4 ms·

> we should decouple education (which is essential for being productive) from social selection. how? It seems straightforward: Lower the cost of education sign

> we should decouple education (which is essential for being productive) from social selection. how? It seems straightforward: Lower the cost of education significantly. The reasons you cite are the reasons for the public universities in the US, AFAIK. The number one predictor of college education, IIRC, is parental wealth or income; education wasn't always this expensive.

mlevental 8y ago
great. now fund public institutions better than private so excellent researchers have the tools and the compensation they need in order to work for them rather than privates. california seems to get it.
- mdorazio 8y ago
  Excellent researchers does not equal good education for the broader student body. It's also not at all clear that increased funding leads to better educational outcomes or higher likelihood of landing a good job (the data is a bit old, but the divergence is clear here: [1]). Either way, education funding is just something that the US population is demonstrably not interested in. Very few people push for more taxes to pay for education, which is what it would take, leading to things like teachers needing to strike just to get low-class income. And outside of specific demographic groups we do not have a culture that encourages academic study from a young age like many other countries do. These are big socioeconomic problems that are going to take a generation or more to change even a little bit. [1] http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2012/11/30/Shocking-Chart-on-Tuition-vs-Earnings-for-College-Grads http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2012/11/30/Shocking-C...
  - forapurpose 8y ago
    > Very few people push for more taxes to pay for education That's not supported by the facts. A candidate for U.S. President who advocated funding free college education for families with incomes under ~$100K received the most votes for President. A candidate who advocated free college education for everyone arguably was third most popular (though we have no official measure of that). > http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/.. http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/... The parent's cite is about the relationship between future earnings and tuition; it's not about public funding.
    - mdorazio 8y ago
      Presidents don't make tax laws, Congress does. Please point me to the majority of representatives getting elected on platforms of raising taxes for education. Outside of a few states like California you'll find that that is a minority platform. I see where the mixup is with that citation. Tuition is a direct proxy for college funding (think of it as student funding rather than public funding). I meant it to show that increasing funding for colleges does not equate with improving outcomes for most students.
      - forapurpose 8y ago
        > Please point me to the majority of representatives getting elected on platforms of raising taxes for education. Democrats may retake Congress in the fall. > Tuition is a direct proxy for college funding (think of it as student funding rather than public funding). I meant it to show that increasing funding for colleges does not equate with improving outcomes for most students. I see what you mean. AFAIK, tuition increases have been closely correlated with public funding cuts, so overall funding may not be increasing. I have wondered though: Students pay X times as much as they did 20 years ago; are they getting something better? Unfortunately, that's not how market pricing works; as the U.S. has tried to expose everything to market forces (including people's health!), higher education prices seem to be based on supply and demand, and demand for something so essential is highly inelastic.
        mdorazio 8y ago
        I'd love to see it happen, but keep in mind that not all democrats are gung-ho about raising taxes for things like education (or cutting spending in other areas). I'm trying to find total funding numbers for public universities and am coming up short on nicely formatted nation-wide data. However, it looks like in CA, UC per-student public funding dropped from $23,000 to $8,000 from the late 70s to 2017 [1]. In the same time period, tuition went up from $630 (in 1976 dollars) to $12,630 last year. I can't find comprehensive information on the third big component of funding - alumni donations, but at UC Berkeley they have been growing significantly year over year for at least 7 years [2]. States are very different in how they fund schools, though. For example, Texas has a sovereign wealth fund that generates a huge amount of money. In Massachusetts, tuition growth outpaced per-student funding cuts over the last 15 years - look at chart 7 in [3]. Anecdotally, it seems like total funding is going up with tuition, but the money is going towards things like student annexes, stadiums, ancillary faculty salaries, etc. that generally have little to no impact on education outcomes. [1 worth reading - some interesting data] http://www.ppic.org/publication/higher-education-funding-in-california/ http://www.ppic.org/publication/higher-education-funding-in-... [2] http://www.dailycal.org/2016/07/17/uc-berkeley-receives-record-number-alumni-donations-year/ http://www.dailycal.org/2016/07/17/uc-berkeley-receives-reco... [3] http://massbudget.org/report_window.php?loc=higher-education-funding-in-massachusetts.html http://massbudget.org/report_window.php?loc=higher-education...
seanmcdirmid 8y ago
That is basically the German system right?

