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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 exis

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?
- esperent 5y ago
  It seems more likely that 50k is the actual cost and you're getting a 95% subsidy. Which seems reasonable - should a government be expected to subsidize international students? Not sure where I stand on that. Besides which, I think EU countries do subsidize students from other EU countries so an Irish person can study in Sweden, for example, without paying high fees (need to confirm this). Also, $50k is way higher than I expected. In my old university, NUIG in Ireland, it would be more like $15k/year for international students.
  - maccolgan 5y ago
    The subsidies are irrelevant, US college degrees can indeed cost around 50k, if European universities have the same cost (despite having lower GDP PPP per capita) that's a even larger problem, except the taxpayer is in trouble.
    - esperent 5y ago
      > except the taxpayer is in trouble. This completely ignores the huge benefits that come from socialized education (and healthcare, public transport and to so on). These are only a net negative when considered over a very short time frame. Long term, having a healthy, highly educated, low debt society is hugely beneficial to that society, especially when you stop looking at things through the narrow lens of "the economy" and consider the overall health of the society instead. Even when you look at just the economy, yes, the US has higher GDP per capita, but it also has higher income inequality so that doesn't say much about what the average "person on the street" is getting. All measures of the economy have problems, but GDP per capita is one of the worst when it comes to judging how well off people in a country actually are, and it feels like people use it mostly just for scoring points. Median income, access to housing, healthcare, education, public transport, pollution levels, ease of doing business or interacting with government, corruption, freedom of the press, levels of racism and prejudice against minorities, and so on, all of these are at least as important considerations as GDP when considering the wellbeing of a country's citizens and I don't think any country in the world scores highly on all fronts. EDIT: actually I saw you said GDP PPP per capita which is better than pure (nominal) GDP. But in that case, the US is quite far from the top - it's actually 13th, while Ireland is 5th and UK is 26th https://www.worldometers.info/gdp/gdp-per-capita/ https://www.worldometers.info/gdp/gdp-per-capita/
    - MagnumOpus 5y ago
      European universities don't have the same costs. Data points for Germany or Austria: The cost to educate a student per year: - $7k or less per year for "book sciences" like philosophy, math, economics, business, law school - $15k for "technical sciences" like MINT topics that need labs - $20-30k for arts or music - $30-$60k for medicine (on the lower end for veterinary, upper end for human medicine)
colonwqbang 5y ago
The problem with the European model is that it creates an economically regressive system. The less affluent citizens who didn't attend higher education are paying for us who did attend. This is usually motivated by the idea that society as a whole benefits from us educated people so much that they should pay for it. I find this idea a bit offensive. I would actually prefer a system financed purely by student loans. It does put a lot more responsibility on the prospective student to judge the quality of an education programme and the opportunities it affords. Some programmes would no longer be sustainable if they were not given free of charge. I think that would probably be a good thing.
- krageon 5y ago
  Why do you assume folks who don't go to university are less affluent? If anything, that should be the offensive notion. > It does put a lot more responsibility on the prospective student to judge the quality of an education programme and the opportunities it affords. Children cannot make this estimation, which is why we partially subsidise it. It's already a ton of pressure to know wth you're going to be doing later, let's not make that even worse just to satisfy some weird notion that higher education should be hard to reach. It's going to disproportionately impact folks without a social safety net, which is the one thing you wanted to prevent in the first place.
  - colonwqbang 5y ago
    I don't have to assume anything, I can just look at the facts which show that people who attended higher education on average earn much more (in my country at least, if you know of a place where the opposite is true please share) You seem to be assuming that higher education is something obviously good, that everyone would want if they knew what was best for them. I don't think this is true. I think student loans (if done right) can be a good thing. They can let anyone from any social setting afford a higher education. But why the people without higher education should foot the bill for it, I have never understood.
    - Jensson 5y ago

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?

esperent 5y ago
It seems more likely that 50k is the actual cost and you're getting a 95% subsidy. Which seems reasonable - should a government be expected to subsidize international students? Not sure where I stand on that. Besides which, I think EU countries do subsidize students from other EU countries so an Irish person can study in Sweden, for example, without paying high fees (need to confirm this). Also, $50k is way higher than I expected. In my old university, NUIG in Ireland, it would be more like $15k/year for international students.
- maccolgan 5y ago
  The subsidies are irrelevant, US college degrees can indeed cost around 50k, if European universities have the same cost (despite having lower GDP PPP per capita) that's a even larger problem, except the taxpayer is in trouble.
  - esperent 5y ago
    > except the taxpayer is in trouble. This completely ignores the huge benefits that come from socialized education (and healthcare, public transport and to so on). These are only a net negative when considered over a very short time frame. Long term, having a healthy, highly educated, low debt society is hugely beneficial to that society, especially when you stop looking at things through the narrow lens of "the economy" and consider the overall health of the society instead. Even when you look at just the economy, yes, the US has higher GDP per capita, but it also has higher income inequality so that doesn't say much about what the average "person on the street" is getting. All measures of the economy have problems, but GDP per capita is one of the worst when it comes to judging how well off people in a country actually are, and it feels like people use it mostly just for scoring points. Median income, access to housing, healthcare, education, public transport, pollution levels, ease of doing business or interacting with government, corruption, freedom of the press, levels of racism and prejudice against minorities, and so on, all of these are at least as important considerations as GDP when considering the wellbeing of a country's citizens and I don't think any country in the world scores highly on all fronts. EDIT: actually I saw you said GDP PPP per capita which is better than pure (nominal) GDP. But in that case, the US is quite far from the top - it's actually 13th, while Ireland is 5th and UK is 26th https://www.worldometers.info/gdp/gdp-per-capita/ https://www.worldometers.info/gdp/gdp-per-capita/
  - MagnumOpus 5y ago
    European universities don't have the same costs. Data points for Germany or Austria: The cost to educate a student per year: - $7k or less per year for "book sciences" like philosophy, math, economics, business, law school - $15k for "technical sciences" like MINT topics that need labs - $20-30k for arts or music - $30-$60k for medicine (on the lower end for veterinary, upper end for human medicine)

colonwqbang 5y ago

The problem with the European model is that it creates an economically regressive system. The less affluent citizens who didn't attend higher education are paying for us who did attend. This is usually motivated by the idea that society as a whole benefits from us educated people so much that they should pay for it. I find this idea a bit offensive. I would actually prefer a system financed purely by student loans. It does put a lot more responsibility on the prospective student to judge the quality of an education programme and the opportunities it affords. Some programmes would no longer be sustainable if they were not given free of charge. I think that would probably be a good thing.

krageon 5y ago
Why do you assume folks who don't go to university are less affluent? If anything, that should be the offensive notion. > It does put a lot more responsibility on the prospective student to judge the quality of an education programme and the opportunities it affords. Children cannot make this estimation, which is why we partially subsidise it. It's already a ton of pressure to know wth you're going to be doing later, let's not make that even worse just to satisfy some weird notion that higher education should be hard to reach. It's going to disproportionately impact folks without a social safety net, which is the one thing you wanted to prevent in the first place.
- colonwqbang 5y ago
  I don't have to assume anything, I can just look at the facts which show that people who attended higher education on average earn much more (in my country at least, if you know of a place where the opposite is true please share) You seem to be assuming that higher education is something obviously good, that everyone would want if they knew what was best for them. I don't think this is true. I think student loans (if done right) can be a good thing. They can let anyone from any social setting afford a higher education. But why the people without higher education should foot the bill for it, I have never understood.
  - Jensson 5y ago