4 ms·

I believe he's basically correct, but not to that extent. Selling degrees in "Gender Studies" for $200K is not a sustainable business model.

linksnapzz 10y ago
It can last for a surprising amount of time, if a third party provides sufficient subsidy, a tolerable payment plan, and in the end agrees to eat much of the cost nominally borne by the borrower. I forget which economist said it: "unsustainable things can go on for far longer than you'd expect, but then they stop far faster than you might anticipate."
MisterBastahrd 10y ago
Then the solution is not to abolish social science degrees, but to subsidize them.
- rhapsodic 10y ago
  > Then the solution is not to abolish social science degrees, but to subsidize them. Quite the opposite. The reason a college education is so expensive in the US is because, in an effort to make it more affordable, it has been so heavily subsidized. Schools have diverted the subsidies away from students' pockets into their own, by hiring loads of administrative staff, building new luxurious facilities, etc. In a free market, if Gender Studies degrees provide value greater than their cost, and their cost is not extracted from hapless third parties (i.e. taxpayers), then they will exist.
  - MisterBastahrd 10y ago
    The "free market" is not free. Never has been, never will be. The promotion and dissemination of human knowledge is not restricted to business and STEM degrees, the value derived from them can't always be quantified as something so childishly simplistic as dollars and cents.
Eridrus 10y ago
So, 90% of colleges are providing 200k degrees in gender studies? The fact that a few of these examples exist doesn't mean the right answer is to tear the whole thing down like this guy clearly wants to. One of the issues I find when I try to obtain educational content online is that while there is a tonne of material on the basics of many subject, there is often very little advanced content. And it makes sense, since the advanced courses have fewer students too. As much as I like online education, and would really appreciate a system where we could dramatically cut the costs of providing education to people, I'm not convinced that we've found a model that actually works for the large amount of people we expect colleges to educate.

linksnapzz 10y ago

It can last for a surprising amount of time, if a third party provides sufficient subsidy, a tolerable payment plan, and in the end agrees to eat much of the cost nominally borne by the borrower. I forget which economist said it: "unsustainable things can go on for far longer than you'd expect, but then they stop far faster than you might anticipate."

MisterBastahrd 10y ago

Then the solution is not to abolish social science degrees, but to subsidize them.

rhapsodic 10y ago
> Then the solution is not to abolish social science degrees, but to subsidize them. Quite the opposite. The reason a college education is so expensive in the US is because, in an effort to make it more affordable, it has been so heavily subsidized. Schools have diverted the subsidies away from students' pockets into their own, by hiring loads of administrative staff, building new luxurious facilities, etc. In a free market, if Gender Studies degrees provide value greater than their cost, and their cost is not extracted from hapless third parties (i.e. taxpayers), then they will exist.
- MisterBastahrd 10y ago
  The "free market" is not free. Never has been, never will be. The promotion and dissemination of human knowledge is not restricted to business and STEM degrees, the value derived from them can't always be quantified as something so childishly simplistic as dollars and cents.

Eridrus 10y ago

So, 90% of colleges are providing 200k degrees in gender studies? The fact that a few of these examples exist doesn't mean the right answer is to tear the whole thing down like this guy clearly wants to. One of the issues I find when I try to obtain educational content online is that while there is a tonne of material on the basics of many subject, there is often very little advanced content. And it makes sense, since the advanced courses have fewer students too. As much as I like online education, and would really appreciate a system where we could dramatically cut the costs of providing education to people, I'm not convinced that we've found a model that actually works for the large amount of people we expect colleges to educate.