9 ms·

What I find funny in these discussions on HN is how most people seem to be completely oblivious to the obvious solution, proven to work in many developed countr

What I find funny in these discussions on HN is how most people seem to be completely oblivious to the obvious solution, proven to work in many developed countries around the world: have the state directly fund universities and don't charge tuition to students (or charge them a small amount). Why is the assumption "universities are private endeavours that should make a profit" something that goes unchallenged on HN?

SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
The US has state funded universities that charge an order of magnitude less than 100k. In fact there are 3 of them in Chicago. Generally, anyone with acceptable high school grades can find a spot in a state university if they want. Students attending U of Chicago would have specifically decided not to attend a state university, typically because their local state university is less prestigious.
- selimthegrim 7y ago
  I’m not sure Chicago State is going to be around much longer...
  - SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
    I buy it. I'm just going off the Wikipedia list, I don't actually know anything about Chicago.
- wolco 7y ago
  U of Chicago doesn't have the prestigious rep that other schools who are charging less do. Is this a way of increasing their prestige?
gtirloni 7y ago
The US is traditionally against socialist ideas.
- brycesbeard 7y ago
  Why does it become socialist at age 18? Taxes support up to 12th grade currently.
  - gtirloni 7y ago
    I have no idea.
mc3 7y ago
They used to do this in the UK probably until the 90s but then they'd start charging "tuition fees" although to be fair I think they were standardised, so the same fees for any university, and fairly small, with support for poorer families. I think having so many people go to university is a big burden to pay for. Part of the solution is not so many people going to university.
- inferiorhuman 7y ago
  California did this as part of their master plan back in the 60s. Tuition has been around for decades but up until recently tuition was not legally allowed to be named as such. Instead there were "fees".
  - applecrazy 7y ago
    We’ve strayed far from that, unfortunately. UC schools have some pretty high cost of attendance for in-state students (whose parents have been paying years worth of taxes to support that school system).
- joefife 7y ago
  Must point out that we have no tuition fees in Scotland, which is unfortunately part of the UK.
- nothal 7y ago
  I think the entire solution is increasing the tax burden on the upper class in the US but that's just me.
- t0mas88 7y ago
  But that's a very short term solution. Because with low cost labor globalizing and moving out of the EU and US, you will either need more highly educated knowledge workers to be competitive or accept a bigger group in society get very low wages or unemployment.
  - merpnderp 7y ago
rayiner 7y ago
Americans aren't "completely oblivious to the obvious solution." 80% of first-year college students are enrolled in an in-state, public college.
- AnimalMuppet 7y ago
  Good point, although stefano also said "don't charge tuition to students (or charge them a small amount)". In-state tuition is probably still considerably higher than what stefano had in mind (see comments in this thread about costs of attending McGill University in Canada).
kansface 7y ago
Most colleges/universities are nonprofits and they still charge tens of thousands per semester. I will also point out that the European model is not free, universal college degrees for all - access is restricted behind rigorous entrance exams. Such a system would be politically untenable in the US wherein a growing movement wants to do away with all entry tests. What would actually happen in practice is that we would get a different flavor of the worst of both worlds.
- JBorrow 7y ago
  Your point about entrance exams is, in general, not true. University applications in Europe are very similar to those in the USA.
  - afarrell 7y ago
    What is the European version of SAT/ACT scores and AP tests?
    - kaffeemitsahne 7y ago
      I can only speak for the Netherlands, we have a tiered high school system, and you can enter most university programs with just a high school diploma of the highest tier.
      - Aaronstotle 7y ago
        That's interesting, it seems that this shifts the entrance exam of college to earlier in a student's life (making high school entrance exams much more valuable compared to the United States.)
        kaffeemitsahne 7y ago
        Yes, fwiw your high school level is determined at the end of primary school based on your teachers' recommendations and a standardized test. But there is quite some mobility possible between high school levels.
Consultant32452 7y ago
Our system produces the best universities and most sought after students on the planet. Why would we adopt a model that gets worse results? If states want to find community college or something I wouldn't gripe too much, but universities are for advancing human knowledge. Don't hold them back.
- mountainofdeath 7y ago
  The "best" here is really in the eye of the beholder. At the undergraduate level, the most important value of a degree is the signaling value.
  - Consultant32452 7y ago
