3 ms·

You make a good point... but when I read that one of those 16K administrators has the title of "associate vice provost of inclusion, community and integrative l

by cs702 4y ago

You make a good point... but when I read that one of those 16K administrators has the title of "associate vice provost of inclusion, community and integrative learning," I can't help but feel that things have gotten out of hand. And when I see that the "sticker price" of attending elite US colleges has risen faster than pretty much everything else and is now ~$80K/year, I can't help but be shocked. PS. I'm not sure why you're getting downvoted. Even though I disagree with you, I find your comment valuable.

ajross 4y ago
> but when I read that one of those 16K administrators has the title of [...] That's the same logic you see on Fox Business when guests demand that we defund the entire federal government because something they don't agree with got funded. Whether or not you personally see value isn't really the issue here. You get that, right? Even granting that the post is likely to ineffective and silly (something I'd agree with, FWIW) lots of people at the school value things like inclusion, community and "integrative learning" and want to see the school prioritize it in its staffing decisions. Also post-secondary tuition has been beating general inflation, but lagging many other areas. This link says it's been growing at 4.63% for the last decade, which is less than most real estate markets. The idea of tuition being "out of hand" is mostly just a meme.
- rayiner 4y ago
  Defending something you concededly can’t defend on the merits with the assertion that nobody should agree with Fox News about anything is a bad tic that won’t work out for you in the long run. It makes it trivially easy to bait mainstream liberals into seeming to embrace wacky ideas. It’s like shooting fish in a barrel.
  - jacquesm 4y ago
    > It’s like shooting fish in a barrel. That may be true, but why would you do that here?
- 015a 4y ago
  Look past that person's specific title more at the general problem; the systemic bureaucracy. That's the problem the Fox News rightwingers have with the Federal Government; they may not be sophisticated enough to voice it like that, but its the root of the problem. Its the biggest problem in modern universities, simultaneously causing them to be more expensive, allow for less formative experiences, and reducing the quality of education. Why are new cars so expensive? Someone has to pay for the system which produced it, and the system wants to be bigger. There is literally no genuine reason why any of this has to exist at the scale it does. Standford's 16,000 administrative staff are not solving problem core to what a University does; they are solving problems they invented, or they're simply not actually solving problems at all, but will nonetheless defend their paychecks with their life. Diversity & Inclusion is a totally reasonable thing to want. What impact have they had? In 2021, Stanford's admissions statics were: 28% white, 25% asian, 18% hispanic, 7% black. Compare that to US-wide statistics: 75% white, 19% hispanic, 14% black, 6% asian (its multiple choice). 65% of Stanford's admissions did not come from California, so this is a more fair comparison than just California's population. What someone with a title in that department would say is: well, we've made progress, but there's clearly still more work to do. Internally; they're likely just as frustrated as anyone; because they'd know better than anyone that the system is wholly rigged against their ability to make equity a priority. The system, in any organization, optimizes only for one thing: Revenue. Any change which could hurt revenue (in Stanford's case: maybe reducing international admissions) will never be given serious consideration. That's the critical piece: when a Fox News rightwinger says they want to defund the federal government, or a leftwinger says they want to defund the police: Absolutely, they're overreacting with respect to the scope of their specific issue with the system they're criticizing. But our systems have become too big within which to create meaningful change and these systems' reward functions are so perverted to any generally optically good goal that what little people can influence them is always implemented through the lens of that reward function (in nearly every case, the reward function is revenue, but there are cases like the Police where the reward function is more-so something like "keeping officers safe"; ultimately this is the same reward function though, its "keeping the system's insiders happy"). Its worth being abundantly clear about this: these giga-systems like Stanford or the Federal Government are another symptom of the low interest rate environment. Its always macroeconomics. Every good and bad thing that has ever happened has macroeconomic causes. If we end up entering a decade+ period of more expensive money, you'll slowly start wondering if your statement that "the school should staff someone dedicated to inclusion and community" makes sense. The fact that they are capable of hiring people to review the guest lists of parties is a problem of excess; not a symptom of the system approaching an ideal state. Universities are a tremendously interesting case study on what impacts cheap money has had on our macroeconomic system; because there's literally nowhere else with cheaper money. Students bundle up on loans, which they can't default on, and thus there's zero acceptance criteria for loan eligibility. What isn't paid for in loans comes from donations and investment returns, during the largest bull market in the history of economics. All of this will come crashing down in the next five years, and Universities which let themselves balloon up to solve problems that few of their customers (students) actually care about will have a substantially harder time adjusting than one which, say, never hired twenty people to review the guest lists of parties in the first place.
- cs702 4y ago
  Thank you. Over the past four decades, the rise in the cost of post-secondary education has outpaced everything else: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_tuition_in_the_United_States#Growth_of_college_tuition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_tuition_in_the_United_... The cost attending a comparable elite university in other countries is often multiple times lower. For example, tuition at Cambridge University for British citizens is ~$9K/year: https://www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/sites/www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/files/publications/undergraduate_tuition_fees_2023-24.pdf https://www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/sites/www.undergra... The only people I personally know who think bureaucratic bloat isn't a big problem at elite universities in the US are themselves members of that bureaucracy. All the college professors I personally know think bureaucratic bloat is a problem. All the college students I personally know (mostly relatives) also think bureaucratic bloat is a problem.
- naasking 4y ago
  > Even granting that the post is likely to ineffective and silly (something I'd agree with, FWIW) lots of people at the school value things like inclusion, community and "integrative learning" and want to see the school prioritize it in its staffing decisions. Because the costs are hidden. Ask them if they'd continue to fund that bureaucracy if they knew that cutting it would cut their tuition in half. I think you'll see a very different result. > The idea of tuition being "out of hand" is mostly just a meme. You're in a bubble. US tuition is the most expensive in the world.
- amluto 4y ago
  > lots of people at the school value things like inclusion, community and "integrative learning" Probably true. Although you might find considerable disagreement as to what, exactly, “community” means. > and want to see the school prioritize it in its staffing decisions. Prioritize how? If you mean that hiring for unrelated positions should be require DEI statements, I think you’ll find this is an unpopular view. If you mean that one should choose one’s hires inclusively such that one preferentially hires people of specific races, ethnicities, etc, then you may find that this is unpopular, or illegal, or dubiously legal, or maybe even unproductive for the purpose of improving the degree to which one’s staff is a representative sample of the population. If you mean that a university should hire such that the student community feels like a community, then I bet many people agree but may feel that the universities are not actually succeeding.
verdenti 4y ago
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by cs702 4y ago

