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"The question then becomes a matter of how we fix this without diminishing access to a college education." This is the crux of it that everyone needs to get ov

"The question then becomes a matter of how we fix this without diminishing access to a college education." This is the crux of it that everyone needs to get over. Universality, High Quality, Low Cost. Pick two. By letting the government meddle you have guaranteed no one can afford college and will be long in debt to a loan they cannot discharge in bankruptcy. I'd rather have cheap college then universal access for every single person who wants a English Literature or Anthropology degree with low ROI. Colleges are now awash in money and they pump it into newer and fancier campuses to attract more of that government backed debt from all the masses, driving up cost significantly. Or how about breaking the degree monopoly with something like equivalent certification programs and let private companies fill the gap. Similar to what Google is doing with its certificate program they are rolling out. 4 years for a piece of paper that includes 2 years of general education classes for "well roundness" is starting to look more and more ridiculous considering the cost of that "well roundness" is years of non-dis chargeable debt weighing you down during your best decades.

vondur 6y ago
Too many people are enrolling in College, and this is a problem. The end result in many cases has been lower the standards to get students to graduate. More people need to be geared towards trades and manufacturing jobs. The Covid Pandemic has shown us what happens when you put all your manufacturing in one country.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  People will naturally go towards trades and manufacturing once the present value of expected future cash flow reaches equilibrium with alternatives and damage to their body. There’s a reason plumbers and electricians would rather their kid be a white collar worker. I just had a former carpenter come over to do some work and saw me in running shorts and said he wished he could still do physical activities, but the years of carpentry work have ruined his joints. He was only upper 40s.
  - AdrianB1 6y ago
    The area where I grew up was a mountain region where wood work was the main occupation of most men; even for men that worked in the forest cutting down trees such health problems were very rare, carpenters working in the shops in the village had no such problems. The guy that did the plumbing in my house when I built it was over 70 years old at that time and he was still working because he wanted to be active, even if he could retire at 60 years old by the local law. I find office workers having more health problems than people with some physical activity, sedentarism is a killer.
- smileysteve 6y ago
  > More people need to be geared towards trades and manufacturing jobs. To this, and as we're on hacker news; and bootcamps are proving it for web developers; a bachelor's degree often doesn't prepare students for jobs (and the larger concepts, ethics, systems thinking, etc often come from corporate training just as well)
  - ntsplnkv2 6y ago
    > (and the larger concepts, ethics, systems thinking, etc often come from corporate training just as well) Ethics? Really? From corporations? > and bootcamps are proving it for web developers; And, not surprisingly, web developers make less on average than other software development positions.
  - tnecniv 6y ago
    > larger concepts, ethics, systems thinking, etc These are what American universities are actually well equipped for. It's common knowledge that if you graduate with a BS in some engineering topic, you won't have most of the practical skills necessary for your job --- or at least not from your curriculum. However, a good school will teach you how to analyze complicated problems from a number of different perspectives with both theoretical and practical tools. Moreover, all those liberal arts classes they make you take that people complain about will give you the social and cultural context necessary to understand ethical implications that might arise. Sure, getting a BS from a top engineering school won't tell you the best way to design web pages in 2020, but it should make you a well rounded, capable engineer.
- ntsplnkv2 6y ago
  > More people need to be geared towards trades and manufacturing jobs. The key is manufacturing jobs - that is what disappeared over the last half century, and most of those jobs are semi-skilled. But there are no jobs. There never will be - unless the US completely stopped importing from China. They can't - because then people will go to wal-mart and see the price increase, and get mad. And that doesn't take into account automation and technology further squeezing the need for workers.
Dannymetconan 6y ago
Universities in Europe are generally high quality and low cost. It does have it's problems but it is not one or the other. You do not need a degree 30 years ago to do lots of jobs that now require one. Higher education for a lot of organizations is just an easy way to cut the application stack down
- ChuckNorris89 6y ago
  >Universities in Europe are generally high quality and low cost. The cost is low for the student but it's pretty high for the taxpayers. Not US high but still, it's not free, there's lots of bloat in the system that thrives on volume of students not on quality so they try to push forward legislation and programs to increase the number of students, especially from abroad and build more faculties/universities with more staff to hire regardless if the jobs market has need for more students or not. It's not super expensive for the taxpayers but because it's mostly free for the students, lots of them treat it like Highschool 2.0, bouncing in and out, not bothering to finish it or prolonging it till their thirties, etc. which turns into of a waste of public resources at some point.
  - silvestrov 6y ago
    No, the cost to tax payers in Europe is less than what people in USA have to pay the college. This is because my University (in Europe) had no sport facilities whatsoever, not even a soccer field. It also had no dormitories, canteens, no fancy library, sport teams etc. It did teaching + research, and nothing else.
    - SilasX 6y ago
      Right -- in the context of Europe, high quality means high education quality; it may not be high quality in the sense of all the frills Americans usually expect out of the college experience.
    - user5994461 6y ago
      For reference, cost in France is about 11kE per year for undergraduate and 22kE per year for master in computer science engineering. That's what it costs the university per student, not what the student pays (up to 1k a year). This doesn't cover accommodation or canteen since that's not part of the university. I don't know what's the cost in the US but I don't imagine it's orders more. The worst number I heard from coworkers was 60k$ a year in NYC (that's easily triple income and taxes compared to France so not a straight comparison).
sokoloff 6y ago
What does the choice of "High Quality, Low Cost" look like in practice? (Because I'm not seeing how to make that happen, other than "burying the actually high cost someplace where it's spread out and hard to see, so it looks like low cost".)
- throwawaygh 6y ago
  > burying the actually high cost someplace where it's spread out and hard to see, so it looks like low cost "spread out" implies taxation, but something similar can be done via endowment. For example, a college with an existing $100MM endowment can educate at least a few hundred students for free in perpetuity. With a billion dollar endowment, a college can educate a couple thousand for free. In fact, Berea College does exactly this: 1600 students, 1.2 billion endowment, and provides effectively free college to nearly every student. Ranks alongside places like Denison University. So, Low Cost (to consumer), High Quality, but definitely not Universal (there are only so many billion dollar endowments to go around).
- Justsignedup 6y ago