    Look up basically any list of top universities in the world. The United States is wildly over-represented. Undergraduate degree as a social signal is a different problem to solve.
    - eeZah7Ux 7y ago
      "wildly overrated"
      - Consultant32452 7y ago
        Sorry, you can't have it both ways. If it's not worth it because the universities are overrated then people won't go. The problem will solve itself.
        wolco 7y ago
        Will it? Those who make it through will continue the narrative because lettings others know will reduce the value of their degree.
        Consultant32452 7y ago
mytailorisrich 7y ago
My understanding is that the US system is dual: On the one hand there are private universities that charge freely, but on the other hand there are also public universities that charge reasonable fees (at least for state residents). It's not unreasonable to charge tuition fees that are significant enough to make sure student will choose seriously and study diligently. I say that because it is certainly not always the case in countries where university is free... It also makes sense to provide scholarship for deserving student who could not otherwise afford it.
- _bxg1 7y ago
  "Reasonable" is relative. Tuition at U.S. "public" universities is still around $10k per year, even if you're in-state: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/24/tuition-at-public-universities-is-10230-a-year-on-average.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/24/tuition-at-public-universiti...
  - kome 7y ago
    that's indeed not reasonable. who can spend 10k in a year???
    - _bxg1 7y ago
      Who said anything about affording it? You can just pay interest on it for the rest of your life. /s
  - mytailorisrich 7y ago
    The "real median household income" in the US is $76k [1]. This means that $10k a year for university is far from being unreasonable considering that a family has 18+ years to save for it if they decide to do so. That's $185 a month (3% of income), ignoring inflation and interest rates, to get $40k in the bank on the day your child turns 18. It is therefore not a question of affordability but a question of priority for most families. If they cannot set aside that much money it is, bluntly, because they chose to spend their money differently. Edit: Apparently the average price paid for a new car in the US is $37k [2]... So basically the same as the average price of a 4 year degree in-state. People make their choice. [1] https://www.thebalance.com/what-is-average-income-in-usa-family-household-history-3306189 https://www.thebalance.com/what-is-average-income-in-usa-fam... [2] https://www.boston.com/cars/car-news/2019/06/09/average-new-car-prices-up-nearly-4-percent-year-over-year-for-may-2019 https://www.boston.com/cars/car-news/2019/06/09/average-new-...
Kalium 7y ago
It's worth remembering that the US does not lack for excellent, public, shockingly expensive universities - California, Illinois, Michigan, Virginia, Minnesota, and North Carolina all readily spring to mind. We're not accepting uncritically that universities are private endeavors. We're accepting that some are and they should be allowed to continue to exist.
- kissickas 7y ago
  Did you mean shockingly inexpensive? UNC Chapel Hill (what I assume you mean by North Carolina) costs students from the state $8,834 USD. Out-of-state tuition is $33,916. I would not call either number "shockingly expensive." Michigan is $14,402 and $45,410. UVA is similar. Quite a bit more but still not anything shocking. Minnesota is similar but out-of-state tuition is just $23k.
  - jazzyk 7y ago
    Add ~$15K for room and board, though.
  - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
    In what world is $34K/year not "shockingly expensive"? [Edited to add: Some people have more than one child. Some of them have more than one child in college at the same time.]
    - kissickas 7y ago
      I agree it's high, but these are all state schools. You're picking the out-of-state tuition number that's not supposed to be subsidized by local taxes. It's far easier to raise tuition on out-of-state kids so that has happened in recent years as well. I still don't consider it shockingly expensive - it's been the top value public university in the country for 18 years in a row. https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/article233110061.html https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/article233110061.htm...
  - Aeolun 7y ago
eeZah7Ux 7y ago
Shusshh, don't wake HN.
least 7y ago
There are a variety of systems that 'work' around the world. The United States' model clearly works to some extent as its universities are still able to attract talented professors from around the world and produce a lot of great research. There are a few reasons why people would resist the idea of making all universities publicly funded. One of them is that Academic pursuit is now beholden to the state and its interests. In the current system, you can find funding for research in universities from both private and public investment. Also, when all funding is from the government, its bureaucratic nature tends to increase costs. Anyone that has worked with a government contract in the US probably understands how lucrative it can be because the government is not incentivized to reduce costs in a way a private entity would. Anyone that has worked in a department of the government when they have to spend the rest of their budget so it doesn't get reduced also understands this. Interaction with private entities that are