6 ms·
With respect, I know the student loan regime in the US is a hobbyhorse for some but saying "unis face zero cost pressure" is simply not reflective of the dynami
by jonahbenton 4y ago
With respect, I know the student loan regime in the US is a hobbyhorse for some but saying "unis face zero cost pressure" is simply not reflective of the dynamics.
State and federal direct funding of unis in general fell off a cliff starting in the 1970s. Direct costs to students started to rise as a result. Students not being able to afford direct costs led to the government creation of the credit money regime- student loans. It wasn't govt putting some thumb on some scale- it was because direct dollars became scarce and credit dollars in all areas are cheap- and in most cases actually beneficial, because public interest credit dollars reflect actual public benefits.
Schools still have to compete for students, and tangible non-academic features always win the day. So there are constant cost and investment pressures on schools to produce a better product in tangible non-academic terms. Spending money actually brings in more students. So tuition goes up AND development outreach goes up, and wealthy donors get names on buildings etc. And because the actual academics- the individuals teaching- do not in practice make any difference whatsoever (eg US News rankings depend on student SATs, not staff PhDs), they are increasingly devalued in the equation.
My point about a uni run by academics is that were purely academic elements prioritized above all else- dorms, food, support, athletics, whatever- the school would simply not have a competitive offering.
This doesn't have anything to do with student loans being available. The same competition dynamics- which really do impose capital/expense pressures- they exist and are independent of the level of consumption funding.
Of course, Harvard is in an n of maybe 5 group, the freedom it has to manage its accounting is nearly unique and not reflective of the broader swath of thousands of US unis. In fact what is happening now is a huge consolidation and closure of enormous numbers of small colleges that cannot invest enough with a small base to compete with larger ones. A business story, like any other.
It's not because they have too many administrators. It's because they cannot afford to have more.
Hope that makes sense.
- pdonis 4y ago> State and federal direct funding of unis Is a big part of government putting its thumb on the scale. The only way to have truly free competition in university education is for universities to have to fund themselves entirely from payments for services rendered. Tuition is such a payment. But most State and federal direct funding is not. > Students not being able to afford direct costs led to the government creation of the credit money regime In other words, the government switched the way it was putting its thumb on the scale. > Schools still have to compete for students, and tangible non-academic features always win the day. Why? In a true competitive environment, I can't see why this would be the case, since the reason the students are there is academics, so competition would be expected to be on the basis of academics.
- whall6 4y agoPersonally I’d choose the school with mediocre academics but is well known when I enter the job market over the school that has great academics that nobody has heard of.
- pdonis 4y agoWhich schools are these that have great academics but nobody has ever heard of them? (I'll agree that there are schools with mediocre academics that are well known.)
- neltnerb 4y agoWell, of course no one knows... (kidding) I can think of a few that I had never heard of in high school and people outside my field wouldn't know of but which do phenomenal work. One actually wonders how their students even know to look for them. In any case, I would say the Colorado School of Mines is a prime example. I am a materials scientist and first really ran into them while doing some work with NREL which happened to be near their campus. Perhaps it is a side effect of being undergrad only. Or perhaps a side effect of being populated with students who, at like 18 years old, knew they wanted to enter this extremely specific field.
- quartesixte 4y agoEmory Riddle for aerospace engineering being another one of them. But the relatively mainstream obscurity of these institutions is heavily offset by the weight they hold in their field and the near guarnatee job security it offers in niche fields...which might result in you making quite the pretty penny.
- cafard 4y agoAccording to https://www.mines.edu/about/by-the-numbers/ https://www.mines.edu/about/by-the-numbers/, Colorado School of Mines has "1,658 graduate students (master’s and doctoral)". I don't doubt that they have a strong focus on teaching.
- cycomanic 4y agoI know I'm late to replying to this, and I don't want to comment on the rest of the post, but this is blatantly false: > And because the actual academics- the individuals teaching- do not in practice make any difference whatsoever (eg US News rankings depend on student SATs, not staff PhDs), they are increasingly devalued in the equation. Have a look at how the US News ranking is calculated here (SAT scores are only 7%): https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/how-us-news-calculated-the-rankings https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/how-... Many of those components directly depend on academic merits, e.g. the peer reputation. Many other rankings (especially international ones) have a large portion of the index based on research, for example having a nobel prize winner increases your score quite dramatically. There are reasons why the ivy league schools + MIT, Cambridge, Oxford ... are at the top of international rankings, and it's not the quality of the housing.