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College is already overpriced because of government subsidies. Your plan would make it worse.

jwatte 8y ago
Not actually true, except under very skewed systems and assumptions.
dahart 8y ago
> College is already overpriced because of government subsidies. That is an interesting narrative. Direct state funding per-student for college is down in almost all states over the last 10 years and the last 30 years. Tuition has risen for several reasons: 1- to compensate for lack of state funding, 2- because colleges and universities have larger higher paid administrations than ever before. Some of the subsidies we have are nothing more than consolation prizes for state funding cuts that are larger than the subsidies, so I simply don’t buy that public funding has caused tuition to rise, when public funding is declining overall. > Your plan would make it worse. I didn’t share a plan, so I’m not sure what you mean. But, I have to wonder, why does it matter if tuition goes up, if it’s a net positive to the economy? Why would it matter if tuition goes up, if it’s paid for? Why do you assume that tuition prices would look anything like they do now if all of education was publicly funded?
- jesssse 8y ago
  I don't know about the trends in public budgets directly funding colleges, but... Government backed student loans for anybody who wants them has inflated the cost of college in the United States. Your plan I refer to, is when you said the government could entirely pay college costs for every willing student. With all that free money, where is the motivation for schools to improve? > we could fund university education for all in the margins of what we willingly spend on the military or several other programs
  - dahart 8y ago
    > Government backed student loads for anybody who wants them has inflated the cost of college in the United States. I heard it the first time. Do you have anything new to add, any evidence, or any explanation of how your theory actually works, given that total public funding has declined? Is it possible you’re assigning causation where there is only correllation? Tuition hikes certainly correllate with loan programs that were put in place to compensate for state budget cuts, I can see how easy it is to assign blame to loan programs, but isn’t tuition going up when state financing is cut the simpler explanation? > With all that free money, where is the motivation for schools to improve? Norway’s higher education system is ranked higher than the US, and is free for all citizens. So you tell me. It’s your assumption that public funding leads to stagnation, an assumption that requires ignoring contradictory evidence in order to hang on to.
    - jesssse 8y ago
      I will read this pdf and bing some articles about "total public funding" and see what I believe. https://www.jamesgmartin.center/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Bennett_Hypothesis_Paper_Final.pdf https://www.jamesgmartin.center/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/B...
    - radiantswirl 8y ago
      Norway (and other Scandinavian countries) are bad examples that do not apply to the USA, because they have relatively racially and culturally homogenous populations with cultures that didn't evolve in response to the challenge of paying for college in the first place. Free college in the USA would not work because no middle class person's life would have any meaning -- currently the only meaning that a lot of middle-class people have to sustain them is motivation to pay for their kid's college -- take that away from them, and they really got nothing. Norway never had the financial barrier to entry to college so it's society's motivations and ethos didn't form in symbiosis with that barrier, but ours did. If you remove the financial barrier to entry to college you also remove the fundamental driving motivation of a huge portion of the middle class. The reason we can't make college free in America is because we need to keep the middle class working, bro. A college degree is the carrot and student debt is the stick, if you take away the stick the carrot actually becomes less appealing. It's counterintuitive but deeply true. Making college free in America would have massively demoralizing effects on both youth and adults because our entire youth and adult cultures have evolved in response to the financial barriers to entry into college.

Not actually true, except under very skewed systems and assumptions.

> College is already overpriced because of government subsidies. That is an interesting narrative. Direct state funding per-student for college is down in almost all states over the last 10 years and the last 30 years. Tuition has risen for several reasons: 1- to compensate for lack of state funding, 2- because colleges and universities have larger higher paid administrations than ever before. Some of the subsidies we have are nothing more than consolation prizes for state funding cuts that are larger than the subsidies, so I simply don’t buy that public funding has caused tuition to rise, when public funding is declining overall. > Your plan would make it worse. I didn’t share a plan, so I’m not sure what you mean. But, I have to wonder, why does it matter if tuition goes up, if it’s a net positive to the economy? Why would it matter if tuition goes up, if it’s paid for? Why do you assume that tuition prices would look anything like they do now if all of education was publicly funded?

jesssse 8y ago
I don't know about the trends in public budgets directly funding colleges, but... Government backed student loans for anybody who wants them has inflated the cost of college in the United States. Your plan I refer to, is when you said the government could entirely pay college costs for every willing student. With all that free money, where is the motivation for schools to improve? > we could fund university education for all in the margins of what we willingly spend on the military or several other programs
- dahart 8y ago
  > Government backed student loads for anybody who wants them has inflated the cost of college in the United States. I heard it the first time. Do you have anything new to add, any evidence, or any explanation of how your theory actually works, given that total public funding has declined? Is it possible you’re assigning causation where there is only correllation? Tuition hikes certainly correllate with loan programs that were put in place to compensate for state budget cuts, I can see how easy it is to assign blame to loan programs, but isn’t tuition going up when state financing is cut the simpler explanation? > With all that free money, where is the motivation for schools to improve? Norway’s higher education system is ranked higher than the US, and is free for all citizens. So you tell me. It’s your assumption that public funding leads to stagnation, an assumption that requires ignoring contradictory evidence in order to hang on to.
  - jesssse 8y ago
    I will read this pdf and bing some articles about "total public funding" and see what I believe. https://www.jamesgmartin.center/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Bennett_Hypothesis_Paper_Final.pdf https://www.jamesgmartin.center/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/B...
  - radiantswirl 8y ago
    Norway (and other Scandinavian countries) are bad examples that do not apply to the USA, because they have relatively racially and culturally homogenous populations with cultures that didn't evolve in response to the challenge of paying for college in the first place. Free college in the USA would not work because no middle class person's life would have any meaning -- currently the only meaning that a lot of middle-class people have to sustain them is motivation to pay for their kid's college -- take that away from them, and they really got nothing. Norway never had the financial barrier to entry to college so it's society's motivations and ethos didn't form in symbiosis with that barrier, but ours did. If you remove the financial barrier to entry to college you also remove the fundamental driving motivation of a huge portion of the middle class. The reason we can't make college free in America is because we need to keep the middle class working, bro. A college degree is the carrot and student debt is the stick, if you take away the stick the carrot actually becomes less appealing. It's counterintuitive but deeply true. Making college free in America would have massively demoralizing effects on both youth and adults because our entire youth and adult cultures have evolved in response to the financial barriers to entry into college.