incentivized to increase profits with what is basically an infinite money pit is dangerous (who then use said money to push for regulatory capture in congress), and you can see the effects of this in almost every aspect of the U.S. government. It also further cements the idea that you must go to University in order to be eligible for any sort of job in the U.S. Jobs that traditionally only required a high school education or less now require a 4 year degree. This already is happening to an extent because it's an easy way to eliminate candidates, despite the fact that their profession may or may not require any sort of post-secondary education. It also is a program that benefits and subsidizes people that either don't need it (wealthy upper class) or are already relatively advantaged in life (middle class). It would unlikely benefit the poor as much as you'd think, as there are still a lot of barriers to getting into higher education that the poor face that the middle and upper class simply don't. From the bottom up they have worse schooling and less opportunities. They may be under pressure to find a job immediately out of school (or drop out of high school) to support their family. The exceptions that can benefit from some program like this likely already can benefit from the current system of scholarships and grants to underprivileged students. I would like to see a shift to something more similar to Canada where the distinction between college and university is clear. Academic and Vocational (but still professional) schooling being separate can be valuable and serve students with different learning styles better than the largely liberal arts education that universities in the U.S. provide. I'd also like to see some of this theoretical money that is funding tuition-free university towards improving educational opportunities from the bottom up in places that desperately need it. It doesn't matter if your postsecondary education is tuition-free if you can't make it to college.
vonmoltke 7y ago
> Why is the assumption "universities are private endeavours that should make a profit" something that goes unchallenged on HN? Because that assumption doesn't exist, nor does this describe how universities work in the US.
ekianjo 7y ago
> have the state directly fund universities and don't charge tuition to students That's how you end up with "Education" being the first cost element of the French budget (about 72 billions EUR per year) despite pretty poor academic results (that can be easily observed in the ever-decreasing level of the national exams). When government manages everything in one field, that field becomes mismanaged (trains: SNCF always in the red, the post office: ever increasing costs for users year after year, etc...)
- nickserv 7y ago
  I see your point and it can be true, in particular when the state is officially controlled by a single party, and/or in societies with systematic corruption. And while your examples are also true, I would argue that it's actually normal for rail and post to be in the red. This is because their primary purpose is not to generate revenue for the state, but to provide a service to taxpayers. For example, unprofitable train routes have to be kept because they link remote areas to cities. In fact, when private industry handles these type of public services, users tend to have poorer service and higher costs, because there is a natural monopoly. For train service, take a look at the UK, where different companies "compete": service is worse than France at a higher cost. La Poste has been a publicly traded company for about 10 years if memory serves. Service has been getting worse ever since.
  - ekianjo 7y ago
    For train service the counter example is easy to find. Japan where all trains and metros are private and service is infinitely better than in France. The shinkansen makes the TGV look absolutely ridiculous.
- thundergolfer 7y ago
  Education has been a big public endeavour in France for over a century and until 1980ish they had excellent results. According to E. D Hirsch in Why Knowledge Matters, the decline in French academic results is attributable to them adopting the individualistic USA model. Where are you getting the information that the supposedly poor results are because schooling is publicly funded?
turc1656 7y ago
"Why is the assumption "universities are private endeavours that should make a profit" something that goes unchallenged on HN?" Because: 1) that's a true statement - private institutions are free to be for or not for profit and charge whatever they like. 2) public universities are already funded (in part) by the government and the problem exists there as well, just not to the same extent I agree entirely with the OP that the source of the problem is in what I will refer to as the "financialization" of college. As OP mentioned, we saw the same thing with the housing bubble. We see it anywhere this type of "easy" money is offered because most people are not long term thinkers or don't fully grasp the details of the terms of the contract or the impact. Put simply, if you offer people money (even with interest attached) as a loan - especially when they are young and broke and want to pay for something expensive - they are going to take it. The same thing happened with housing. People's incomes didn't magically do up. Rates went down and so the banks said "hey, we'll loan you more money now" and people did exactly what people do - most of them took