5 ms·

> College is eating years of our lives True, and it's exploitative in a Marxist sense. > transferring vast amounts of middle class wealth to the education sec

by rexpop 7y ago

> College is eating years of our lives True, and it's exploitative in a Marxist sense. > transferring vast amounts of middle class wealth to the education sector Confusing to me. Who are the institutions most benefitting from this? Are they not simply the _financial_ institutions furnishing the liquidity? I am not seeing the towering edu-monopolists' gravitational pull warping markets and other economic realities. > In the US, it's probably the greatest misallocation of resources outside of our health industry. There are a few others, such as the Military-Industrial Complex, the Prison-Industrial Complex (Militarization of Police, War on Drugs, etc.), Monocrop Agriculture chewing through our ecological endowment, etc.

JPKab 7y ago
Why do you assume the financial institutions, rather than the colleges themselves? Don't you think that a person being paid a salary to teach students skills that are less valuable than what the person pays is also benefiting? What about university administrators? A few years ago, there was a widely publicized article about University of Florida getting rid of their CS programs while simultaneously expanding their English/History programs.
- non-entity 7y ago
  > A few years ago, there was a widely publicized article about University of Florida getting rid of their CS programs while simultaneously expanding their English/History programs. Do you have a source for this. This is possibly one of the dumbest things I've heard coming from a university.
  - JPKab 7y ago
    https://www-forbes-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.forbes.com/sites/stevensalzberg/2012/04/22/university-of-florida-eliminates-computer-science-department-increases-athletic-budgets-hmm/amp/?amp_js_v=a2&amp_gsa=1&usqp=mq331AQCKAE%3D#aoh=15759966951207&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.forbes.com%2Fsites%2Fstevensalzberg%2F2012%2F04%2F22%2Funiversity-of-florida-eliminates-computer-science-department-increases-athletic-budgets-hmm%2F https://www-forbes-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.forbes.com...
AdamM12 7y ago
I think you could argue it's created a class of wealthy and super wealth admins who don't add value. From what I've read several studies have shown the vast increase in college expense has been sucked up by administrators and non teaching staff. I was looking at my college's (midwest state school) payroll and the various provost were making $600k. Kinda wondering what in god's name these people do.
- Aeolun 7y ago
  They sit around and make sure the teachers work. For some reason teachers think their 50k salary isn’t enough, so you need someone to keep them in line. Note: Actually, I have no idea, but that is what my mind immediately went to when hearing provost.
- bumby 7y ago
  I honestly don't think you're far off, but I also tend to think the "wealth admins" are a response to system inputs. Take an example of catering to veteran students. Previously, many schools had a single person who was the veteran liaison as a side duty and not their primary function. When the post 9/11 GI Bill promised much more money for service members, colleges responded by having entire dedicated teams to help veterans navigate school. From the outside this may look like admin bloat to some, but for the college it actually does add value by helping attract students and guaranteed tuition payments. In a perfect world, that increase in students would ideally offset the salary for those positions, but I'm not sure if that happens. Please note that I'm not necessarily saying that's a bad thing, it just highlights that "wealth admins" may be providing something considered valuable to the university. Multiply that by all the various special interest groups and the number of administrative personnel can grow quite fast.
vonmoltke 7y ago
> Who are the institutions most benefitting from this? Are they not simply the _financial_ institutions furnishing the liquidity? The US Federal Government is providing 90%+ of the liquidity. What benefit is it gaining?
- Melting_Harps 7y ago
  > The US Federal Government is providing 90%+ of the liquidity. What benefit is it gaining? A perpetual (young) underclass and whose legal status is favourable, thus tax requirements are firmly intact, but whose job opportunities for social mobility are ever diminishing, should make that obvious. Cheap, local sourced labour is critical to a consumer-driven, service sector economy: which the US is. The limited manufacturing that does take place in the US is increasingly automated away, and the maintenance, deployment, installing and management of said equipment is limited in both scope and capacity, but could also be learned as an apprentice as it was done for millennia for other of man's highly coveted crafts. University requirements are a subsidy for an industry, much like Insurance was after WWII--they sought to inflate a needless sector of the economy. No, the US Federal Reserve loans the US Government (treasury) money at interest which is then the basis for its ever increasing debt ceiling; the US government itself has the sole monopoly as having the Reserve Currency of the World (USD), with the largest Military and the biggest pollution based footprint on the World to maintain its inflation based petro-dollar. They already won. This is merely about keeping the system in place, this the 'American Century' these plutocrats extolled and sold generations on can be viewed as such: they went from exploiting black slaves to being indiscriminate and targeting the youth and poor. Debt is the tool, and its effective. I really can't understand how you guys in the Valley can just ignore all the homeless so effectively (many are really young) that you cannot see how obvious it all is; I guess being in a place modeled on affording its affluent residents a permanent state of infantile distraction must work.