mlevental 8y ago

great. now fund public institutions better than private so excellent researchers have the tools and the compensation they need in order to work for them rather than privates. california seems to get it.

mdorazio 8y ago
Excellent researchers does not equal good education for the broader student body. It's also not at all clear that increased funding leads to better educational outcomes or higher likelihood of landing a good job (the data is a bit old, but the divergence is clear here: [1]). Either way, education funding is just something that the US population is demonstrably not interested in. Very few people push for more taxes to pay for education, which is what it would take, leading to things like teachers needing to strike just to get low-class income. And outside of specific demographic groups we do not have a culture that encourages academic study from a young age like many other countries do. These are big socioeconomic problems that are going to take a generation or more to change even a little bit. [1] http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2012/11/30/Shocking-Chart-on-Tuition-vs-Earnings-for-College-Grads http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2012/11/30/Shocking-C...
- forapurpose 8y ago
  > Very few people push for more taxes to pay for education That's not supported by the facts. A candidate for U.S. President who advocated funding free college education for families with incomes under ~$100K received the most votes for President. A candidate who advocated free college education for everyone arguably was third most popular (though we have no official measure of that). > http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/.. http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/... The parent's cite is about the relationship between future earnings and tuition; it's not about public funding.
  - mdorazio 8y ago
    Presidents don't make tax laws, Congress does. Please point me to the majority of representatives getting elected on platforms of raising taxes for education. Outside of a few states like California you'll find that that is a minority platform. I see where the mixup is with that citation. Tuition is a direct proxy for college funding (think of it as student funding rather than public funding). I meant it to show that increasing funding for colleges does not equate with improving outcomes for most students.
    - forapurpose 8y ago
      > Please point me to the majority of representatives getting elected on platforms of raising taxes for education. Democrats may retake Congress in the fall. > Tuition is a direct proxy for college funding (think of it as student funding rather than public funding). I meant it to show that increasing funding for colleges does not equate with improving outcomes for most students. I see what you mean. AFAIK, tuition increases have been closely correlated with public funding cuts, so overall funding may not be increasing. I have wondered though: Students pay X times as much as they did 20 years ago; are they getting something better? Unfortunately, that's not how market pricing works; as the U.S. has tried to expose everything to market forces (including people's health!), higher education prices seem to be based on supply and demand, and demand for something so essential is highly inelastic.
      - mdorazio 8y ago
        I'd love to see it happen, but keep in mind that not all democrats are gung-ho about raising taxes for things like education (or cutting spending in other areas). I'm trying to find total funding numbers for public universities and am coming up short on nicely formatted nation-wide data. However, it looks like in CA, UC per-student public funding dropped from $23,000 to $8,000 from the late 70s to 2017 [1]. In the same time period, tuition went up from $630 (in 1976 dollars) to $12,630 last year. I can't find comprehensive information on the third big component of funding - alumni donations, but at UC Berkeley they have been growing significantly year over year for at least 7 years [2]. States are very different in how they fund schools, though. For example, Texas has a sovereign wealth fund that generates a huge amount of money. In Massachusetts, tuition growth outpaced per-student funding cuts over the last 15 years - look at chart 7 in [3]. Anecdotally, it seems like total funding is going up with tuition, but the money is going towards things like student annexes, stadiums, ancillary faculty salaries, etc. that generally have little to no impact on education outcomes. [1 worth reading - some interesting data] http://www.ppic.org/publication/higher-education-funding-in-california/ http://www.ppic.org/publication/higher-education-funding-in-... [2] http://www.dailycal.org/2016/07/17/uc-berkeley-receives-record-number-alumni-donations-year/ http://www.dailycal.org/2016/07/17/uc-berkeley-receives-reco... [3] http://massbudget.org/report_window.php?loc=higher-education-funding-in-massachusetts.html http://massbudget.org/report_window.php?loc=higher-education...

seanmcdirmid 8y ago

That is basically the German system right?