out the most that the banks would offer them to buy the biggest houses they could afford. This drove up prices across the board. The same thing has happened here. The actual cost of educating a person hasn't gone up dramatically. Faculty to student ratios are largely the same as well. Yes, the colleges added a bunch of non-teaching staff that increased cost, but they didn't actually need that money to function (in the beginning). They were just suddenly able to charge a lot more because the government guaranteed a bunch of loans to people who otherwise couldn't get them or at least could get them at reasonable rates. So now there was more money chasing after the same amount of services. Unsurprisingly prices went up (a lot). The colleges then spent money on building new dorms and offering all types of new programs and things. And they hired a lot of administrative staff. Now they need that money to function because they got bloated with all that easy money. It's just the same process we see over and over. With the federal, state, and local budgets - it's not a tax problem, it's a spending problem. Similar story here. There is far too much bloat and debt within these universities. But it all started with the same shitty easy money crap that we've seen before. Same scam, different industry.
zip1234 7y ago
Schools in the US didn't always cost so much. Tuition costs keep going up year after year at higher than inflation rates though. That is at schools that are subsidized by State or local governments.
briandear 7y ago
> have the state directly fund universities and don't charge tuition to students (or charge them a small amount) See how well this works out in France. Overcrowding, declining facilities, students that have no business in college continuing to go since they have nothing at stake. The top tier schools are still pretty good, but normal schools are a crowded mess.
jimktrains2 7y ago
We also need to move away from the idea that nearly every non-trade position requires a degree and as a society need to stop looking down on trades works. College is expensive because everyone wants to go.
xienze 7y ago
> proven to work in many developed countries around the world: have the state directly fund universities and don't charge tuition to students (or charge them a small amount). That would probably work if the system was designed that way decades ago. But we’re already in a situation where “free money” is driving tuition costs sky-high. Taking the next step and just having the government cut a blank check for “operating expenses” to every university will just kick the whole thing into overdrive. If universities in the US were responsible and could a) keep expenses under control and b) not cry like little children when whenever the state demands some belt-tightening, it could work. But that’s not the world we live in. Universities just keep spending more and more and keep hiring more and more administrators. My favorite experience with this was when I was in school many years ago at a state university. The state government said that their share of the funding was decreasing by 2% the next year (FYI, state universities are funded by state governments to some degree, it’s not all tuition). Two freaking percent! Basically asking the school to cut back to where they were two or three years ago. Sounds like a relatively reasonable ask, don’t you think? Oh, you should have seen the wailing and gnashing of teeth that generated. The school was claiming that there wasn’t any fat in their budget (ha), and immediately proposed cutting like 10% of all class sections in math, science, art, etc. Then they riled up the students enough to have them march to the capitol and demand the cuts be rolled back (to be fair though, doesn’t take much to get students to get interested in joining a protest). Anyway, my point is that US universities only know grow, grow, grow and to top it off they all have a fetish for turning campuses into lavish, over-the-top affairs. Getting them to cut back on anything is next to impossible, and giving them a blank check to be paid for by taxpayers in perpetuity would be a disaster.
TallGuyShort 7y ago
I'm all for that. My only concern is that it starts covering up one of the fundamental problems: a lot people are graduating high school, becoming eligible to vote, to be drafted, and in all other ways be adults, and they can't seem to do the cost/benefit analysis on college, or research a career that they're about to spend 4 years educating themselves for. They're surprised by how much debt costs, when they should have learnt the match behind compound interest years earlier. We gotta fix that too...
samstave 7y ago
>Why is the assumption "universities are private endeavours that should make a profit" something that goes unchallenged... Hmmm: >Robert J. ZimmerUniversity of Chicago >Total Compensation: $1,625,136Base Pay: $1,090,844Bonus Pay: $100,000Other Pay: $286,484 https://i.imgur.com/b7omZa4.png https://i.imgur.com/b7omZa4.png https://www.chronicle.com/interactives/executive-compensation#id=table_public_2018 https://www.chronicle.com/interactives/executive-compensatio... https://i.imgur.com/RZRqtQu.png https://i.imgur.com/RZRqtQu.png https://i.imgur.com/k2TIG8d.png https://i.imgur.com/k2TIG8d.png
baddox 7y ago
That system is completely compatible with the parent commenter's proposal.
viburnum 7y ago
America needs elite colleges to reproduce its ruling class. At least the ruling class thinks so.

