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How do people feel about making this a regulatory requirement for your students receiving federal aid? Track how many people graduate: - Go into a career in th

by tacLog 5y ago

How do people feel about making this a regulatory requirement for your students receiving federal aid? Track how many people graduate: - Go into a career in their field - Continue on to a different field of their own choosing - Never use their degree. This information would align the goals of students with the goals of institutions a little bit better. I know that it would be hard to track, but that kind of program feedback would have guided my choices more than graduation statistics.

iudqnolq 5y ago
That's basically what collegescorecard.ed.gov is. I suspect that the reason you didn't know about it is this sort of "tell people spinach is good for them" style intervention has limited efficacy.
- abalaji 5y ago
  I tried playing around with it and I didn't find the information that OP was posting. The closest I could find was the median salary per graduating degree / median amount of debt per degree
  - iudqnolq 5y ago
    You're completely right, that's why I said basically. I suspect median salary is a decent way of answering what's behind most of their questions. Edit: End up using their degree is also poorly defined, although the bureau of labor statistics measures something similar with underemployment.
WalterBright 5y ago
Another thing students can do before taking on debt is to google career prospects. None of this is secret information, nobody needs to surprised if graduates in their chosen field are unemployable.
- spicybright 5y ago
  So many college reps don't suggest basic things like this, it's insane with how much money you're investing. It's been a while since I faced this, but I'm guessing it's even worse now with uni's becoming less financial viable.
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    I just can't understand how someone can go through 4 years of intensive training, and not once do a google search on starting salaries in their major. Heck, in my day, long before the intertoobs, a common topic among students was starting salaries for the various majors. It was well known, for example, that you couldn't get a job in AY. The AY students would do a double major - AY for fun, the other for money.
    - TchoBeer 5y ago
      What is AY short for
      - WalterBright 5y ago
        Astronomy
      - selimthegrim 5y ago
        Astronomy, in the Caltech course catalog
    - BeetleB 5y ago
      > I just can't understand how someone can go through 4 years of intensive training, and not once do a google search on starting salaries in their major. Most college students are not good at gauging what a good salary is. They don't have family, and haven't dealt with expenses, and know little about retirement. When I was in grad school, $70K sounded like a lot to almost every student.
      - 5y ago
make3 5y ago
I feel like students are already aware of this. The question for me in a country that almost (90%) fully funds students going to college, is about whether we fund them as much as students going for degrees that will lead to jobs.
a-dub 5y ago
or just eliminate the nondischargability clause for private student loans, which then means the spigot will close and the sensible maximums built into federal loans will put back pressure on soaring tuitions...
- 542458 5y ago
  Dumb question (and actually a question, I’m not trying to JAQ here) - wouldn’t that make the dominant strategy for many to as quickly as possible declare bankruptcy upon graduation? Sure it would make it way harder to buy a house in the future… but many are resigned to renting forever anyways. Also wouldn’t this make it very hard for the poor to ever get student loans?
  - shadilay 5y ago
    I think the idea is that it would shift the incentives to take on less debt, make college cheaper, and encourage shorter payback times.
    - a-dub 5y ago
      that's correct. it would be market forces pushing down on tuition. that said, it also makes it harder for individuals to make big bets on themselves until the market corrects (assuming it even would)
  - bachmeier 5y ago
    > wouldn’t that make the dominant strategy for many to as quickly as possible declare bankruptcy upon graduation Why not do that now as soon as you get any type of loan? You don't just "declare bankruptcy". And bankruptcy law can be changed as desired to prevent that. There's nothing special about student loan debt versus other types of debt. In any event, requiring repayment based on income (like 7% of income up to a certain monthly amount) is almost certainly a better policy. The students and lenders both have the right incentives with those schemes.
    - 5y ago
user3939382 5y ago
I ran a trade school and that's exactly what we already have to do. Trade schools have to show 70%+ placement in the field to continue to be accredited and qualify for financial aid. Yet one political party likes to go on TV and talk about "predatory trade schools" when this is what goes on at credit-hour colleges. Trades also get attacked for having higher default rates, with no consideration of mediating variables like the fact that they serve more people from poor families.
- krastanov 5y ago
  Could you elaborate on the political activism behind this (the why and the who). I can not guess which the party (or sub-party) is and what their (honest or hypocritical) agenda is, but I am sincerely interested in your point of view. (Yeah, I know you might suffer knee-jerk downvotes for mentioning something about Dems or Reps)
