6 ms·

So you're saying that higher education is (yet another) public good that fails when turned in to a for-profit enterprise?

erosenbe0 5y ago
Correct, we can't realistically untether higher education from public dollars, so the public should get to exercise more oversight. Whether it is the loans or the reduced property taxes, the public is always footing part of the bill.
- Loughla 5y ago
  >so the public should get to exercise more oversight. Every public institution has open board meetings, with board members who are either publicly elected, or appointed by an elected official. They also have constant and consistent reporting to the state and federal government about budget, student achievement, and various institutional and student based outcomes. I think maybe it's less that there needs to be more reporting, and maybe just put what we already have in a more accessible format?
  - erosenbe0 5y ago
    I mean private universities too. They take loan money and are also exempt from massive amounts of property and sales taxes. Administrators are getting wealthy financed through public debt at all levels.
CityOfThrowaway 5y ago
The exact opposite actually. It's a good for-profit enterprise that fails when it's narrative twists it into a public good. The problem isn't that university doesn't work. The problem is that the federal government has propped it up with so much poorly underwritten debt that the prices have ballooned beyond value delivered. That would be fine if the audience taking the debt was rational. But the discourse around university is itself irrational. And the people taking the loans have underdeveloped brains that are bad at long term thinking.
- lostcolony 5y ago
  And to be clear - if it was a purely government funded thing there would be strong price controls around it (the same reason why doctors pushed back against the original compulsory medical insurance plans in the 30s, and why there's so much back and forth around medicare covering stuff or not, doctors accepting it or not, etc). But by underwriting debt this way we have an agency problem; the government isn't incentivized to say "no" to bad debt, and students aren't informed enough (just the opposite, as you mention, the discourse is irrational. I don't agree with 'underdeveloped brains', so much as no cultural pressure or life experience to 'count the cost').
  - CityOfThrowaway 5y ago
    Yes, good nuanced addition. I agree!
  - Ericson2314 5y ago
    Also public land-grant universities have been a great success on the main (even if recent events dim that a bit). Direct publicly provided education unlike universe healthcare has been a thing in the US, including being completely free in certain times and places (CUNY, for example). This is much better than subsidizing tuition without cross controls.
- esperent 5y ago
  There's plenty of examples of universities being run as not-for-profit and doing just fine. Pretty much all of Europe since the concept of a University has existed, for example. Sure, you can nitpick problems with European universities and they are not perfect. But nobody is going into debt slavery in Europe from getting a degree and nobody is talking about the collapse of European universities. So maybe the problem lies somewhere else? Something to do with the unchecked capitalism of the American system, for example?
  - bigmadshoe 5y ago
    I don't know about the second paragraph. I went to the University of Edinburgh, and being Scottish, the government paid around $2.5k per year for me to attend. Around half of students in my course (CS) there were from outside of Europe, and were paying $50k per year to attend. Was the debt really avoided in my case, or was it just transferred to others?

erosenbe0 5y ago

Correct, we can't realistically untether higher education from public dollars, so the public should get to exercise more oversight. Whether it is the loans or the reduced property taxes, the public is always footing part of the bill.

Loughla 5y ago
>so the public should get to exercise more oversight. Every public institution has open board meetings, with board members who are either publicly elected, or appointed by an elected official. They also have constant and consistent reporting to the state and federal government about budget, student achievement, and various institutional and student based outcomes. I think maybe it's less that there needs to be more reporting, and maybe just put what we already have in a more accessible format?
- erosenbe0 5y ago
  I mean private universities too. They take loan money and are also exempt from massive amounts of property and sales taxes. Administrators are getting wealthy financed through public debt at all levels.

CityOfThrowaway 5y ago

The exact opposite actually. It's a good for-profit enterprise that fails when it's narrative twists it into a public good. The problem isn't that university doesn't work. The problem is that the federal government has propped it up with so much poorly underwritten debt that the prices have ballooned beyond value delivered. That would be fine if the audience taking the debt was rational. But the discourse around university is itself irrational. And the people taking the loans have underdeveloped brains that are bad at long term thinking.

lostcolony 5y ago
And to be clear - if it was a purely government funded thing there would be strong price controls around it (the same reason why doctors pushed back against the original compulsory medical insurance plans in the 30s, and why there's so much back and forth around medicare covering stuff or not, doctors accepting it or not, etc). But by underwriting debt this way we have an agency problem; the government isn't incentivized to say "no" to bad debt, and students aren't informed enough (just the opposite, as you mention, the discourse is irrational. I don't agree with 'underdeveloped brains', so much as no cultural pressure or life experience to 'count the cost').
- CityOfThrowaway 5y ago
  Yes, good nuanced addition. I agree!
- Ericson2314 5y ago
  Also public land-grant universities have been a great success on the main (even if recent events dim that a bit). Direct publicly provided education unlike universe healthcare has been a thing in the US, including being completely free in certain times and places (CUNY, for example). This is much better than subsidizing tuition without cross controls.
esperent 5y ago
There's plenty of examples of universities being run as not-for-profit and doing just fine. Pretty much all of Europe since the concept of a University has existed, for example. Sure, you can nitpick problems with European universities and they are not perfect. But nobody is going into debt slavery in Europe from getting a degree and nobody is talking about the collapse of European universities. So maybe the problem lies somewhere else? Something to do with the unchecked capitalism of the American system, for example?
- bigmadshoe 5y ago
  I don't know about the second paragraph. I went to the University of Edinburgh, and being Scottish, the government paid around $2.5k per year for me to attend. Around half of students in my course (CS) there were from outside of Europe, and were paying $50k per year to attend. Was the debt really avoided in my case, or was it just transferred to others?