5 ms·

If some parent get hired for a really good job and has to leave for 2 years, you'd require that family to sell their house?

HarryHirsch 5y ago
At my institution (regional college in Western MA) we are having trouble hiring, except locally. People won't come, they cannot afford the cost of housing. It's that bad. Let them sell up. Homeowners have had it good the last 40 years, a policy change is needed because things that can't go on won't.
- rdtwo 5y ago
  Yeah won’t go on forever but might go on for longer than a short human little would care
- ericd 5y ago
  Have you tried increasing the salary on offer? I’m confident that there’s some level at which you’d have no trouble filling all open spots.
  - HarryHirsch 5y ago
    We can't afford higher salaries, and then there's the demographic cliff in 2025, because couples stopped having children in 2008, they couldn't afford it. (The upside is that our slim budget prevents us from getting into debt by engaging in stupid construction projects to attract students, we can award scholarships instead.) And we can still fill vacancies with locals who are living with roommates or their parents. You can't fix a stuff shortage by throwing money at it, no matter what economists tell you. The housing shortage is the real-world equivalent of stock buybacks - in theory the increased stock price boosts investment and thus innovation, but in practice we get Boeing and Intel. Same with housing. The higher prices should in theory draw more suppliers in, but in practice the only supply that grows is the supply of NIMBYS wanting to "preserve home values" to profit from the intolerable status quo.
    - ericd 5y ago
      It sounds like you’re frustrated that the environment is becoming inhospitable for small colleges without a lot of money. That’s understandable, but are you perhaps saying that you all need to be looking at cutting down and getting lean, rather than hiring up? From those NIMBYs’ points of view, as frustrating as I find them, they probably feel like they scrimped and sacrificed to get their little piece, so now they’re desperate to not let anyone mess it up, because they want to be able to get out the massive amount they put in. I’m guessing it’s more often loss aversion than trying to profit by cornering the market.

HarryHirsch 5y ago

At my institution (regional college in Western MA) we are having trouble hiring, except locally. People won't come, they cannot afford the cost of housing. It's that bad. Let them sell up. Homeowners have had it good the last 40 years, a policy change is needed because things that can't go on won't.

rdtwo 5y ago
Yeah won’t go on forever but might go on for longer than a short human little would care
ericd 5y ago
Have you tried increasing the salary on offer? I’m confident that there’s some level at which you’d have no trouble filling all open spots.
- HarryHirsch 5y ago
  We can't afford higher salaries, and then there's the demographic cliff in 2025, because couples stopped having children in 2008, they couldn't afford it. (The upside is that our slim budget prevents us from getting into debt by engaging in stupid construction projects to attract students, we can award scholarships instead.) And we can still fill vacancies with locals who are living with roommates or their parents. You can't fix a stuff shortage by throwing money at it, no matter what economists tell you. The housing shortage is the real-world equivalent of stock buybacks - in theory the increased stock price boosts investment and thus innovation, but in practice we get Boeing and Intel. Same with housing. The higher prices should in theory draw more suppliers in, but in practice the only supply that grows is the supply of NIMBYS wanting to "preserve home values" to profit from the intolerable status quo.
  - ericd 5y ago
    It sounds like you’re frustrated that the environment is becoming inhospitable for small colleges without a lot of money. That’s understandable, but are you perhaps saying that you all need to be looking at cutting down and getting lean, rather than hiring up? From those NIMBYs’ points of view, as frustrating as I find them, they probably feel like they scrimped and sacrificed to get their little piece, so now they’re desperate to not let anyone mess it up, because they want to be able to get out the massive amount they put in. I’m guessing it’s more often loss aversion than trying to profit by cornering the market.