  Low cost, available to everyone: the quality goes down as they need more capacity for less pay. High Quality, Available to everyone: Will cost a lot because we'd need a lot of high quality teachers, and attracting them will be expensive. Low Cost, High Quality: Only the best will get accepted, and the colleges will make their money in other ways using the work the students provide (like how medical school research departments are big money-makers)
  - afiori 6y ago
    > Low cost, available to everyone: the quality goes down as they need more capacity for less pay. A partial solution to this is to simply shrink the spread of services the college/university offers. eg they could simply offer education and training.
    - Justsignedup 6y ago
      We had this. This was vocational schools. They were fantastic for most of the US. Focused entirely on just the skills you need for specific fields. Hair, Mechanic, Electrician, Plumber, etc. And they would be the perfect vessels for re-training when certain industries shut down. Interestingly enough: They were cheap and universal (because they were cheap).
stevefan1999 6y ago
You can generalize things well, you've concluded your point just by using a trilemma
- noetic_techy 6y ago
  Yup, the trilemma was my point, there is no perfect answer but definitely what we have now can be totally reworked with this in mind. I do think there are alternative systems that can at least make "degree" a lot more cheap and efficient to acquire without the universality component.
jimhefferon 6y ago
> Colleges are now awash in money It is not possible for me to overstate how very much this is not true at the college where I work, and at all colleges with which I have a personal connection.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- rtkwe 6y ago
  It depends a lot on who you know and what department you're in. In 40 of 50 states the highest paid public employee is a sports coach... https://fanbuzz.com/national/highest-paid-state-employees/ https://fanbuzz.com/national/highest-paid-state-employees/
  - etempleton 6y ago
    At many universities athletics is a major revenue driver. There is a very real financial incentive to have high performing athletic programs.
    - brazzy 6y ago
      Is this revenue driven by athletics separate from tuition fees? Because if it isn't, that only confirms the hypothesis.
      - bpt3 6y ago
        Yes, it comes from broadcast revenues, merchandise, ticket and concession sales, and donations brought in through the athletic department.
    - watwut 6y ago
      Is that true? When I researched this last time it turned out most athletic programs loose money.
      - 6y ago
robomartin 6y ago
Here's a potentially simple way to perhaps shave as much as 25% or more from the cost of STEM degrees in the US: Eliminate all non-STEM coursework from degree requirements. This could easily shave not only tens of thousands of dollars from a STEM degree but it would also cut it down by a year (if not more). I would also vector students who lack the proper foundation in say, language skills or the sciences, to take courses at community colleges. Not only would this lower costs to students, it would also support local colleges.
- travisporter 6y ago
  Isn't this an associate's/technical degree? To be a successful engineer/doctor/lawyer, you need some non-STEM coursework for communication, ethics, or just to expand your view. To last point, many state colleges in the US let you transfer credits from a community/regional college easily, so you can save ~50%
  - robomartin 6y ago
    While I do understand what you are saying, the educational deficit we are seeing is at the high school level. When I attended high school we had coursework on ethics, logic, philosophy, business, literature, languages, etc. The average high school graduate in the US is shamefully unprepared for life. My greater point is that adding $50K in non-STEM coursework as a graduation requirement is wrong. The other element of this conversation is that non-STEM departments have developed deep one-sided political bias over the last several decades. As a result they are engaged in activity almost indistinguishable from indoctrination. We are issuing government-backed loans for kids to be exposed to ever more extreme narratives with no option to opt out. And then we make them pay for those loans. This is wrong.
    - greedo 6y ago
      If you think bias and indoctrination are something that only developed "over the last several decades," you're mistaken. This has been the case of all universities, since time immemorial. And the swing to the left started in the Sixties (at least in the US).
tptacek 6y ago
I don't understand why there isn't simply the option of making a lot more colleges. "High Quality, Low Cost, Pick 2" isn't how most markets work.
- SilasX 6y ago
  IMHO, because what colleges are selling is effectively a positional good[1], one valued specifically for how it ranks against other similar goods. They're selling the certification that "this person is in the n% percentile of employability". And you generally can't just make more of a positional good. That's like, "why can't Louis Vuitton ramp up production so that everyone can have a LV handbag?" [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positional_good https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positional_good
  - klipt 6y ago
    Right, for example almost everyone in California can go to the state's cheap, accessible community colleges. But not everyone can go to UC Berkeley or UCLA.
  - Ericson2314 6y ago
    The answer is we have UBI, and embrace the positional value going to 0. Just about everyone is already overqualified for the jobs that they do. It's a bullshit job economy. Let's drive up the cost of labor, educate for non-job-related reasons, and see if the the two paths meet again in some vastly different economy.
    - AdrianB1 6y ago
      Please tell anyone that is overqualified at their current job to contact me, about everyone in my company in IT is underqualified, many times incompetent because we don't compete on salaries with the FAANG companies paying 3-5x more.
      - WrtCdEvrydy 6y ago
        > about everyone in my company in IT is underqualified Downward spiral, the people who get stuff done get babied to death and decide to change jobs, the ones who are just along for the ride stay. Wash and repeat 3-4 times and you end up with a dysfunctional company.
non-entity 6y ago
> Or how about breaking the degree monopoly with something like equivalent certification programs and let private companies fill the gap. Similar to what Google is doing with its certificate program they are rolling out. This stuff has existed for years and there are probably thousands of "certification programs". Most of the time, they're deemed worthless.
- ZainRiz 6y ago
  It's worthless as a "certification program", but the actual knowledge is valuable You need some way to get your foot in the door and prove your chops. Some bootcamps like Lambda school are doing a pretty good job about that
- t0mbstone 6y ago
  The real question is why schools like Khan Academy aren't accredited? Why can't we have free online courses for everyone, where the only costs are the actual free market costs that go towards staff required for administration, courseware development, instructors, and test proctoring? Why should a college degree from an online university cost a fortune, if the course material remains mostly unchanged from year to year? At the end of the day, all you need is the educational materials, someone who help guide you through them, and then a test to prove that you learned the material. Why isn't that good enough??
  - laGrenouille 6y ago
    > staff required for administration, courseware development, instructors, and test proctoring These costs are not exactly negligible, though they are much less than the prices charged by private 4-year colleges. The average community college tuition and fees is only $3400 [0]. That's fairly close to the "free market" cost of providing tutoring, creating new tests, test grading, and other administrative fees. So, I think the real reason is that there is not much of a market to be had since---if you don't need the signaling, research, or social aspects of a 4-year college---community colleges already offer an arguably superior product for what would be a similar price. [0] https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/pay-for-college/college-costs/college-costs-faqs https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/pay-for-college/college-c...