  - leereeves 5y ago
    CNN: Biden has canceled $1.5 billion in student debt for victims of for-profit school fraud https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/09/politics/biden-student-loan-debt-cancellation/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/09/politics/biden-student-loan-d... Those schools, like ITT Tech and the Court Reporting Institute, probably deserve to be shut down, but somehow it's only trade schools that receive this punishment. Columbia Film, despite having a far worse career placement rate than ITT Tech, won't be accused of fraud. (At least not officially.)
    - lr4444lr 5y ago
      Well yeah, but it's often because the trade schools make pretty strong claims about employability to prospective students, which courts found to constitute fraud. Top Ivies don't make these claims.
- kevinventullo 5y ago
  one political party likes to go on TV and talk about "predatory trade schools" I don’t think I’ve ever heard this sentiment from anyone, regardless of political affiliation. The only criticism I’ve ever heard about trade school is that the jobs can be tough on your body as you get into your 50’s and 60’s.
trothamel 5y ago
I sort of feel that the right way to pay for higher education should be to set up some sort of income-based payback system, where some percentage of the income a student makes over the income a high-school graduate makes would be given to the school. The government's role would likely be to collect and distribute the income, but the actual financing would be set up between colleges and banks, both of which would have a vested interest in student success.
- criticas 5y ago
  Not sure the government needs to be involved at all. Purdue has an income-based repayment program. It's not a loan - technically it's an income sharing agreement. A sophomore, junior, or senior receives an amount, say $10,000, and agrees to repay 4% of gross salary for 100 months after graduation.
tedunangst 5y ago
It would be simpler to track loan repayment delinquencies. If a physics PhD is a pipeline to a well paying quant fund job, from a loan/career perspective that's probably a win. If the loans aren't getting paid, even if somebody does find work in their field, that's probably poor value.
hodgesrm 5y ago
How about just making college cheaper? That's the root cause of the grief. I have a masters degree in Japanese studies. It helped me get my first commercial software job at Sybase, testing localized products for the Japanese market. I have not done anything related to Japan since then, but the critical thinking skills and understanding of economics stayed with me my whole career. Not to mention the discipline of defending ideas when other people try to beat the crap out of them. Looking back, it was one of the more worthwhile things I've ever done, up there with learning Latin and reading Cicero. I would hate to see a scheme of incentives against following your curiosity.
- qmmmur 5y ago
  Funny noone responds to these sincere comments and instead drinks the neoliberal coolaid even harder. I agree entirely with your sentiment re curiosity and the inflated American price of education.
- abathur 5y ago
  Right. I'm sympathetic with the general thrust of the arguments here (and agree the incentives are misaligned), but intellectual curiosity isn't a good beast-of-burden. I work as a programmer, but have an MFA in creative writing (poetry). The messy human story is that I started undergrad in CS and was quickly worn down by pulling all-nighters on projects I wasn't invested in while trying to hold down a part-time night job. I realized it was over at the beginning of my second semester, in the first session of my required technical writing course. Writing was one of very few sources of joy for me, and I knew I couldn't throw it under the steamroller, too. I'll leave a lot out--it took me a while after this to even realize I could major in writing--but I eventually came back to programming through creative projects and literary analysis in grad school. I realize _studying art for several years to find yourself_ is a bourgeois luxury few get, but I was just a bright lower-middle-class kid from nowhere who'd never been intellectually engaged. Being engaged helps you build muscles you won't build warming a seat, but then you can use them for whatever you set your mind to.
  - hodgesrm 5y ago
    Many of us took strange paths to get to where we are today. But finding yourself isn't just a bourgeois luxury. I would argue that any society that does not allow the cross-pollination of ideas that emerges from those journeys is poorer both spiritually and economically.
ajsnigrutin 5y ago
This is a bit of a gray zone... If you study math, and then go coding videogames.... technically, you're not in a math field anymore, but a math degree helps you a lot with programming. On the other hand, if you flip burgers in McDonalds, no matter which degree you have, it's gone to waste.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  Not if you figure out a cheaper way to flip burgers, which you can make a mint selling.
  - shadilay 5y ago
    As it turns out there's also money to be made in making the burger flipping more expensive. https://www.wired.com/story/they-hacked-mcdonalds-ice-cream-makers-started-cold-war/ https://www.wired.com/story/they-hacked-mcdonalds-ice-cream-...
criticas 5y ago
Graduation, employment, and starting salary are factored into the US News ratings for law schools. Law schools responded by offering graduates who could not find jobs "fellowships" to move them into the "employed" category. What you measure is what you will get.