by rexpop 7y ago

JPKab 7y ago

Why do you assume the financial institutions, rather than the colleges themselves? Don't you think that a person being paid a salary to teach students skills that are less valuable than what the person pays is also benefiting? What about university administrators? A few years ago, there was a widely publicized article about University of Florida getting rid of their CS programs while simultaneously expanding their English/History programs.

non-entity 7y ago
> A few years ago, there was a widely publicized article about University of Florida getting rid of their CS programs while simultaneously expanding their English/History programs. Do you have a source for this. This is possibly one of the dumbest things I've heard coming from a university.
- JPKab 7y ago
  https://www-forbes-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.forbes.com/sites/stevensalzberg/2012/04/22/university-of-florida-eliminates-computer-science-department-increases-athletic-budgets-hmm/amp/?amp_js_v=a2&amp_gsa=1&usqp=mq331AQCKAE%3D#aoh=15759966951207&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.forbes.com%2Fsites%2Fstevensalzberg%2F2012%2F04%2F22%2Funiversity-of-florida-eliminates-computer-science-department-increases-athletic-budgets-hmm%2F https://www-forbes-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.forbes.com...

AdamM12 7y ago

I think you could argue it's created a class of wealthy and super wealth admins who don't add value. From what I've read several studies have shown the vast increase in college expense has been sucked up by administrators and non teaching staff. I was looking at my college's (midwest state school) payroll and the various provost were making $600k. Kinda wondering what in god's name these people do.

Aeolun 7y ago
They sit around and make sure the teachers work. For some reason teachers think their 50k salary isn’t enough, so you need someone to keep them in line. Note: Actually, I have no idea, but that is what my mind immediately went to when hearing provost.
bumby 7y ago
I honestly don't think you're far off, but I also tend to think the "wealth admins" are a response to system inputs. Take an example of catering to veteran students. Previously, many schools had a single person who was the veteran liaison as a side duty and not their primary function. When the post 9/11 GI Bill promised much more money for service members, colleges responded by having entire dedicated teams to help veterans navigate school. From the outside this may look like admin bloat to some, but for the college it actually does add value by helping attract students and guaranteed tuition payments. In a perfect world, that increase in students would ideally offset the salary for those positions, but I'm not sure if that happens. Please note that I'm not necessarily saying that's a bad thing, it just highlights that "wealth admins" may be providing something considered valuable to the university. Multiply that by all the various special interest groups and the number of administrative personnel can grow quite fast.

vonmoltke 7y ago

> Who are the institutions most benefitting from this? Are they not simply the _financial_ institutions furnishing the liquidity? The US Federal Government is providing 90%+ of the liquidity. What benefit is it gaining?

Melting_Harps 7y ago
> The US Federal Government is providing 90%+ of the liquidity. What benefit is it gaining? A perpetual (young) underclass and whose legal status is favourable, thus tax requirements are firmly intact, but whose job opportunities for social mobility are ever diminishing, should make that obvious. Cheap, local sourced labour is critical to a consumer-driven, service sector economy: which the US is. The limited manufacturing that does take place in the US is increasingly automated away, and the maintenance, deployment, installing and management of said equipment is limited in both scope and capacity, but could also be learned as an apprentice as it was done for millennia for other of man's highly coveted crafts. University requirements are a subsidy for an industry, much like Insurance was after WWII--they sought to inflate a needless sector of the economy. No, the US Federal Reserve loans the US Government (treasury) money at interest which is then the basis for its ever increasing debt ceiling; the US government itself has the sole monopoly as having the Reserve Currency of the World (USD), with the largest Military and the biggest pollution based footprint on the World to maintain its inflation based petro-dollar. They already won. This is merely about keeping the system in place, this the 'American Century' these plutocrats extolled and sold generations on can be viewed as such: they went from exploiting black slaves to being indiscriminate and targeting the youth and poor. Debt is the tool, and its effective. I really can't understand how you guys in the Valley can just ignore all the homeless so effectively (many are really young) that you cannot see how obvious it all is; I guess being in a place modeled on affording its affluent residents a permanent state of infantile distraction must work.