m0zg 6y ago
> Universality, High Quality, Low Cost. Pick two. As a person who hired a couple dozen people, and interviewed hundreds, let me correct this: at present it's "pick one", because "quality" is not a real option. My observation is, people who are good at software engineering are often good _in spite of_, and not _thanks to_ whatever their alma mater did. If they just took whatever their school offered and nothing else, they wouldn't know anything other than Java, and they'd suck at Java as well. The quality of CS education is piss poor even in "reputable" schools. People are overpaying for what they get to a rather extreme degree (pun intended).
twic 6y ago
> This is the crux of it that everyone needs to get over. Universality, High Quality, Low Cost. Pick two. By letting the government meddle you have guaranteed no one can afford college and will be long in debt to a loan they cannot discharge in bankruptcy. No, this is just boring, lazy libertarianism. What the government did was hand the private sector a blank cheque, which they duly deposited into their bank account, just like any sensible person would. If the government actually got seriously involved, education could be run as a public service, and it could be all three of universal, high quality, and cheap, as it is in many countries outside the US.
- sudosysgen 6y ago
  This is true. Just because the US Government isn't able to run public services doesn't mean governments can't run public services effectively. My province runs our utilities as a publicly owned company, we get not only the cheapest electricity and free water, but also technological innovation and profit that goes to everyone.
- noetic_techy 6y ago
  Except that it is no where near universal in Europe. I hear this all the time but they never mention the exams that weed out large % of the population unless you jump through additional hoops. Germany has exams that dictate whether you go to university or trade school, with very little recourse to fix. Italy has continuation exams after the first year that 50 to 70 % can fail. Its a totally different government meddled system in Europe. Almost anyone in the US can find a for profit University (I know many with a 90% acceptance rate) that will accept them somewhere in the US with real accredited degrees. The problem is that free government money is tide that raises all prices.
j45 6y ago
The "pick two" argument tends to hold weight if there's no way to execute anything better. Innovation is finding ways to do things faster, better, and quite often (in the long run generally) cheaper. It's the nature of disruption. For education.. it seems mighty suspicious that we can't create better ways of delivering curriculum that doesn't change often... but in social media we can pump out so much digital information of the latest happenings (or opinions/interpretations) that it can overwhelm the senses and brain and become fact. But, what do non-academics know. And what do academics know about the capabilities and possibilities of tech. The next year will be extremely interesting for experts and leaders to show, instead of tell or talk.
- noetic_techy 6y ago
  I 100% agree that the "pick two" only applies if you cannot setup and alternate system. Hence my recommendation to for certs to break the monopoly. I really think tech has yet to TRULY disrupt education.
joe_the_user 6y ago
It's impressive to see this simplistic "you get what you pay for, damn it" sort of argument appearing in a situation where clearly students don't get what they pay for at all. It's easy to find example in the US past and in other countries where high general and specialized quality education is provided in a fairly low-cost fashion.
- noetic_techy 6y ago
  >>It's impressive to see this simplistic "you get what you pay for, damn it" sort of argument appearing in a situation where clearly students don't get what they pay for at all. I'm not saying you get what you pay for, I'm saying you get what you vote for. The government needs to get the heck out of the loan market. >>It's easy to find example in the US past and in other countries where high general and specialized quality education is provided in a fairly low-cost fashion. If you are talking about Europe, the catch is that they weed out those who shouldn't be there early. For example in Italy, everyone can go for the first year, but then you have to pass a continuation exam, that upwards of 50 to 70 % fail. Germany has a similar system with exams early in high school that separate what tier school you can go to (trade schools or universities). So sure, its "free/low cost" but and technically "universal", except for those who fail at the gate. Otherwise try your luck in the US where you can rack up massive debt to attend any for profit college with 90% acceptance rates and the peice of paper is accredited the same as any other college. Plus, most Europeans want to finish in an American school because late game quality is light year beyond what you can get in Europe save for a few schools like Cambridge or Oxford, and maybe the Max Planck institute.
whypvtcorps 6y ago
Why private corporations? Why not private citizens collaborating on open projects at scale? Open source has proven it’s an approachable, valued concept to people of all backgrounds. And a whole lot of the problems with public education have been made for political reasons, not real logistical reasons. The financial system is not a free market when possession of its primary value stores is purposefully imbalanced by political forces so nakedly. Why take “leave it corporate enterprise” further given reality?
bonoboTP 6y ago
A lot of the cost of American college doesn't go towards education but things like sports stadiums and teams, various non-academic events, administrators, various other non-academic staff, uniquely-expensive American legal costs and insurance, on-campus police (a big wtf for Europeans), and then there are also those people who decide which Halloween costumes are appropriate for students, investigate various misconduct on campus etc. Americans expect college campuses to be like resorts, parents expect a lot of pampering and personalized whatever for their kid etc. In Europe, university students are independent adults who take a bunch of courses, take exams etc, but have lives on their own, outside uni. They may rent a room in housing with connections to the university, but the university doesn't babysit them. They don't expect anyone else to keep tabs on what they need to do, no pampering. There is no customer mentality. You spare a lot of money this way. So it's at least in part cultural and also reflects in different attitudes regarding healthcare, restaurants, retail, and general business conduct.
- jessaustin 6y ago
  The schools don't have shareholders to whom dividends might be paid. The extra programs and the employees to support them will expand to use up all extra income.
- jldugger 6y ago
  > Americans expect college campuses to be like resorts You say that but the typical dorm room offers no privacy or air conditioning, and the showers and bathrooms are shared. They're similar in nature to SROs which the US pretty much abolished anywhere else, but way more expensive. And then universities have the audacity to demand that students live in them freshman year, even though living off campus would be cheaper.
  - bananamerica 6y ago
    While I understand that many students in the US are away from home, this degree of coupling between education and housing seems odd to me, an outsider. It adds a lot of requirements that certainly make the operation significantly more expensive. Even in the less luxurious ones.
sudosysgen 6y ago
>Universality, High Quality, Low Cost, choose two Incorrect. Most of Europe as well as Canada spend less money, on average, per student as the US, have universal systems, and are (very) high quality.
- noetic_techy 6y ago
  If you are talking about Europe, the catch is that they weed out those who shouldn't be there early. For example in Italy, everyone can go for the first year, but then you have to pass a continuation exam, that upwards of 50 to 70 % fail. Germany has a similar system with exams early in high school that separate what tier school you can go to (trade schools or universities). As far as I know, once you take the test, your fate is sealed. So sure, its "free/low cost" but and technically "universal", except for those who fail at the gate. Otherwise try your luck in the US where you can rack up massive debt to attend any for profit college with 90% acceptance rates and the piece of paper is accredited the same as any other college.
