5 ms·

a few points: the same public unions that support clinton and sanders are the ones that created the "for profit" school debt problem. many union contracts off

a few points: the same public unions that support clinton and sanders are the ones that created the "for profit" school debt problem. many union contracts offer mandatory pay raises for nonsense masters degrees pumped out online. the government subsidizing student debt with artificially low interest rates has increased the size of the load as well as the cost of said education.

givinguflac 10y ago
You do understand that a massive portion of this issue is private schools costing so much? Most private schools have nothing to do with the unions or politics you're talking about.
- lintiness 10y ago
  private schools cost a lot for two very important reasons: (1) consumers believe they're worth it and (2) said consumers can borrow money to pay tuition at extraordinarily low interest rates.
  - Clubber 10y ago
    I think one of the biggest draws to private schools is they typically don't require admissions testing such as SAT, ACT, GMAT, etc. Of course, when you hear "private school," many people think private high schools, which are typically superior to public, particularly in southern US regions. The different is these are "for-profit," which can easily be confused, particularly by someone right out of high school. Finally large marketing expenditures and high pressure sales targeted at people who believe people are required, morally or legally, to be honest.
    - lintiness 10y ago
      stanford, harvard, yale, university of chicago, mit, williams, amherst, princeton, penn, cal tech, ... all private schools that not only require standardized test scores, but prefer top percentile.
      - Clubber 10y ago
        Replace "private" with "for-profit." I conflated the terms a bit. Many people mistake "for-profit" schools for private schools. For profit schools are perfectly fine with the ambiguity.
    - dragonwriter 10y ago
      > I think one of the biggest draws to private schools is they typically don't require admissions testing such as SAT, ACT, GMAT, etc. I think you are confusing "private schools" with "for-profit" schools. But, even here, lots of programs targeting mid-career workers offered by non-profit (public and private) institutions don't rely on admission testing. > The different is these are "for-profit," which can easily be confused, particularly by someone right out of high school. Is there are a large "right out of high school" population going into private, for-profit schools? Most of the marketing I've seen from them is directed at mid-career workers, not recent high-school grads.
- djrogers 10y ago
  It's not a 'massive portion' of the issue. Public school tuition in many states has increased dramatically as well. Both of them are going up for one primary reason - the federally backed student loan programs have increased the supply of money available.
steveax 10y ago
I haven't seen evidence of unions supporting for-profit schools, in fact, quite the opposite [1]. Care to share some evidence of that? [1] http://forprofitu.org/2013/06/seiu-testimony-at-a-department-of-education-hearing-on-oversight-of-for-profit-universities/ http://forprofitu.org/2013/06/seiu-testimony-at-a-department...
- lintiness 10y ago
  http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2014/06/05-masters-degree-pay-bump-chingos http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2014/06/05-masters-... teachers with masters degrees offer no bump in student performance but cost a lot more (see bill gates on this if you don't like brookings). where do you think they're getting these degrees, harvard and yale? they're getting their masters degrees online, at home, at night (devry, university of phoenix, etc.), and they're getting them in made up bullshit fields of study.
  - steveax 10y ago
    I have no quibble with the assertion that advanced degrees do not correlate with better performance, but no evidence there that unions 'created the "for profit" school debt problem'.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    Where there are incentives for higher degrees in teaching, there is quite often a restriction that, to qualify for the incentive, the degree must either be in the subject area being taught or Education, so, while its quite possible that they are going to private for-profit schools (though, IME, there are plenty of evening, online, and distance-education programs targeting that market from traditional public and private nonprofit schools, so that's probably not that common), they probably aren't in "made up bullshit fields of study". (If they plan to keep the door open to going into administration, they'll usually do Education, because an advanced degree in Ed is selected for in hiring -- and sometimes an outright requirement -- for administrative positions.)
    - 10y ago

givinguflac 10y ago

You do understand that a massive portion of this issue is private schools costing so much? Most private schools have nothing to do with the unions or politics you're talking about.

lintiness 10y ago
private schools cost a lot for two very important reasons: (1) consumers believe they're worth it and (2) said consumers can borrow money to pay tuition at extraordinarily low interest rates.
- Clubber 10y ago
  I think one of the biggest draws to private schools is they typically don't require admissions testing such as SAT, ACT, GMAT, etc. Of course, when you hear "private school," many people think private high schools, which are typically superior to public, particularly in southern US regions. The different is these are "for-profit," which can easily be confused, particularly by someone right out of high school. Finally large marketing expenditures and high pressure sales targeted at people who believe people are required, morally or legally, to be honest.
  - lintiness 10y ago
    stanford, harvard, yale, university of chicago, mit, williams, amherst, princeton, penn, cal tech, ... all private schools that not only require standardized test scores, but prefer top percentile.
    - Clubber 10y ago
      Replace "private" with "for-profit." I conflated the terms a bit. Many people mistake "for-profit" schools for private schools. For profit schools are perfectly fine with the ambiguity.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    > I think one of the biggest draws to private schools is they typically don't require admissions testing such as SAT, ACT, GMAT, etc. I think you are confusing "private schools" with "for-profit" schools. But, even here, lots of programs targeting mid-career workers offered by non-profit (public and private) institutions don't rely on admission testing. > The different is these are "for-profit," which can easily be confused, particularly by someone right out of high school. Is there are a large "right out of high school" population going into private, for-profit schools? Most of the marketing I've seen from them is directed at mid-career workers, not recent high-school grads.
djrogers 10y ago
It's not a 'massive portion' of the issue. Public school tuition in many states has increased dramatically as well. Both of them are going up for one primary reason - the federally backed student loan programs have increased the supply of money available.

steveax 10y ago

I haven't seen evidence of unions supporting for-profit schools, in fact, quite the opposite [1]. Care to share some evidence of that? [1] http://forprofitu.org/2013/06/seiu-testimony-at-a-department-of-education-hearing-on-oversight-of-for-profit-universities/ http://forprofitu.org/2013/06/seiu-testimony-at-a-department...

lintiness 10y ago
http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2014/06/05-masters-degree-pay-bump-chingos http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2014/06/05-masters-... teachers with masters degrees offer no bump in student performance but cost a lot more (see bill gates on this if you don't like brookings). where do you think they're getting these degrees, harvard and yale? they're getting their masters degrees online, at home, at night (devry, university of phoenix, etc.), and they're getting them in made up bullshit fields of study.
- steveax 10y ago
  I have no quibble with the assertion that advanced degrees do not correlate with better performance, but no evidence there that unions 'created the "for profit" school debt problem'.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  Where there are incentives for higher degrees in teaching, there is quite often a restriction that, to qualify for the incentive, the degree must either be in the subject area being taught or Education, so, while its quite possible that they are going to private for-profit schools (though, IME, there are plenty of evening, online, and distance-education programs targeting that market from traditional public and private nonprofit schools, so that's probably not that common), they probably aren't in "made up bullshit fields of study". (If they plan to keep the door open to going into administration, they'll usually do Education, because an advanced degree in Ed is selected for in hiring -- and sometimes an outright requirement -- for administrative positions.)
  - 10y ago