SpicyLemonZest 7y ago

The US has state funded universities that charge an order of magnitude less than 100k. In fact there are 3 of them in Chicago. Generally, anyone with acceptable high school grades can find a spot in a state university if they want. Students attending U of Chicago would have specifically decided not to attend a state university, typically because their local state university is less prestigious.

selimthegrim 7y ago
I’m not sure Chicago State is going to be around much longer...
- SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
  I buy it. I'm just going off the Wikipedia list, I don't actually know anything about Chicago.
wolco 7y ago
U of Chicago doesn't have the prestigious rep that other schools who are charging less do. Is this a way of increasing their prestige?

gtirloni 7y ago

The US is traditionally against socialist ideas.

brycesbeard 7y ago
Why does it become socialist at age 18? Taxes support up to 12th grade currently.
- gtirloni 7y ago
  I have no idea.

mc3 7y ago

They used to do this in the UK probably until the 90s but then they'd start charging "tuition fees" although to be fair I think they were standardised, so the same fees for any university, and fairly small, with support for poorer families. I think having so many people go to university is a big burden to pay for. Part of the solution is not so many people going to university.

inferiorhuman 7y ago
California did this as part of their master plan back in the 60s. Tuition has been around for decades but up until recently tuition was not legally allowed to be named as such. Instead there were "fees".
- applecrazy 7y ago
  We’ve strayed far from that, unfortunately. UC schools have some pretty high cost of attendance for in-state students (whose parents have been paying years worth of taxes to support that school system).
joefife 7y ago
Must point out that we have no tuition fees in Scotland, which is unfortunately part of the UK.
nothal 7y ago
I think the entire solution is increasing the tax burden on the upper class in the US but that's just me.
t0mas88 7y ago
But that's a very short term solution. Because with low cost labor globalizing and moving out of the EU and US, you will either need more highly educated knowledge workers to be competitive or accept a bigger group in society get very low wages or unemployment.
- merpnderp 7y ago

rayiner 7y ago

Americans aren't "completely oblivious to the obvious solution." 80% of first-year college students are enrolled in an in-state, public college.

AnimalMuppet 7y ago
Good point, although stefano also said "don't charge tuition to students (or charge them a small amount)". In-state tuition is probably still considerably higher than what stefano had in mind (see comments in this thread about costs of attending McGill University in Canada).

kansface 7y ago

Most colleges/universities are nonprofits and they still charge tens of thousands per semester. I will also point out that the European model is not free, universal college degrees for all - access is restricted behind rigorous entrance exams. Such a system would be politically untenable in the US wherein a growing movement wants to do away with all entry tests. What would actually happen in practice is that we would get a different flavor of the worst of both worlds.

JBorrow 7y ago
Your point about entrance exams is, in general, not true. University applications in Europe are very similar to those in the USA.
- afarrell 7y ago
  What is the European version of SAT/ACT scores and AP tests?
  - kaffeemitsahne 7y ago
    I can only speak for the Netherlands, we have a tiered high school system, and you can enter most university programs with just a high school diploma of the highest tier.
    - Aaronstotle 7y ago
      That's interesting, it seems that this shifts the entrance exam of college to earlier in a student's life (making high school entrance exams much more valuable compared to the United States.)
      - kaffeemitsahne 7y ago
        Yes, fwiw your high school level is determined at the end of primary school based on your teachers' recommendations and a standardized test. But there is quite some mobility possible between high school levels.

