system started to change. There are people still alive whose professors had to be leaned on very hard not to give them a degree based on the quality of their tutorial work (Oxbridge sysytem). The German system that took over with end of degree Finals also has certain very obvious advantages in ensuring people learn but the bundling of teaching, examination/certification and research is historically contingent. yummyfajitas suggested some time ago asking a local university how much it would cost to take a course at a local university by examination, and I'm presuming that was a deadpan way of saying 95%+ of Universities would have hell freeze over before doing that, but the system seems to work just fine for accountancy. I see no reason why it couldn't be greatly expanded.
Estragon 17y ago
...frankly this guy is completely clueless... I find what he's saying troubling, too, but you should know he has a pretty good track record when it comes to economic predictions. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Schiff#Economic_views http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Schiff#Economic_views

djcapelis 17y ago

I'd love to hear comments and replies rather than simply seeing your downvotes or your upvotes.

DanielBMarkham 17y ago
If you have to know, I accidentally downvoted you. I was torn between downvoting, commenting and ignoring you, and I clicked before I thought it through. Giving money directly to the schools is not even wrong. Costs are totally out of control as it is. But you are correct that we have a great university system, so I figure you're at least hitting on something and are best left to your own devices. Sorry for the downvote. No conspiracy was afoot.
- djcapelis 17y ago
  Sorry for the mistaken assumption. I've edited the post to just be a kind reminder to others that I would appreciate replies to accompany votes. :) To clarify: I completely agree costs are out of control. I just don't agree the solution is simply to defund it.
  - AndrewS 17y ago
    Perhaps "they" could see how higher education is funded in other countries. I finished a decent four year software engineering degree a few years ago here in Australia and it set me back around AU$18k. That debt is CPI indexed (I think) and paid for by a levy on top of my income tax. The rest of the cost was covered by the government. The system isn't perfect (and one of many issues is unis compromising difficulty/quality for full fee paying overseas students), but I'm pretty happy with it and paid off my debt easily enough. I assume some other countries do a better job again.
    - djcapelis 17y ago
      We have this system in several states in the US, it does quite well. Unfortunately states are defunding their systems right now because of lower revenues and so tuition prices at public universities are beginning to rise at unfortunate rates. I'm all for reinvesting in our public education systems. Unfortunately, this particular video advocates simply cutting funding without actually providing any funds to universities. My alternative plan is much closer to what you're saying than what the video's plan was. You don't actually seem to disagree with me at all. I'm curious where you got the impression you did.
      - AndrewS 17y ago
        I never said I disagreed with you; just mentioning that there are probably plenty of solutions and this was my experience under a different system.
      - tokenadult 17y ago
        states are defunding their systems right now because of lower revenues I observe that in my state, which historically has been a state with quite a high level of funding for higher education. And I observe that nationally there seem to be several states well known for lavish funding of higher education that are in severe economic downturns right now. In light of this, I'm wondering how an advocate of continued high levels of taxpayer funding for higher education makes the case that that is really beneficial for the overall economy of a jurisdiction. Could it be that there is less "investment" with dependable return in such taxpayer funding than people whose incomes derive from higher education claim?
- ytinas 17y ago
  On this site, downvote doesn't mean "disagree", it means you violated some etiquette.

yummyfajitas 17y ago

The decreased program quality part seems to be skimmed over. Some numbers: students pay $19,869.5 per term (http://www.nyu.edu/bursar/tuition.fees/rates09/ugcas.html http://www.nyu.edu/bursar/tuition.fees/rates09/ugcas.html). If each student takes 6 classes (between 18 and 24 credits), a class of 30 students pays $99,347.5 for one course. Another number: a typical PTL in math gets $4-6,000 per class. Presumably the cost of a PTL in a less marketable subject is lower. Unless rent for a classroom + admin overhead adds up to about $90,000/semester, there is plenty of waste to be cut. Specific examples of waste: the climbing wall, counseling services, latino center, anime club, gym, soccer team, korean formal ball, resident assistants, multiple offices of affirmative action [1]. (These all exist at universities I've attended or worked for.) Educational institutions that just react to market forces are bad educational institutions. Market forces result in grade inflation and low graduation standards, something I think most people agree are extremely unfortunate trends. Come up with uniform standards, and separate the tasks of education and evaluation. Problem solved. [1] If a university has three offices of AA, that's either 2 or 3 too many (depending on your views on AA).

wisty 17y ago
"Come up with uniform standards, and separate the tasks of education and evaluation. Problem solved." In the UK, people used to "read" for a subject. Then they would take their exams. I'm not sure that system really worked though.
- barry-cotter 17y ago
  I don't see any evidence it didn't. Britain ran an Empire and had the industrial revolution all done well before the system started to change. There are people still alive whose professors had to be leaned on very hard not to give them a degree based on the quality of their tutorial work (Oxbridge sysytem). The German system that took over with end of degree Finals also has certain very obvious advantages in ensuring people learn but the bundling of teaching, examination/certification and research is historically contingent. yummyfajitas suggested some time ago asking a local university how much it would cost to take a course at a local university by examination, and I'm presuming that was a deadpan way of saying 95%+ of Universities would have hell freeze over before doing that, but the system seems to work just fine for accountancy. I see no reason why it couldn't be greatly expanded.

Estragon 17y ago

...frankly this guy is completely clueless... I find what he's saying troubling, too, but you should know he has a pretty good track record when it comes to economic predictions. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Schiff#Economic_views http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Schiff#Economic_views