5 ms·

In education, "supply" itself is not the issue; there are more than enough spots at state, etc. universities. Its supply of prestigious universities, which is c

In education, "supply" itself is not the issue; there are more than enough spots at state, etc. universities. Its supply of prestigious universities, which is controlled by a cartel. Similar to diamonds, which are neither precious nor rare, yet prices are outrageous because they are controlled by a cartel. If/when I become President of the United States, I will hold back all education dollars on cartel-controlled education institutions, and heavily tax their endownments.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
testfoobar 4y ago
This is funny and true. The competition and prices all originate from elite institutions. I wonder if it legal to completely clone a curriculum? Like could you clone an MIT EECS education? Down to the coursework? Or alternatively - force elite schools to license and manage franchisees? I'd vote for you.
- dudeinjapan 4y ago
  Alright! Every vote counts! > is it legal to completely clone a curriculum? Gray area. I'm no lawyer but AFAIK professor's syllabus/tests/etc. (being written documents) are subject to automatic copyright, I imagine the university is the holder of the copyright given that the prof is an employee. That being said, how many profs clone their syllabus/coursework directly from textbooks? The content of most online universities (Khan Academy, Coursera, etc.) is already superior to Ivy League based on first-hand experience of both. The bigger problem IMHO is that very little of the overall $$$ and energy at Ivy League is actually spent on course content. For many profs, esp. in STEM, teaching undergrad courses is a "chore" / distraction from their research work. I think there is opportunity to make a "lean-and-mean" physical university (perhaps online hybrid) with minimal admin overhead, which a degree could be on-par with MIT in terms of prestige. Is anyone doing this?
  - 2snakes 4y ago
    Check out Minerva.
- thaumasiotes 4y ago
  > I wonder if it legal to completely clone a curriculum? Like could you clone an MIT EECS education? MIT will do that for you themselves. https://ocw.mit.edu/ https://ocw.mit.edu/ Schools don't compete on curriculum. Nobody pays for it. Nobody cares about it. And in one particular case, I think the "conventional wisdom" has it right - the lectures don't really matter. You can record a lecture and then play it for any number of people, very cheaply. I recently watched a Chinese drama in which a minor plot element was a character (in the 80s) getting a degree from "the TV university", lectures available to the television-viewing public. (Having your own TV was out of the question, so she and her "classmates" would make long commutes to places that had a TV showing the lectures. This educational format has been very affordable for a very long time.) That format is not as good as actually having a lecturer, or a TA, who you can ask questions of. If you lose track of a recorded lecture, it will not help you find the thread. All a recorded lecture can ever do is repeat itself. A lecturer versus a lecture is the difference between moving forward and getting stuck.
  - heisenbit 4y ago
    There is value in learning to get unstuck by yourself. Possibly more than in progressing along a paved road.
- mdmglr 4y ago
  Didn't everyone read Introduction to Algorithms by Cormen et al? It doesn't matter if the curriculum is the same between University of $STATE and MIT. From Amazon, Meta, Palantir, Microsoft etc will always choose candidates from the main elite schools first.
- capitalsigma 4y ago
  I've taken classes at a number of institutions of varying rigor. My experience is that less well ranked schools just do not expect the same quantity and quality of academic work as more prestigious schools, and the students at these schools are not interested in changing that. It's especially striking in math, where I saw e.g. cross listed masters level courses start off with a disclaimer that we won't be writing any proofs.
  - hmmmmmm111 4y ago
    This is a misconception. In western Europe and Asia all college education is more rigorous than American college. And yet I don’t have the overall impression that the international bachelor’s people I know got something correlated out of the difference in rigor. It would be as obvious as the difference in rigor itself. It’s not.
    - s1artibartfast 4y ago
      The rigor drives the signal. Biggest one is rigor of acceptance screening. It is about measuring and screening students, not educating them.
thaumasiotes 4y ago
> Similar to diamonds, which are neither precious nor rare Well, there are many functions (mostly to do with abrading things) where diamonds are useful for the purpose and a substitute is much, much less so. If you're distinguishing "precious" from "rare", this would seem to be proof that they are precious.
- adql 4y ago
  He's talking about jewellery grade, not ones used on tools. Also there is heavy rhethoric from diamond industry that "natural" are better
NotACop182 4y ago
You got my vote! Now what about the college book pricing issues. One semester I paid for my books cost more than the classes I took. It was that bad. Even worse was that the book companies ensure you need the access code to the online portal in order to do anything. This ensures the used book market is nonexistent
- dudeinjapan 4y ago
  BaaS - books as a service. I am noticing that whenver "as a Service" is suffixed to X, it becomes far less useful and far more expensive than X was originally.
  - cratermoon 4y ago
    It's called rent-seeking. Like Pantone demanding $15/month to use their colors.
    - jimz 4y ago
      Or lobbying
- globalise83 4y ago
  It's the American system. In the UK professors did everything in their power to avoid students having to buy textbooks, based on my experience at 3 different universities...
AuthorizedCust 4y ago
“Cartel”? Nonsense! Provide evidence prestigious universities are colluding on pricing. You can’t because it’s not true.
- rdtwo 4y ago
  The accrediting system is a cartel of sorts. It keeps supply low by keeping competition low. It’s not a perfect cartel but none of our modern ones are. They just seem to capture large chunks of the market enough so that most people are forced to work with em.
  - nradov 4y ago
    That's not a real cartel. Several new colleges have achieved accreditation in recent years. There is some paperwork and expense involved but it's not a huge obstacle for any legitimate school.
    - rdtwo 4y ago
      I think a modern cartel does not need fully block competition to be successful merely slow down competitors and put up lots of road blocks such that new entrants can’t compete on cost. Many industries in the USA are quasi cartels, 2-5 companies own most of the market and competition is quashed by it being very difficult to break in. The airlines are a cartel but occasionally you see a new airline or there is a private equity attempt to cartel the vet business dispite the fact that some new independent vets can enter the market.
- brnaftr361 4y ago
  I have a pretty strong feeling you're being sarcastic. https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltnietzel/2022/01/10/federal-lawsuit-alleges-16-elite-universities-engaged-in-price-fixing/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltnietzel/2022/01/10/fede...
  - light_hue_1 4y ago
    Did you even read your own story? What does this have to do with them being a cartel or not? The story doesn't even claim they collude on pricing! It just says that admissions is not needs blind, the way that these universities claim it is.
rr808 4y ago
> neither precious nor rare The fact that most people can name the most famous schools seems to imply they are rare. They are perceived as having better outcomes than regular state schools. Do they or dont they? If their grads do get better jobs and end up more successful - then they are genuinely better? People from state Universities end up sitting next to Ivys etc there is no difference - this is what I believe. We'll see if everyone else's perceptions change in the future as well.
- hailwren 4y ago
  Median earned income 10 years after enrolling at an Ivy is about 2x the all schools average. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/09/14/this-chart-shows-why-parents-push-their-kids-so-hard-to-get-into-ivy-league-schools/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/09/14/this-...
  - rr808 4y ago
    Yeah a median of $110k isn't that amazing. Could just be because they're mostly in the NE. Also against "all schools" isn't really comparing good state schools which I'd like to see.
    - relaxing 4y ago
      I assure you, 110k is amazing anywhere outside of SV SWE's (and a few other high-skill/high-pay professions.) The US median income is still around $70k. An extra 40k - $3 grand a month - goes far.
  - biztos 4y ago
    I don’t know how you’d track this statistically, but my experience has been that not just the pay but the quality of job is much higher for graduates of elite universities, and like pay this just feeds back into itself. All the people I know who went to Stanford got very nice, “cushy” jobs straight out of college. Most of the people I know who went to state schools had to bust their asses for years at much less pleasant work before they worked their way up to the nicer jobs. The head start you get from an elite school in the US, in things that have nothing to do with education per se, can not be overstated.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