by tacLog 5y ago

iudqnolq 5y ago

That's basically what collegescorecard.ed.gov is. I suspect that the reason you didn't know about it is this sort of "tell people spinach is good for them" style intervention has limited efficacy.

abalaji 5y ago
I tried playing around with it and I didn't find the information that OP was posting. The closest I could find was the median salary per graduating degree / median amount of debt per degree
- iudqnolq 5y ago
  You're completely right, that's why I said basically. I suspect median salary is a decent way of answering what's behind most of their questions. Edit: End up using their degree is also poorly defined, although the bureau of labor statistics measures something similar with underemployment.

WalterBright 5y ago

Another thing students can do before taking on debt is to google career prospects. None of this is secret information, nobody needs to surprised if graduates in their chosen field are unemployable.

spicybright 5y ago
So many college reps don't suggest basic things like this, it's insane with how much money you're investing. It's been a while since I faced this, but I'm guessing it's even worse now with uni's becoming less financial viable.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  I just can't understand how someone can go through 4 years of intensive training, and not once do a google search on starting salaries in their major. Heck, in my day, long before the intertoobs, a common topic among students was starting salaries for the various majors. It was well known, for example, that you couldn't get a job in AY. The AY students would do a double major - AY for fun, the other for money.
  - TchoBeer 5y ago
    What is AY short for
    - WalterBright 5y ago
      Astronomy
    - selimthegrim 5y ago
      Astronomy, in the Caltech course catalog
  - BeetleB 5y ago
    > I just can't understand how someone can go through 4 years of intensive training, and not once do a google search on starting salaries in their major. Most college students are not good at gauging what a good salary is. They don't have family, and haven't dealt with expenses, and know little about retirement. When I was in grad school, $70K sounded like a lot to almost every student.
    - 5y ago

make3 5y ago

I feel like students are already aware of this. The question for me in a country that almost (90%) fully funds students going to college, is about whether we fund them as much as students going for degrees that will lead to jobs.

a-dub 5y ago

or just eliminate the nondischargability clause for private student loans, which then means the spigot will close and the sensible maximums built into federal loans will put back pressure on soaring tuitions...

542458 5y ago
Dumb question (and actually a question, I’m not trying to JAQ here) - wouldn’t that make the dominant strategy for many to as quickly as possible declare bankruptcy upon graduation? Sure it would make it way harder to buy a house in the future… but many are resigned to renting forever anyways. Also wouldn’t this make it very hard for the poor to ever get student loans?
- shadilay 5y ago
  I think the idea is that it would shift the incentives to take on less debt, make college cheaper, and encourage shorter payback times.
  - a-dub 5y ago
    that's correct. it would be market forces pushing down on tuition. that said, it also makes it harder for individuals to make big bets on themselves until the market corrects (assuming it even would)
- bachmeier 5y ago
  > wouldn’t that make the dominant strategy for many to as quickly as possible declare bankruptcy upon graduation Why not do that now as soon as you get any type of loan? You don't just "declare bankruptcy". And bankruptcy law can be changed as desired to prevent that. There's nothing special about student loan debt versus other types of debt. In any event, requiring repayment based on income (like 7% of income up to a certain monthly amount) is almost certainly a better policy. The students and lenders both have the right incentives with those schemes.
  - 5y ago

user3939382 5y ago

I ran a trade school and that's exactly what we already have to do. Trade schools have to show 70%+ placement in the field to continue to be accredited and qualify for financial aid. Yet one political party likes to go on TV and talk about "predatory trade schools" when this is what goes on at credit-hour colleges. Trades also get attacked for having higher default rates, with no consideration of mediating variables like the fact that they serve more people from poor families.