AtlasBarfed 6y ago
Universality, High Quality, Low Cost Oh come on, we do not need the facilities, sports stadiums, plush housing, food options, gaudy offices for professors, and non-professor bureaucrats, and grade inflation in modern "education". None of that actually contributes to High Quality. You absolutely could have low cost and universality and produce well-educated undergraduates by the current standard of US education.
- WrtCdEvrydy 6y ago
  How do you quantify 'High Quality' other than developing connections? College was a class vehicle but is now just a method for people to party away from home and walk away with massive amounts of debt. Read 'Paying for Party' if you'd like a sobering view at how fucked everything is (graduated in 2009 and it was so true even at that point)
Aperocky 6y ago
> Similar to what Google is doing with its certificate program they are rolling out. Will Google hire someone coming out of its certificate programs who didn't go to an actual college?
darkerside 6y ago
The linked blog makes total sense to me, and frankly, I'm astounded that the false dilemma presented in the parent is the top voted comment.
3np 6y ago
> By letting the government meddle you have guaranteed no one can afford college and will be long in debt to a loan they cannot discharge in bankruptcy. How is it, then, that most of Europe and many other countries seem to manage this just fine? The conflict between those parameters certainly doesn't seem inherent.
p1necone 6y ago
Maybe that's true in the political climate of the USA, but there's plenty of other countries that have either free University or interest free student loans while still having high quality Universities. E.g. New Zealand has interest free loans, and Auckland university is ranked 81st in the world (although I have no idea whether these rankings are meaningful for bachelors students)
eru 6y ago
> Universality, High Quality, Low Cost. Pick two. You can get all three. At leat if by high quality you mean that people learn stuff. What conventional education gives you is signalling. And part of the whole point of signalling is to burn resources to show off.
twblalock 6y ago
> By letting the government meddle you have guaranteed no one can afford college and will be long in debt to a loan they cannot discharge in bankruptcy. A lot of countries have been able to maintain high-quality, low-cost university systems. They all do it with a significant degree of government intervention. I can't think of a single one that has succeeded by letting the market solve this problem.
- noetic_techy 6y ago
  If you are talking about Europe, the catch is that they weed out those who shouldn't be there early. For example in Italy, everyone can go for the first year, but then you have to pass a continuation exam, that upwards of 50 to 70 % fail. Germany has a similar system with exams early in high school that separate what tier school you can go to (trade schools or universities). So sure, its "free/low cost" but and technically "universal", except for those who fail at the gate. Otherwise try your luck in the US where you can rack up massive debt to attend any for profit college with 90% acceptance rates and the peice of paper is accredited the same as any other college.
mola 6y ago
I dunno, colleges in Europe fair well, there most countries just subsidize tuition. And rely on tradition and non rational incentives to keep quality reasonable. The failure modes arise when the actors are rational and profit oriented.
- noetic_techy 6y ago
  I hear this all the time but they never mention the exams that weed out large % of the population unless you jump through additional hoops. Germany has exams that dictate whether you go to university or trade school, with very little recourse to fix. Italy has continuation exams after the first year that 50 to 70 % can fail. Its a totally different government meddled system in Europe. Almost anyone in the US can find a for profit University (I know many with a 90% acceptance rate) that will accept them somewhere in the US with real accredited degrees.
mschuster91 6y ago
> Universality, High Quality, Low Cost. Pick two. In Germany we have all three: everyone with the proper credentials ("Abitur" plus a couple side ways for those who didn't manage it, like a Master certification in a trade) can attend university, our universities are top notch, and free (even for foreigners).
- noetic_techy 6y ago
  The key there is proper credentials. I have German relatives and was suprised to learn about the exams that dictate essentially which tier of education you can pursue. Sure its free AFTER the fact. Italy has a similar system where you must take a continuation exam after year 1 which anywhere from 50 to 70% fail. Its true top American schools don't accept just anyone, but there typically IS a university out there that WILL accept you in America unless you are an absolute moron, and the degrees offered typically have the same accreditation as any other (if they are not accedited then it is a typically considered close to a scam degree that only the gullible fall for), just maybe not the prestige of the school. The catch in America is you go into massive debt.
rscho 6y ago
> Universality, High Quality, Low Cost. Pick two. Or, move to the Old Continent and pick 3... Although fees are indirectly increasing in Europe as well. But it still is massively more affordable than in the US. Hopefully, we'll manage to keep it that way.
- noetic_techy 6y ago
  I hear this all the time but they never mention the exams that weed out large % of the population unless you jump through additional hoops. Germany has exams that dictate whether you go to university or trade school, with very little recourse to fix. Italy has continuation exams after the first year that 50 to 70 % can fail. Its a totally different government meddled system in Europe. Almost anyone in the US can find a for profit University (I know many with a 90% acceptance rate) that will accept them somewhere in the US with real accredited degrees.
whiddershins 6y ago
I would invite you to examine the non-dischargeable debt claim before propagating it.
- noetic_techy 6y ago
  Thanks, I did and you are partially correct. I'm not talking private loan debt, I'm talking Federal student loan debt. https://studentaid.gov/manage-loans/forgiveness-cancellation/bankruptcy https://studentaid.gov/manage-loans/forgiveness-cancellation... https://www.npr.org/2020/01/22/797330613/myth-busted-turns-out-bankruptcy-can-wipe-out-student-loan-debt-after-all https://www.npr.org/2020/01/22/797330613/myth-busted-turns-o... It's considered difficult but not totally impossible. It is indeed treated differently from other debt.
pjmlp 6y ago
European universities actually profit from letting the government meddle, and most of us do have much more opportunities for attending universities than the average American, from the available information. In some countries it still is free (or has a symbolic price), go figure!
- noetic_techy 6y ago
  I hear this all the time but they never mention the exams that weed out large % of the population unless you jump through additional hoops. Germany has exams that dictate whether you go to university or trade school, with very little recourse to fix. Italy has continuation exams after the first year that 50 to 70 % can fail. Sure its free/low cost after the fact. Its a totally different government meddled system in Europe. Almost anyone in the US can find a for profit University (I know many with a 90% acceptance rate) that will accept them somewhere in the US with real accredited degrees.
hamstergene 6y ago
> Universality, High Quality, Low Cost. Pick two. Aren't universality and low cost mostly the same thing? The lower the cost the more people can afford it, if the cost is low enough that is capitalism version of universal. (That's probably why many other commenters claimed their country has all three) What do you really mean when you say "low cost", to which % of the population do you expect it to be "low"?

