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There's an implicit assumption that the health care coverage a person recrived is roughly the same as it was in 1960, or at the very least that the expansion of

by Sacho 10y ago

There's an implicit assumption that the health care coverage a person recrived is roughly the same as it was in 1960, or at the very least that the expansion of health benefits is smaller than the possible price decrease due to improvements and commoditization. I'm not sure this assumption holds.

WaxProlix 10y ago
That assumption is addressed in the article.
mahyarm 10y ago
You can compare it against 1960s healthcare items, like doctors vists, basic blood tests, dental work, basic vet work, medications, broken bone surgery, etc. It will still be much cheaper than today.
qball 10y ago
I think it does hold for education, however, specifically higher education. If anything, costs should stay roughly the same for higher education- like broadcasting, higher education costs about the same to provide to 3 people as it does 300 (something "micro-degrees" take full advantage of). The only cost difference is the building and personnel to mark tests. What has changed are two things. First, more jobs now need university-educated people (or rather, people with the mental ability to make it to university- the proportion of the population that isn't university material likely hasn't changed). The average job for an individual in the 60s did not require the applicant to have even finished high school (national graduation rate: 72%). The decline in those jobs increased the graduation rate; it had nothing to do with the quality of education at the time as you can see from the average test scores. Second (and as a consequence of the first point), a signalling war in education began. Employers started requiring high school graduation for positions that don't actually require it, and bachelor's degrees for positions that only really require high school graduation and possibly some specialized training (the signalling problem, also on SSC: http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/06/06/against-tulip-subsidies/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/06/06/against-tulip-subsidies...). Education is still as much a golden ticket as it was in 1960, but the difference is that everyone has one now, so you must have one to be competitive, whether you need it or not. The solution devalues it somehow; the assumption is that even without a degree graduates will be more competent than non-graduates. I'm not convinced that's true enough to avoid hurting a lot of people, but at least we can save those unfortunate enough to be currently stuck in the system and the people most invested don't vote.
- matt4077 10y ago
  Elite universities do have extremely low professor:student ratios. At Harvard it's 7. That does produce quite a difference – it's a level where 1:1 teaching happens fairly regularly. Your analysis seems to rely on the price being a function of demand. I'm not sure if that holds, considering supply in this market is highly flexible.
  - JamesBarney 10y ago
    The supply of elite universities with national reputations is pretty dang inflexible. You can't open another MIT, Harvard, Yale, Columbia, etc... The supply of universities recognized at the state level is similarly fixed. In Texas all of the recognized state universities have been around for quite a while. For profit tech schools are probably pretty flexible but they don't really compete on price as much as advertising and ability to get their students loans.

by Sacho 10y ago

WaxProlix 10y ago

That assumption is addressed in the article.

mahyarm 10y ago

You can compare it against 1960s healthcare items, like doctors vists, basic blood tests, dental work, basic vet work, medications, broken bone surgery, etc. It will still be much cheaper than today.

qball 10y ago

I think it does hold for education, however, specifically higher education. If anything, costs should stay roughly the same for higher education- like broadcasting, higher education costs about the same to provide to 3 people as it does 300 (something "micro-degrees" take full advantage of). The only cost difference is the building and personnel to mark tests. What has changed are two things. First, more jobs now need university-educated people (or rather, people with the mental ability to make it to university- the proportion of the population that isn't university material likely hasn't changed). The average job for an individual in the 60s did not require the applicant to have even finished high school (national graduation rate: 72%). The decline in those jobs increased the graduation rate; it had nothing to do with the quality of education at the time as you can see from the average test scores. Second (and as a consequence of the first point), a signalling war in education began. Employers started requiring high school graduation for positions that don't actually require it, and bachelor's degrees for positions that only really require high school graduation and possibly some specialized training (the signalling problem, also on SSC: http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/06/06/against-tulip-subsidies/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/06/06/against-tulip-subsidies...). Education is still as much a golden ticket as it was in 1960, but the difference is that everyone has one now, so you must have one to be competitive, whether you need it or not. The solution devalues it somehow; the assumption is that even without a degree graduates will be more competent than non-graduates. I'm not convinced that's true enough to avoid hurting a lot of people, but at least we can save those unfortunate enough to be currently stuck in the system and the people most invested don't vote.

matt4077 10y ago
Elite universities do have extremely low professor:student ratios. At Harvard it's 7. That does produce quite a difference – it's a level where 1:1 teaching happens fairly regularly. Your analysis seems to rely on the price being a function of demand. I'm not sure if that holds, considering supply in this market is highly flexible.
- JamesBarney 10y ago
  The supply of elite universities with national reputations is pretty dang inflexible. You can't open another MIT, Harvard, Yale, Columbia, etc... The supply of universities recognized at the state level is similarly fixed. In Texas all of the recognized state universities have been around for quite a while. For profit tech schools are probably pretty flexible but they don't really compete on price as much as advertising and ability to get their students loans.