Consultant32452 7y ago

Our system produces the best universities and most sought after students on the planet. Why would we adopt a model that gets worse results? If states want to find community college or something I wouldn't gripe too much, but universities are for advancing human knowledge. Don't hold them back.

mountainofdeath 7y ago
The "best" here is really in the eye of the beholder. At the undergraduate level, the most important value of a degree is the signaling value.
- Consultant32452 7y ago
  Look up basically any list of top universities in the world. The United States is wildly over-represented. Undergraduate degree as a social signal is a different problem to solve.
  - eeZah7Ux 7y ago
    "wildly overrated"
    - Consultant32452 7y ago
      Sorry, you can't have it both ways. If it's not worth it because the universities are overrated then people won't go. The problem will solve itself.
      - wolco 7y ago
        Will it? Those who make it through will continue the narrative because lettings others know will reduce the value of their degree.
        Consultant32452 7y ago

mytailorisrich 7y ago

My understanding is that the US system is dual: On the one hand there are private universities that charge freely, but on the other hand there are also public universities that charge reasonable fees (at least for state residents). It's not unreasonable to charge tuition fees that are significant enough to make sure student will choose seriously and study diligently. I say that because it is certainly not always the case in countries where university is free... It also makes sense to provide scholarship for deserving student who could not otherwise afford it.

_bxg1 7y ago
"Reasonable" is relative. Tuition at U.S. "public" universities is still around $10k per year, even if you're in-state: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/24/tuition-at-public-universities-is-10230-a-year-on-average.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/24/tuition-at-public-universiti...
- kome 7y ago
  that's indeed not reasonable. who can spend 10k in a year???
  - _bxg1 7y ago
    Who said anything about affording it? You can just pay interest on it for the rest of your life. /s
- mytailorisrich 7y ago
  The "real median household income" in the US is $76k [1]. This means that $10k a year for university is far from being unreasonable considering that a family has 18+ years to save for it if they decide to do so. That's $185 a month (3% of income), ignoring inflation and interest rates, to get $40k in the bank on the day your child turns 18. It is therefore not a question of affordability but a question of priority for most families. If they cannot set aside that much money it is, bluntly, because they chose to spend their money differently. Edit: Apparently the average price paid for a new car in the US is $37k [2]... So basically the same as the average price of a 4 year degree in-state. People make their choice. [1] https://www.thebalance.com/what-is-average-income-in-usa-family-household-history-3306189 https://www.thebalance.com/what-is-average-income-in-usa-fam... [2] https://www.boston.com/cars/car-news/2019/06/09/average-new-car-prices-up-nearly-4-percent-year-over-year-for-may-2019 https://www.boston.com/cars/car-news/2019/06/09/average-new-...

Kalium 7y ago

It's worth remembering that the US does not lack for excellent, public, shockingly expensive universities - California, Illinois, Michigan, Virginia, Minnesota, and North Carolina all readily spring to mind. We're not accepting uncritically that universities are private endeavors. We're accepting that some are and they should be allowed to continue to exist.

kissickas 7y ago
Did you mean shockingly inexpensive? UNC Chapel Hill (what I assume you mean by North Carolina) costs students from the state $8,834 USD. Out-of-state tuition is $33,916. I would not call either number "shockingly expensive." Michigan is $14,402 and $45,410. UVA is similar. Quite a bit more but still not anything shocking. Minnesota is similar but out-of-state tuition is just $23k.
- jazzyk 7y ago
  Add ~$15K for room and board, though.
- AnimalMuppet 7y ago
  In what world is $34K/year not "shockingly expensive"? [Edited to add: Some people have more than one child. Some of them have more than one child in college at the same time.]
  - kissickas 7y ago
    I agree it's high, but these are all state schools. You're picking the out-of-state tuition number that's not supposed to be subsidized by local taxes. It's far easier to raise tuition on out-of-state kids so that has happened in recent years as well. I still don't consider it shockingly expensive - it's been the top value public university in the country for 18 years in a row. https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/article233110061.html https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/article233110061.htm...
- Aeolun 7y ago

eeZah7Ux 7y ago

Shusshh, don't wake HN.