vondur 6y ago

Too many people are enrolling in College, and this is a problem. The end result in many cases has been lower the standards to get students to graduate. More people need to be geared towards trades and manufacturing jobs. The Covid Pandemic has shown us what happens when you put all your manufacturing in one country.

lotsofpulp 6y ago
People will naturally go towards trades and manufacturing once the present value of expected future cash flow reaches equilibrium with alternatives and damage to their body. There’s a reason plumbers and electricians would rather their kid be a white collar worker. I just had a former carpenter come over to do some work and saw me in running shorts and said he wished he could still do physical activities, but the years of carpentry work have ruined his joints. He was only upper 40s.
- AdrianB1 6y ago
  The area where I grew up was a mountain region where wood work was the main occupation of most men; even for men that worked in the forest cutting down trees such health problems were very rare, carpenters working in the shops in the village had no such problems. The guy that did the plumbing in my house when I built it was over 70 years old at that time and he was still working because he wanted to be active, even if he could retire at 60 years old by the local law. I find office workers having more health problems than people with some physical activity, sedentarism is a killer.
smileysteve 6y ago
> More people need to be geared towards trades and manufacturing jobs. To this, and as we're on hacker news; and bootcamps are proving it for web developers; a bachelor's degree often doesn't prepare students for jobs (and the larger concepts, ethics, systems thinking, etc often come from corporate training just as well)
- ntsplnkv2 6y ago
  > (and the larger concepts, ethics, systems thinking, etc often come from corporate training just as well) Ethics? Really? From corporations? > and bootcamps are proving it for web developers; And, not surprisingly, web developers make less on average than other software development positions.
- tnecniv 6y ago
  > larger concepts, ethics, systems thinking, etc These are what American universities are actually well equipped for. It's common knowledge that if you graduate with a BS in some engineering topic, you won't have most of the practical skills necessary for your job --- or at least not from your curriculum. However, a good school will teach you how to analyze complicated problems from a number of different perspectives with both theoretical and practical tools. Moreover, all those liberal arts classes they make you take that people complain about will give you the social and cultural context necessary to understand ethical implications that might arise. Sure, getting a BS from a top engineering school won't tell you the best way to design web pages in 2020, but it should make you a well rounded, capable engineer.
ntsplnkv2 6y ago
> More people need to be geared towards trades and manufacturing jobs. The key is manufacturing jobs - that is what disappeared over the last half century, and most of those jobs are semi-skilled. But there are no jobs. There never will be - unless the US completely stopped importing from China. They can't - because then people will go to wal-mart and see the price increase, and get mad. And that doesn't take into account automation and technology further squeezing the need for workers.

Dannymetconan 6y ago

Universities in Europe are generally high quality and low cost. It does have it's problems but it is not one or the other. You do not need a degree 30 years ago to do lots of jobs that now require one. Higher education for a lot of organizations is just an easy way to cut the application stack down

ChuckNorris89 6y ago
>Universities in Europe are generally high quality and low cost. The cost is low for the student but it's pretty high for the taxpayers. Not US high but still, it's not free, there's lots of bloat in the system that thrives on volume of students not on quality so they try to push forward legislation and programs to increase the number of students, especially from abroad and build more faculties/universities with more staff to hire regardless if the jobs market has need for more students or not. It's not super expensive for the taxpayers but because it's mostly free for the students, lots of them treat it like Highschool 2.0, bouncing in and out, not bothering to finish it or prolonging it till their thirties, etc. which turns into of a waste of public resources at some point.
- silvestrov 6y ago
  No, the cost to tax payers in Europe is less than what people in USA have to pay the college. This is because my University (in Europe) had no sport facilities whatsoever, not even a soccer field. It also had no dormitories, canteens, no fancy library, sport teams etc. It did teaching + research, and nothing else.
  - SilasX 6y ago
    Right -- in the context of Europe, high quality means high education quality; it may not be high quality in the sense of all the frills Americans usually expect out of the college experience.
  - user5994461 6y ago
    For reference, cost in France is about 11kE per year for undergraduate and 22kE per year for master in computer science engineering. That's what it costs the university per student, not what the student pays (up to 1k a year). This doesn't cover accommodation or canteen since that's not part of the university. I don't know what's the cost in the US but I don't imagine it's orders more. The worst number I heard from coworkers was 60k$ a year in NYC (that's easily triple income and taxes compared to France so not a straight comparison).

sokoloff 6y ago

What does the choice of "High Quality, Low Cost" look like in practice? (Because I'm not seeing how to make that happen, other than "burying the actually high cost someplace where it's spread out and hard to see, so it looks like low cost".)

throwawaygh 6y ago
> burying the actually high cost someplace where it's spread out and hard to see, so it looks like low cost "spread out" implies taxation, but something similar can be done via endowment. For example, a college with an existing $100MM endowment can educate at least a few hundred students for free in perpetuity. With a billion dollar endowment, a college can educate a couple thousand for free. In fact, Berea College does exactly this: 1600 students, 1.2 billion endowment, and provides effectively free college to nearly every student. Ranks alongside places like Denison University. So, Low Cost (to consumer), High Quality, but definitely not Universal (there are only so many billion dollar endowments to go around).
Justsignedup 6y ago
Low cost, available to everyone: the quality goes down as they need more capacity for less pay. High Quality, Available to everyone: Will cost a lot because we'd need a lot of high quality teachers, and attracting them will be expensive. Low Cost, High Quality: Only the best will get accepted, and the colleges will make their money in other ways using the work the students provide (like how medical school research departments are big money-makers)
- afiori 6y ago
  > Low cost, available to everyone: the quality goes down as they need more capacity for less pay. A partial solution to this is to simply shrink the spread of services the college/university offers. eg they could simply offer education and training.
  - Justsignedup 6y ago
    We had this. This was vocational schools. They were fantastic for most of the US. Focused entirely on just the skills you need for specific fields. Hair, Mechanic, Electrician, Plumber, etc. And they would be the perfect vessels for re-training when certain industries shut down. Interestingly enough: They were cheap and universal (because they were cheap).

