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There is one issue no one ever seems to talk about. The one thing that really really screws up incentives at universities is the money the students have to pay.

There is one issue no one ever seems to talk about. The one thing that really really screws up incentives at universities is the money the students have to pay. If students have to pay for individual courses, they will try to minimize the amount of courses they have to take. They will try to get in cheap courses. They will try to get in cheap universities. They will optimize their education for Bang For The Buck. They will optimize for bad teaching. Look at European universities. For students, they are free. Or ridiculously cheap (like $500 per semester). Actually, last year, students in Germany were fed up with the bad quality if teaching. Guess what they did? They went on strike! They blocked rooms and prevented courses from happening. Without students, universities can't exist. So, professors and management had to act. And teaching improved. I think you will agree that something like this is completely and utterly impossible in the US. If a student was going to strike, he would waste all the money he had put in that semester. Hence, there is no way to protest against bad teaching. If students pay huge amounts of money for each course and semester, they will try to get cheap education at a big-name place. I guess in the choice between cheap, big-name and good, you can pick any two. Hence, there is little incentive to get good education. Furthermore, if courses are free, students can freely choose which courses to take. Hence they try to get the best teaching they can get. If that means they take a few extra semesters, so be it. If that means that they actually change universities or even curriculums, no problem. You see, by not paying (much) for universities, students optimize for quality.

whimsy 16y ago
>If a student was going to strike, he would waste all the money he had put in that semester. Hence, there is no way to protest against bad teaching. Too true. There's a pretty big strike movement growing in the California school system. Strikes aren't continuous, but there has been a few rather large actions. It doesn't seem to be working - tuition has increased at UCs 42.56% over the last year alone. (Last ~Nov, a 32% increase in tuition was approved by the UC Regents; this year, another 8% this month.) Despite the massive tuition increases, classes and professors - and in some cases entire departments - continue to face the chopping block. Oddly, there doesn't seem to be a plurality of student support - most students I've talked with are against the protests.

whimsy 16y ago

>If a student was going to strike, he would waste all the money he had put in that semester. Hence, there is no way to protest against bad teaching. Too true. There's a pretty big strike movement growing in the California school system. Strikes aren't continuous, but there has been a few rather large actions. It doesn't seem to be working - tuition has increased at UCs 42.56% over the last year alone. (Last ~Nov, a 32% increase in tuition was approved by the UC Regents; this year, another 8% this month.) Despite the massive tuition increases, classes and professors - and in some cases entire departments - continue to face the chopping block. Oddly, there doesn't seem to be a plurality of student support - most students I've talked with are against the protests.