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And those academics are right. Let me sidetrack for a bit, because this is an important point, that not everybody thinks of: If students had to pay the actual
by snotrockets 16y ago
And those academics are right. Let me sidetrack for a bit, because this is an important point, that not everybody thinks of:
If students had to pay the actual cost of their education, it'd be much higher, even in Ivy League schools. Universities complement the tuition fees by getting public funding.
And (in theory, at least) tax money should be given for a good reason. The public as a whole does not care about the personal benefits that some would get by gaining a degree. That's the private interest of those people, and we're talking public good here: it should help all.
Tax money is given to universities so they would create inventions and innovations in science and art, which are in the public interest. And to create those we need well-educated people to invent and innovate.
Thus it's not the students buying education. That's a byproduct, and they're not the customer, just a beneficiary.
It's the public buying educated people.
Of course, this is all pinko-think, and it's true that some academics are just old farts who keep wondering how dare those students interrupt the academics very important nap time, and who thought of letting students in campus anyway?
- eru 16y agoThis may be all true. But then the public as a customer doesn't get what it's trying to buy. If the students don't understand, how can they become educated?
- snotrockets 16y agoNever said the public is getting his money worth.
- philwelch 16y agoMaybe that is where the analogy breaks down. But the argument is misused a lot to imply that the desires and needs of students are irrelevant, and that students' complaints are without merit, even if they can't understand their TA.
- glenra 16y ago> If students had to pay the actual cost of their education, it'd be much higher, even in Ivy League schools. That seems really unlikely. The fact that it's expensive to provide this exact bundle of services doesn't mean that's what would get provided without the subsidy. What's more likely is that the services that mean the least to the customers would get cut until the tuition was more reasonable. Without tax funding you'd get schools that were focused primarily on teaching. Like high school, but with more accomplished teachers.
- snotrockets 16y agoAnd then we won't have research. So the material taught will stagnate, just like in high schools. If we treat students as customers, then they want the best -- so to improve, the student-oriented university would hire teachers that are also great researchers, so they'd have something new to teach, that isn't taught by the competition. And that research is costly; and we come full circle to the research-oriented universities.