stevefan1999 6y ago

You can generalize things well, you've concluded your point just by using a trilemma

noetic_techy 6y ago
Yup, the trilemma was my point, there is no perfect answer but definitely what we have now can be totally reworked with this in mind. I do think there are alternative systems that can at least make "degree" a lot more cheap and efficient to acquire without the universality component.

jimhefferon 6y ago

> Colleges are now awash in money It is not possible for me to overstate how very much this is not true at the college where I work, and at all colleges with which I have a personal connection.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
rtkwe 6y ago
It depends a lot on who you know and what department you're in. In 40 of 50 states the highest paid public employee is a sports coach... https://fanbuzz.com/national/highest-paid-state-employees/ https://fanbuzz.com/national/highest-paid-state-employees/
- etempleton 6y ago
  At many universities athletics is a major revenue driver. There is a very real financial incentive to have high performing athletic programs.
  - brazzy 6y ago
    Is this revenue driven by athletics separate from tuition fees? Because if it isn't, that only confirms the hypothesis.
    - bpt3 6y ago
      Yes, it comes from broadcast revenues, merchandise, ticket and concession sales, and donations brought in through the athletic department.
  - watwut 6y ago
    Is that true? When I researched this last time it turned out most athletic programs loose money.
    - 6y ago

robomartin 6y ago

Here's a potentially simple way to perhaps shave as much as 25% or more from the cost of STEM degrees in the US: Eliminate all non-STEM coursework from degree requirements. This could easily shave not only tens of thousands of dollars from a STEM degree but it would also cut it down by a year (if not more). I would also vector students who lack the proper foundation in say, language skills or the sciences, to take courses at community colleges. Not only would this lower costs to students, it would also support local colleges.

travisporter 6y ago
Isn't this an associate's/technical degree? To be a successful engineer/doctor/lawyer, you need some non-STEM coursework for communication, ethics, or just to expand your view. To last point, many state colleges in the US let you transfer credits from a community/regional college easily, so you can save ~50%
- robomartin 6y ago
  While I do understand what you are saying, the educational deficit we are seeing is at the high school level. When I attended high school we had coursework on ethics, logic, philosophy, business, literature, languages, etc. The average high school graduate in the US is shamefully unprepared for life. My greater point is that adding $50K in non-STEM coursework as a graduation requirement is wrong. The other element of this conversation is that non-STEM departments have developed deep one-sided political bias over the last several decades. As a result they are engaged in activity almost indistinguishable from indoctrination. We are issuing government-backed loans for kids to be exposed to ever more extreme narratives with no option to opt out. And then we make them pay for those loans. This is wrong.
  - greedo 6y ago
    If you think bias and indoctrination are something that only developed "over the last several decades," you're mistaken. This has been the case of all universities, since time immemorial. And the swing to the left started in the Sixties (at least in the US).

tptacek 6y ago

I don't understand why there isn't simply the option of making a lot more colleges. "High Quality, Low Cost, Pick 2" isn't how most markets work.

SilasX 6y ago
IMHO, because what colleges are selling is effectively a positional good[1], one valued specifically for how it ranks against other similar goods. They're selling the certification that "this person is in the n% percentile of employability". And you generally can't just make more of a positional good. That's like, "why can't Louis Vuitton ramp up production so that everyone can have a LV handbag?" [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positional_good https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positional_good
- klipt 6y ago
  Right, for example almost everyone in California can go to the state's cheap, accessible community colleges. But not everyone can go to UC Berkeley or UCLA.
- Ericson2314 6y ago
  The answer is we have UBI, and embrace the positional value going to 0. Just about everyone is already overqualified for the jobs that they do. It's a bullshit job economy. Let's drive up the cost of labor, educate for non-job-related reasons, and see if the the two paths meet again in some vastly different economy.
  - AdrianB1 6y ago
    Please tell anyone that is overqualified at their current job to contact me, about everyone in my company in IT is underqualified, many times incompetent because we don't compete on salaries with the FAANG companies paying 3-5x more.
    - WrtCdEvrydy 6y ago
      > about everyone in my company in IT is underqualified Downward spiral, the people who get stuff done get babied to death and decide to change jobs, the ones who are just along for the ride stay. Wash and repeat 3-4 times and you end up with a dysfunctional company.

non-entity 6y ago

> Or how about breaking the degree monopoly with something like equivalent certification programs and let private companies fill the gap. Similar to what Google is doing with its certificate program they are rolling out. This stuff has existed for years and there are probably thousands of "certification programs". Most of the time, they're deemed worthless.

ZainRiz 6y ago
It's worthless as a "certification program", but the actual knowledge is valuable You need some way to get your foot in the door and prove your chops. Some bootcamps like Lambda school are doing a pretty good job about that
t0mbstone 6y ago
The real question is why schools like Khan Academy aren't accredited? Why can't we have free online courses for everyone, where the only costs are the actual free market costs that go towards staff required for administration, courseware development, instructors, and test proctoring? Why should a college degree from an online university cost a fortune, if the course material remains mostly unchanged from year to year? At the end of the day, all you need is the educational materials, someone who help guide you through them, and then a test to prove that you learned the material. Why isn't that good enough??
- laGrenouille 6y ago
  > staff required for administration, courseware development, instructors, and test proctoring These costs are not exactly negligible, though they are much less than the prices charged by private 4-year colleges. The average community college tuition and fees is only $3400 [0]. That's fairly close to the "free market" cost of providing tutoring, creating new tests, test grading, and other administrative fees. So, I think the real reason is that there is not much of a market to be had since---if you don't need the signaling, research, or social aspects of a 4-year college---community colleges already offer an arguably superior product for what would be a similar price. [0] https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/pay-for-college/college-costs/college-costs-faqs https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/pay-for-college/college-c...

m0zg 6y ago

> Universality, High Quality, Low Cost. Pick two. As a person who hired a couple dozen people, and interviewed hundreds, let me correct this: at present it's "pick one", because "quality" is not a real option. My observation is, people who are good at software engineering are often good _in spite of_, and not _thanks to_ whatever their alma mater did. If they just took whatever their school offered and nothing else, they wouldn't know anything other than Java, and they'd suck at Java as well. The quality of CS education is piss poor even in "reputable" schools. People are overpaying for what they get to a rather extreme degree (pun intended).