least 7y ago

There are a variety of systems that 'work' around the world. The United States' model clearly works to some extent as its universities are still able to attract talented professors from around the world and produce a lot of great research. There are a few reasons why people would resist the idea of making all universities publicly funded. One of them is that Academic pursuit is now beholden to the state and its interests. In the current system, you can find funding for research in universities from both private and public investment. Also, when all funding is from the government, its bureaucratic nature tends to increase costs. Anyone that has worked with a government contract in the US probably understands how lucrative it can be because the government is not incentivized to reduce costs in a way a private entity would. Anyone that has worked in a department of the government when they have to spend the rest of their budget so it doesn't get reduced also understands this. Interaction with private entities that are incentivized to increase profits with what is basically an infinite money pit is dangerous (who then use said money to push for regulatory capture in congress), and you can see the effects of this in almost every aspect of the U.S. government. It also further cements the idea that you must go to University in order to be eligible for any sort of job in the U.S. Jobs that traditionally only required a high school education or less now require a 4 year degree. This already is happening to an extent because it's an easy way to eliminate candidates, despite the fact that their profession may or may not require any sort of post-secondary education. It also is a program that benefits and subsidizes people that either don't need it (wealthy upper class) or are already relatively advantaged in life (middle class). It would unlikely benefit the poor as much as you'd think, as there are still a lot of barriers to getting into higher education that the poor face that the middle and upper class simply don't. From the bottom up they have worse schooling and less opportunities. They may be under pressure to find a job immediately out of school (or drop out of high school) to support their family. The exceptions that can benefit from some program like this likely already can benefit from the current system of scholarships and grants to underprivileged students. I would like to see a shift to something more similar to Canada where the distinction between college and university is clear. Academic and Vocational (but still professional) schooling being separate can be valuable and serve students with different learning styles better than the largely liberal arts education that universities in the U.S. provide. I'd also like to see some of this theoretical money that is funding tuition-free university towards improving educational opportunities from the bottom up in places that desperately need it. It doesn't matter if your postsecondary education is tuition-free if you can't make it to college.

vonmoltke 7y ago

> Why is the assumption "universities are private endeavours that should make a profit" something that goes unchallenged on HN? Because that assumption doesn't exist, nor does this describe how universities work in the US.

ekianjo 7y ago

> have the state directly fund universities and don't charge tuition to students That's how you end up with "Education" being the first cost element of the French budget (about 72 billions EUR per year) despite pretty poor academic results (that can be easily observed in the ever-decreasing level of the national exams). When government manages everything in one field, that field becomes mismanaged (trains: SNCF always in the red, the post office: ever increasing costs for users year after year, etc...)

nickserv 7y ago
I see your point and it can be true, in particular when the state is officially controlled by a single party, and/or in societies with systematic corruption. And while your examples are also true, I would argue that it's actually normal for rail and post to be in the red. This is because their primary purpose is not to generate revenue for the state, but to provide a service to taxpayers. For example, unprofitable train routes have to be kept because they link remote areas to cities. In fact, when private industry handles these type of public services, users tend to have poorer service and higher costs, because there is a natural monopoly. For train service, take a look at the UK, where different companies "compete": service is worse than France at a higher cost. La Poste has been a publicly traded company for about 10 years if memory serves. Service has been getting worse ever since.
- ekianjo 7y ago
  For train service the counter example is easy to find. Japan where all trains and metros are private and service is infinitely better than in France. The shinkansen makes the TGV look absolutely ridiculous.
thundergolfer 7y ago
Education has been a big public endeavour in France for over a century and until 1980ish they had excellent results. According to E. D Hirsch in Why Knowledge Matters, the decline in French academic results is attributable to them adopting the individualistic USA model. Where are you getting the information that the supposedly poor results are because schooling is publicly funded?

turc1656 7y ago

"Why is the assumption "universities are private endeavours that should make a profit" something that goes unchallenged on HN?" Because: 1) that's a true statement - private institutions are free to be for or not for profit and charge whatever they like. 2) public universities are already funded (in part) by the government and the problem exists there as well, just not to the same extent I agree entirely with the OP that the source of the problem is in what I will refer to as the "financialization" of college. As OP mentioned, we saw the same thing with the housing bubble. We see it anywhere this type of "easy" money is offered because most people are not long term thinkers or don't fully grasp the details of the terms of the contract or the impact. Put simply, if you offer people money (even with interest attached) as a loan - especially when they are young and broke and want to pay for something expensive - they are going to take it. The same thing happened with housing. People's incomes didn't magically do up. Rates went down and so the banks said "hey, we'll loan you more money now" and people did exactly what people do - most of them took out the most that the banks would offer them to buy the biggest houses they could afford. This drove up prices across the board. The same thing has happened here. The actual cost of educating a person hasn't gone up dramatically. Faculty to student ratios are largely the same as well. Yes, the colleges added a bunch of non-teaching staff that increased cost, but they didn't actually need that money to function (in the beginning). They were just suddenly able to charge a lot more because the government guaranteed a bunch of loans to people who otherwise couldn't get them or at least could get them at reasonable rates. So now there was more money chasing after the same amount of services. Unsurprisingly prices went up (a lot). The colleges then spent money on building new dorms and offering all types of new programs and things. And they hired a lot of administrative staff. Now they need that money to function because they got bloated with all that easy money. It's just the same process we see over and over. With the federal, state, and local budgets - it's not a tax problem, it's a spending problem. Similar story here. There is far too much bloat and debt within these universities. But it all started with the same shitty easy money crap that we've seen before. Same scam, different industry.