krastanov 5y ago
Could you elaborate on the political activism behind this (the why and the who). I can not guess which the party (or sub-party) is and what their (honest or hypocritical) agenda is, but I am sincerely interested in your point of view. (Yeah, I know you might suffer knee-jerk downvotes for mentioning something about Dems or Reps)
- leereeves 5y ago
  CNN: Biden has canceled $1.5 billion in student debt for victims of for-profit school fraud https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/09/politics/biden-student-loan-debt-cancellation/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/09/politics/biden-student-loan-d... Those schools, like ITT Tech and the Court Reporting Institute, probably deserve to be shut down, but somehow it's only trade schools that receive this punishment. Columbia Film, despite having a far worse career placement rate than ITT Tech, won't be accused of fraud. (At least not officially.)
  - lr4444lr 5y ago
    Well yeah, but it's often because the trade schools make pretty strong claims about employability to prospective students, which courts found to constitute fraud. Top Ivies don't make these claims.
kevinventullo 5y ago
one political party likes to go on TV and talk about "predatory trade schools" I don’t think I’ve ever heard this sentiment from anyone, regardless of political affiliation. The only criticism I’ve ever heard about trade school is that the jobs can be tough on your body as you get into your 50’s and 60’s.

trothamel 5y ago

I sort of feel that the right way to pay for higher education should be to set up some sort of income-based payback system, where some percentage of the income a student makes over the income a high-school graduate makes would be given to the school. The government's role would likely be to collect and distribute the income, but the actual financing would be set up between colleges and banks, both of which would have a vested interest in student success.

criticas 5y ago
Not sure the government needs to be involved at all. Purdue has an income-based repayment program. It's not a loan - technically it's an income sharing agreement. A sophomore, junior, or senior receives an amount, say $10,000, and agrees to repay 4% of gross salary for 100 months after graduation.

tedunangst 5y ago

It would be simpler to track loan repayment delinquencies. If a physics PhD is a pipeline to a well paying quant fund job, from a loan/career perspective that's probably a win. If the loans aren't getting paid, even if somebody does find work in their field, that's probably poor value.

hodgesrm 5y ago

How about just making college cheaper? That's the root cause of the grief. I have a masters degree in Japanese studies. It helped me get my first commercial software job at Sybase, testing localized products for the Japanese market. I have not done anything related to Japan since then, but the critical thinking skills and understanding of economics stayed with me my whole career. Not to mention the discipline of defending ideas when other people try to beat the crap out of them. Looking back, it was one of the more worthwhile things I've ever done, up there with learning Latin and reading Cicero. I would hate to see a scheme of incentives against following your curiosity.

qmmmur 5y ago
Funny noone responds to these sincere comments and instead drinks the neoliberal coolaid even harder. I agree entirely with your sentiment re curiosity and the inflated American price of education.
abathur 5y ago
Right. I'm sympathetic with the general thrust of the arguments here (and agree the incentives are misaligned), but intellectual curiosity isn't a good beast-of-burden. I work as a programmer, but have an MFA in creative writing (poetry). The messy human story is that I started undergrad in CS and was quickly worn down by pulling all-nighters on projects I wasn't invested in while trying to hold down a part-time night job. I realized it was over at the beginning of my second semester, in the first session of my required technical writing course. Writing was one of very few sources of joy for me, and I knew I couldn't throw it under the steamroller, too. I'll leave a lot out--it took me a while after this to even realize I could major in writing--but I eventually came back to programming through creative projects and literary analysis in grad school. I realize _studying art for several years to find yourself_ is a bourgeois luxury few get, but I was just a bright lower-middle-class kid from nowhere who'd never been intellectually engaged. Being engaged helps you build muscles you won't build warming a seat, but then you can use them for whatever you set your mind to.
- hodgesrm 5y ago
  Many of us took strange paths to get to where we are today. But finding yourself isn't just a bourgeois luxury. I would argue that any society that does not allow the cross-pollination of ideas that emerges from those journeys is poorer both spiritually and economically.

ajsnigrutin 5y ago

This is a bit of a gray zone... If you study math, and then go coding videogames.... technically, you're not in a math field anymore, but a math degree helps you a lot with programming. On the other hand, if you flip burgers in McDonalds, no matter which degree you have, it's gone to waste.

WalterBright 5y ago
Not if you figure out a cheaper way to flip burgers, which you can make a mint selling.
- shadilay 5y ago
  As it turns out there's also money to be made in making the burger flipping more expensive. https://www.wired.com/story/they-hacked-mcdonalds-ice-cream-makers-started-cold-war/ https://www.wired.com/story/they-hacked-mcdonalds-ice-cream-...

criticas 5y ago

Graduation, employment, and starting salary are factored into the US News ratings for law schools. Law schools responded by offering graduates who could not find jobs "fellowships" to move them into the "employed" category. What you measure is what you will get.