twic 6y ago

> This is the crux of it that everyone needs to get over. Universality, High Quality, Low Cost. Pick two. By letting the government meddle you have guaranteed no one can afford college and will be long in debt to a loan they cannot discharge in bankruptcy. No, this is just boring, lazy libertarianism. What the government did was hand the private sector a blank cheque, which they duly deposited into their bank account, just like any sensible person would. If the government actually got seriously involved, education could be run as a public service, and it could be all three of universal, high quality, and cheap, as it is in many countries outside the US.

sudosysgen 6y ago
This is true. Just because the US Government isn't able to run public services doesn't mean governments can't run public services effectively. My province runs our utilities as a publicly owned company, we get not only the cheapest electricity and free water, but also technological innovation and profit that goes to everyone.
noetic_techy 6y ago
Except that it is no where near universal in Europe. I hear this all the time but they never mention the exams that weed out large % of the population unless you jump through additional hoops. Germany has exams that dictate whether you go to university or trade school, with very little recourse to fix. Italy has continuation exams after the first year that 50 to 70 % can fail. Its a totally different government meddled system in Europe. Almost anyone in the US can find a for profit University (I know many with a 90% acceptance rate) that will accept them somewhere in the US with real accredited degrees. The problem is that free government money is tide that raises all prices.

j45 6y ago

The "pick two" argument tends to hold weight if there's no way to execute anything better. Innovation is finding ways to do things faster, better, and quite often (in the long run generally) cheaper. It's the nature of disruption. For education.. it seems mighty suspicious that we can't create better ways of delivering curriculum that doesn't change often... but in social media we can pump out so much digital information of the latest happenings (or opinions/interpretations) that it can overwhelm the senses and brain and become fact. But, what do non-academics know. And what do academics know about the capabilities and possibilities of tech. The next year will be extremely interesting for experts and leaders to show, instead of tell or talk.

noetic_techy 6y ago
I 100% agree that the "pick two" only applies if you cannot setup and alternate system. Hence my recommendation to for certs to break the monopoly. I really think tech has yet to TRULY disrupt education.

joe_the_user 6y ago

It's impressive to see this simplistic "you get what you pay for, damn it" sort of argument appearing in a situation where clearly students don't get what they pay for at all. It's easy to find example in the US past and in other countries where high general and specialized quality education is provided in a fairly low-cost fashion.

noetic_techy 6y ago
>>It's impressive to see this simplistic "you get what you pay for, damn it" sort of argument appearing in a situation where clearly students don't get what they pay for at all. I'm not saying you get what you pay for, I'm saying you get what you vote for. The government needs to get the heck out of the loan market. >>It's easy to find example in the US past and in other countries where high general and specialized quality education is provided in a fairly low-cost fashion. If you are talking about Europe, the catch is that they weed out those who shouldn't be there early. For example in Italy, everyone can go for the first year, but then you have to pass a continuation exam, that upwards of 50 to 70 % fail. Germany has a similar system with exams early in high school that separate what tier school you can go to (trade schools or universities). So sure, its "free/low cost" but and technically "universal", except for those who fail at the gate. Otherwise try your luck in the US where you can rack up massive debt to attend any for profit college with 90% acceptance rates and the peice of paper is accredited the same as any other college. Plus, most Europeans want to finish in an American school because late game quality is light year beyond what you can get in Europe save for a few schools like Cambridge or Oxford, and maybe the Max Planck institute.

whypvtcorps 6y ago

Why private corporations? Why not private citizens collaborating on open projects at scale? Open source has proven it’s an approachable, valued concept to people of all backgrounds. And a whole lot of the problems with public education have been made for political reasons, not real logistical reasons. The financial system is not a free market when possession of its primary value stores is purposefully imbalanced by political forces so nakedly. Why take “leave it corporate enterprise” further given reality?

bonoboTP 6y ago

A lot of the cost of American college doesn't go towards education but things like sports stadiums and teams, various non-academic events, administrators, various other non-academic staff, uniquely-expensive American legal costs and insurance, on-campus police (a big wtf for Europeans), and then there are also those people who decide which Halloween costumes are appropriate for students, investigate various misconduct on campus etc. Americans expect college campuses to be like resorts, parents expect a lot of pampering and personalized whatever for their kid etc. In Europe, university students are independent adults who take a bunch of courses, take exams etc, but have lives on their own, outside uni. They may rent a room in housing with connections to the university, but the university doesn't babysit them. They don't expect anyone else to keep tabs on what they need to do, no pampering. There is no customer mentality. You spare a lot of money this way. So it's at least in part cultural and also reflects in different attitudes regarding healthcare, restaurants, retail, and general business conduct.

jessaustin 6y ago
The schools don't have shareholders to whom dividends might be paid. The extra programs and the employees to support them will expand to use up all extra income.
jldugger 6y ago
> Americans expect college campuses to be like resorts You say that but the typical dorm room offers no privacy or air conditioning, and the showers and bathrooms are shared. They're similar in nature to SROs which the US pretty much abolished anywhere else, but way more expensive. And then universities have the audacity to demand that students live in them freshman year, even though living off campus would be cheaper.
- bananamerica 6y ago
  While I understand that many students in the US are away from home, this degree of coupling between education and housing seems odd to me, an outsider. It adds a lot of requirements that certainly make the operation significantly more expensive. Even in the less luxurious ones.

sudosysgen 6y ago

>Universality, High Quality, Low Cost, choose two Incorrect. Most of Europe as well as Canada spend less money, on average, per student as the US, have universal systems, and are (very) high quality.

noetic_techy 6y ago
If you are talking about Europe, the catch is that they weed out those who shouldn't be there early. For example in Italy, everyone can go for the first year, but then you have to pass a continuation exam, that upwards of 50 to 70 % fail. Germany has a similar system with exams early in high school that separate what tier school you can go to (trade schools or universities). As far as I know, once you take the test, your fate is sealed. So sure, its "free/low cost" but and technically "universal", except for those who fail at the gate. Otherwise try your luck in the US where you can rack up massive debt to attend any for profit college with 90% acceptance rates and the piece of paper is accredited the same as any other college.