zip1234 7y ago

Schools in the US didn't always cost so much. Tuition costs keep going up year after year at higher than inflation rates though. That is at schools that are subsidized by State or local governments.

briandear 7y ago

> have the state directly fund universities and don't charge tuition to students (or charge them a small amount) See how well this works out in France. Overcrowding, declining facilities, students that have no business in college continuing to go since they have nothing at stake. The top tier schools are still pretty good, but normal schools are a crowded mess.

jimktrains2 7y ago

We also need to move away from the idea that nearly every non-trade position requires a degree and as a society need to stop looking down on trades works. College is expensive because everyone wants to go.

xienze 7y ago

> proven to work in many developed countries around the world: have the state directly fund universities and don't charge tuition to students (or charge them a small amount). That would probably work if the system was designed that way decades ago. But we’re already in a situation where “free money” is driving tuition costs sky-high. Taking the next step and just having the government cut a blank check for “operating expenses” to every university will just kick the whole thing into overdrive. If universities in the US were responsible and could a) keep expenses under control and b) not cry like little children when whenever the state demands some belt-tightening, it could work. But that’s not the world we live in. Universities just keep spending more and more and keep hiring more and more administrators. My favorite experience with this was when I was in school many years ago at a state university. The state government said that their share of the funding was decreasing by 2% the next year (FYI, state universities are funded by state governments to some degree, it’s not all tuition). Two freaking percent! Basically asking the school to cut back to where they were two or three years ago. Sounds like a relatively reasonable ask, don’t you think? Oh, you should have seen the wailing and gnashing of teeth that generated. The school was claiming that there wasn’t any fat in their budget (ha), and immediately proposed cutting like 10% of all class sections in math, science, art, etc. Then they riled up the students enough to have them march to the capitol and demand the cuts be rolled back (to be fair though, doesn’t take much to get students to get interested in joining a protest). Anyway, my point is that US universities only know grow, grow, grow and to top it off they all have a fetish for turning campuses into lavish, over-the-top affairs. Getting them to cut back on anything is next to impossible, and giving them a blank check to be paid for by taxpayers in perpetuity would be a disaster.

TallGuyShort 7y ago

I'm all for that. My only concern is that it starts covering up one of the fundamental problems: a lot people are graduating high school, becoming eligible to vote, to be drafted, and in all other ways be adults, and they can't seem to do the cost/benefit analysis on college, or research a career that they're about to spend 4 years educating themselves for. They're surprised by how much debt costs, when they should have learnt the match behind compound interest years earlier. We gotta fix that too...

samstave 7y ago

>Why is the assumption "universities are private endeavours that should make a profit" something that goes unchallenged... Hmmm: >Robert J. ZimmerUniversity of Chicago >Total Compensation: $1,625,136Base Pay: $1,090,844Bonus Pay: $100,000Other Pay: $286,484 https://i.imgur.com/b7omZa4.png https://i.imgur.com/b7omZa4.png https://www.chronicle.com/interactives/executive-compensation#id=table_public_2018 https://www.chronicle.com/interactives/executive-compensatio... https://i.imgur.com/RZRqtQu.png https://i.imgur.com/RZRqtQu.png https://i.imgur.com/k2TIG8d.png https://i.imgur.com/k2TIG8d.png

baddox 7y ago

That system is completely compatible with the parent commenter's proposal.

viburnum 7y ago

America needs elite colleges to reproduce its ruling class. At least the ruling class thinks so.