testfoobar 4y ago

This is funny and true. The competition and prices all originate from elite institutions. I wonder if it legal to completely clone a curriculum? Like could you clone an MIT EECS education? Down to the coursework? Or alternatively - force elite schools to license and manage franchisees? I'd vote for you.

dudeinjapan 4y ago
Alright! Every vote counts! > is it legal to completely clone a curriculum? Gray area. I'm no lawyer but AFAIK professor's syllabus/tests/etc. (being written documents) are subject to automatic copyright, I imagine the university is the holder of the copyright given that the prof is an employee. That being said, how many profs clone their syllabus/coursework directly from textbooks? The content of most online universities (Khan Academy, Coursera, etc.) is already superior to Ivy League based on first-hand experience of both. The bigger problem IMHO is that very little of the overall $$$ and energy at Ivy League is actually spent on course content. For many profs, esp. in STEM, teaching undergrad courses is a "chore" / distraction from their research work. I think there is opportunity to make a "lean-and-mean" physical university (perhaps online hybrid) with minimal admin overhead, which a degree could be on-par with MIT in terms of prestige. Is anyone doing this?
- 2snakes 4y ago
  Check out Minerva.
thaumasiotes 4y ago
> I wonder if it legal to completely clone a curriculum? Like could you clone an MIT EECS education? MIT will do that for you themselves. https://ocw.mit.edu/ https://ocw.mit.edu/ Schools don't compete on curriculum. Nobody pays for it. Nobody cares about it. And in one particular case, I think the "conventional wisdom" has it right - the lectures don't really matter. You can record a lecture and then play it for any number of people, very cheaply. I recently watched a Chinese drama in which a minor plot element was a character (in the 80s) getting a degree from "the TV university", lectures available to the television-viewing public. (Having your own TV was out of the question, so she and her "classmates" would make long commutes to places that had a TV showing the lectures. This educational format has been very affordable for a very long time.) That format is not as good as actually having a lecturer, or a TA, who you can ask questions of. If you lose track of a recorded lecture, it will not help you find the thread. All a recorded lecture can ever do is repeat itself. A lecturer versus a lecture is the difference between moving forward and getting stuck.
- heisenbit 4y ago
  There is value in learning to get unstuck by yourself. Possibly more than in progressing along a paved road.
mdmglr 4y ago
Didn't everyone read Introduction to Algorithms by Cormen et al? It doesn't matter if the curriculum is the same between University of $STATE and MIT. From Amazon, Meta, Palantir, Microsoft etc will always choose candidates from the main elite schools first.
capitalsigma 4y ago
I've taken classes at a number of institutions of varying rigor. My experience is that less well ranked schools just do not expect the same quantity and quality of academic work as more prestigious schools, and the students at these schools are not interested in changing that. It's especially striking in math, where I saw e.g. cross listed masters level courses start off with a disclaimer that we won't be writing any proofs.
- hmmmmmm111 4y ago
  This is a misconception. In western Europe and Asia all college education is more rigorous than American college. And yet I don’t have the overall impression that the international bachelor’s people I know got something correlated out of the difference in rigor. It would be as obvious as the difference in rigor itself. It’s not.
  - s1artibartfast 4y ago
    The rigor drives the signal. Biggest one is rigor of acceptance screening. It is about measuring and screening students, not educating them.