AtlasBarfed 6y ago

Universality, High Quality, Low Cost Oh come on, we do not need the facilities, sports stadiums, plush housing, food options, gaudy offices for professors, and non-professor bureaucrats, and grade inflation in modern "education". None of that actually contributes to High Quality. You absolutely could have low cost and universality and produce well-educated undergraduates by the current standard of US education.

WrtCdEvrydy 6y ago
How do you quantify 'High Quality' other than developing connections? College was a class vehicle but is now just a method for people to party away from home and walk away with massive amounts of debt. Read 'Paying for Party' if you'd like a sobering view at how fucked everything is (graduated in 2009 and it was so true even at that point)

Aperocky 6y ago

> Similar to what Google is doing with its certificate program they are rolling out. Will Google hire someone coming out of its certificate programs who didn't go to an actual college?

darkerside 6y ago

The linked blog makes total sense to me, and frankly, I'm astounded that the false dilemma presented in the parent is the top voted comment.

3np 6y ago

> By letting the government meddle you have guaranteed no one can afford college and will be long in debt to a loan they cannot discharge in bankruptcy. How is it, then, that most of Europe and many other countries seem to manage this just fine? The conflict between those parameters certainly doesn't seem inherent.

p1necone 6y ago

Maybe that's true in the political climate of the USA, but there's plenty of other countries that have either free University or interest free student loans while still having high quality Universities. E.g. New Zealand has interest free loans, and Auckland university is ranked 81st in the world (although I have no idea whether these rankings are meaningful for bachelors students)

eru 6y ago

> Universality, High Quality, Low Cost. Pick two. You can get all three. At leat if by high quality you mean that people learn stuff. What conventional education gives you is signalling. And part of the whole point of signalling is to burn resources to show off.

twblalock 6y ago

> By letting the government meddle you have guaranteed no one can afford college and will be long in debt to a loan they cannot discharge in bankruptcy. A lot of countries have been able to maintain high-quality, low-cost university systems. They all do it with a significant degree of government intervention. I can't think of a single one that has succeeded by letting the market solve this problem.

noetic_techy 6y ago
If you are talking about Europe, the catch is that they weed out those who shouldn't be there early. For example in Italy, everyone can go for the first year, but then you have to pass a continuation exam, that upwards of 50 to 70 % fail. Germany has a similar system with exams early in high school that separate what tier school you can go to (trade schools or universities). So sure, its "free/low cost" but and technically "universal", except for those who fail at the gate. Otherwise try your luck in the US where you can rack up massive debt to attend any for profit college with 90% acceptance rates and the peice of paper is accredited the same as any other college.

mola 6y ago

I dunno, colleges in Europe fair well, there most countries just subsidize tuition. And rely on tradition and non rational incentives to keep quality reasonable. The failure modes arise when the actors are rational and profit oriented.

noetic_techy 6y ago
I hear this all the time but they never mention the exams that weed out large % of the population unless you jump through additional hoops. Germany has exams that dictate whether you go to university or trade school, with very little recourse to fix. Italy has continuation exams after the first year that 50 to 70 % can fail. Its a totally different government meddled system in Europe. Almost anyone in the US can find a for profit University (I know many with a 90% acceptance rate) that will accept them somewhere in the US with real accredited degrees.

mschuster91 6y ago

> Universality, High Quality, Low Cost. Pick two. In Germany we have all three: everyone with the proper credentials ("Abitur" plus a couple side ways for those who didn't manage it, like a Master certification in a trade) can attend university, our universities are top notch, and free (even for foreigners).

noetic_techy 6y ago
The key there is proper credentials. I have German relatives and was suprised to learn about the exams that dictate essentially which tier of education you can pursue. Sure its free AFTER the fact. Italy has a similar system where you must take a continuation exam after year 1 which anywhere from 50 to 70% fail. Its true top American schools don't accept just anyone, but there typically IS a university out there that WILL accept you in America unless you are an absolute moron, and the degrees offered typically have the same accreditation as any other (if they are not accedited then it is a typically considered close to a scam degree that only the gullible fall for), just maybe not the prestige of the school. The catch in America is you go into massive debt.

rscho 6y ago

> Universality, High Quality, Low Cost. Pick two. Or, move to the Old Continent and pick 3... Although fees are indirectly increasing in Europe as well. But it still is massively more affordable than in the US. Hopefully, we'll manage to keep it that way.

noetic_techy 6y ago
I hear this all the time but they never mention the exams that weed out large % of the population unless you jump through additional hoops. Germany has exams that dictate whether you go to university or trade school, with very little recourse to fix. Italy has continuation exams after the first year that 50 to 70 % can fail. Its a totally different government meddled system in Europe. Almost anyone in the US can find a for profit University (I know many with a 90% acceptance rate) that will accept them somewhere in the US with real accredited degrees.

whiddershins 6y ago

I would invite you to examine the non-dischargeable debt claim before propagating it.

noetic_techy 6y ago
Thanks, I did and you are partially correct. I'm not talking private loan debt, I'm talking Federal student loan debt. https://studentaid.gov/manage-loans/forgiveness-cancellation/bankruptcy https://studentaid.gov/manage-loans/forgiveness-cancellation... https://www.npr.org/2020/01/22/797330613/myth-busted-turns-out-bankruptcy-can-wipe-out-student-loan-debt-after-all https://www.npr.org/2020/01/22/797330613/myth-busted-turns-o... It's considered difficult but not totally impossible. It is indeed treated differently from other debt.

pjmlp 6y ago

European universities actually profit from letting the government meddle, and most of us do have much more opportunities for attending universities than the average American, from the available information. In some countries it still is free (or has a symbolic price), go figure!

noetic_techy 6y ago
I hear this all the time but they never mention the exams that weed out large % of the population unless you jump through additional hoops. Germany has exams that dictate whether you go to university or trade school, with very little recourse to fix. Italy has continuation exams after the first year that 50 to 70 % can fail. Sure its free/low cost after the fact. Its a totally different government meddled system in Europe. Almost anyone in the US can find a for profit University (I know many with a 90% acceptance rate) that will accept them somewhere in the US with real accredited degrees.

hamstergene 6y ago

> Universality, High Quality, Low Cost. Pick two. Aren't universality and low cost mostly the same thing? The lower the cost the more people can afford it, if the cost is low enough that is capitalism version of universal. (That's probably why many other commenters claimed their country has all three) What do you really mean when you say "low cost", to which % of the population do you expect it to be "low"?