thaumasiotes 4y ago

> Similar to diamonds, which are neither precious nor rare Well, there are many functions (mostly to do with abrading things) where diamonds are useful for the purpose and a substitute is much, much less so. If you're distinguishing "precious" from "rare", this would seem to be proof that they are precious.

adql 4y ago
He's talking about jewellery grade, not ones used on tools. Also there is heavy rhethoric from diamond industry that "natural" are better

NotACop182 4y ago

You got my vote! Now what about the college book pricing issues. One semester I paid for my books cost more than the classes I took. It was that bad. Even worse was that the book companies ensure you need the access code to the online portal in order to do anything. This ensures the used book market is nonexistent

dudeinjapan 4y ago
BaaS - books as a service. I am noticing that whenver "as a Service" is suffixed to X, it becomes far less useful and far more expensive than X was originally.
- cratermoon 4y ago
  It's called rent-seeking. Like Pantone demanding $15/month to use their colors.
  - jimz 4y ago
    Or lobbying
globalise83 4y ago
It's the American system. In the UK professors did everything in their power to avoid students having to buy textbooks, based on my experience at 3 different universities...

AuthorizedCust 4y ago

“Cartel”? Nonsense! Provide evidence prestigious universities are colluding on pricing. You can’t because it’s not true.

rdtwo 4y ago
The accrediting system is a cartel of sorts. It keeps supply low by keeping competition low. It’s not a perfect cartel but none of our modern ones are. They just seem to capture large chunks of the market enough so that most people are forced to work with em.
- nradov 4y ago
  That's not a real cartel. Several new colleges have achieved accreditation in recent years. There is some paperwork and expense involved but it's not a huge obstacle for any legitimate school.
  - rdtwo 4y ago
    I think a modern cartel does not need fully block competition to be successful merely slow down competitors and put up lots of road blocks such that new entrants can’t compete on cost. Many industries in the USA are quasi cartels, 2-5 companies own most of the market and competition is quashed by it being very difficult to break in. The airlines are a cartel but occasionally you see a new airline or there is a private equity attempt to cartel the vet business dispite the fact that some new independent vets can enter the market.
brnaftr361 4y ago
I have a pretty strong feeling you're being sarcastic. https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltnietzel/2022/01/10/federal-lawsuit-alleges-16-elite-universities-engaged-in-price-fixing/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltnietzel/2022/01/10/fede...
- light_hue_1 4y ago
  Did you even read your own story? What does this have to do with them being a cartel or not? The story doesn't even claim they collude on pricing! It just says that admissions is not needs blind, the way that these universities claim it is.

rr808 4y ago

> neither precious nor rare The fact that most people can name the most famous schools seems to imply they are rare. They are perceived as having better outcomes than regular state schools. Do they or dont they? If their grads do get better jobs and end up more successful - then they are genuinely better? People from state Universities end up sitting next to Ivys etc there is no difference - this is what I believe. We'll see if everyone else's perceptions change in the future as well.

hailwren 4y ago
Median earned income 10 years after enrolling at an Ivy is about 2x the all schools average. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/09/14/this-chart-shows-why-parents-push-their-kids-so-hard-to-get-into-ivy-league-schools/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/09/14/this-...
- rr808 4y ago
  Yeah a median of $110k isn't that amazing. Could just be because they're mostly in the NE. Also against "all schools" isn't really comparing good state schools which I'd like to see.
  - relaxing 4y ago
    I assure you, 110k is amazing anywhere outside of SV SWE's (and a few other high-skill/high-pay professions.) The US median income is still around $70k. An extra 40k - $3 grand a month - goes far.
- biztos 4y ago
  I don’t know how you’d track this statistically, but my experience has been that not just the pay but the quality of job is much higher for graduates of elite universities, and like pay this just feeds back into itself. All the people I know who went to Stanford got very nice, “cushy” jobs straight out of college. Most of the people I know who went to state schools had to bust their asses for years at much less pleasant work before they worked their way up to the nicer jobs. The head start you get from an elite school in the US, in things that have nothing to do with education per se, can not be overstated.