ajross 4y ago

> but when I read that one of those 16K administrators has the title of [...] That's the same logic you see on Fox Business when guests demand that we defund the entire federal government because something they don't agree with got funded. Whether or not you personally see value isn't really the issue here. You get that, right? Even granting that the post is likely to ineffective and silly (something I'd agree with, FWIW) lots of people at the school value things like inclusion, community and "integrative learning" and want to see the school prioritize it in its staffing decisions. Also post-secondary tuition has been beating general inflation, but lagging many other areas. This link says it's been growing at 4.63% for the last decade, which is less than most real estate markets. The idea of tuition being "out of hand" is mostly just a meme.

rayiner 4y ago
Defending something you concededly can’t defend on the merits with the assertion that nobody should agree with Fox News about anything is a bad tic that won’t work out for you in the long run. It makes it trivially easy to bait mainstream liberals into seeming to embrace wacky ideas. It’s like shooting fish in a barrel.
- jacquesm 4y ago
  > It’s like shooting fish in a barrel. That may be true, but why would you do that here?
015a 4y ago
Look past that person's specific title more at the general problem; the systemic bureaucracy. That's the problem the Fox News rightwingers have with the Federal Government; they may not be sophisticated enough to voice it like that, but its the root of the problem. Its the biggest problem in modern universities, simultaneously causing them to be more expensive, allow for less formative experiences, and reducing the quality of education. Why are new cars so expensive? Someone has to pay for the system which produced it, and the system wants to be bigger. There is literally no genuine reason why any of this has to exist at the scale it does. Standford's 16,000 administrative staff are not solving problem core to what a University does; they are solving problems they invented, or they're simply not actually solving problems at all, but will nonetheless defend their paychecks with their life. Diversity & Inclusion is a totally reasonable thing to want. What impact have they had? In 2021, Stanford's admissions statics were: 28% white, 25% asian, 18% hispanic, 7% black. Compare that to US-wide statistics: 75% white, 19% hispanic, 14% black, 6% asian (its multiple choice). 65% of Stanford's admissions did not come from California, so this is a more fair comparison than just California's population. What someone with a title in that department would say is: well, we've made progress, but there's clearly still more work to do. Internally; they're likely just as frustrated as anyone; because they'd know better than anyone that the system is wholly rigged against their ability to make equity a priority. The system, in any organization, optimizes only for one thing: Revenue. Any change which could hurt revenue (in Stanford's case: maybe reducing international admissions) will never be given serious consideration. That's the critical piece: when a Fox News rightwinger says they want to defund the federal government, or a leftwinger says they want to defund the police: Absolutely, they're overreacting with respect to the scope of their specific issue with the system they're criticizing. But our systems have become too big within which to create meaningful change and these systems' reward functions are so perverted to any generally optically good goal that what little people can influence them is always implemented through the lens of that reward function (in nearly every case, the reward function is revenue, but there are cases like the Police where the reward function is more-so something like "keeping officers safe"; ultimately this is the same reward function though, its "keeping the system's insiders happy"). Its worth being abundantly clear about this: these giga-systems like Stanford or the Federal Government are another symptom of the low interest rate environment. Its always macroeconomics. Every good and bad thing that has ever happened has macroeconomic causes. If we end up entering a decade+ period of more expensive money, you'll slowly start wondering if your statement that "the school should staff someone dedicated to inclusion and community" makes sense. The fact that they are capable of hiring people to review the guest lists of parties is a problem of excess; not a symptom of the system approaching an ideal state. Universities are a tremendously interesting case study on what impacts cheap money has had on our macroeconomic system; because there's literally nowhere else with cheaper money. Students bundle up on loans, which they can't default on, and thus there's zero acceptance criteria for loan eligibility. What isn't paid for in loans comes from donations and investment returns, during the largest bull market in the history of economics. All of this will come crashing down in the next five years, and Universities which let themselves balloon up to solve problems that few of their customers (students) actually care about will have a substantially harder time adjusting than one which, say, never hired twenty people to review the guest lists of parties in the first place.
cs702 4y ago
Thank you. Over the past four decades, the rise in the cost of post-secondary education has outpaced everything else: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_tuition_in_the_United_States#Growth_of_college_tuition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_tuition_in_the_United_... The cost attending a comparable elite university in other countries is often multiple times lower. For example, tuition at Cambridge University for British citizens is ~$9K/year: https://www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/sites/www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/files/publications/undergraduate_tuition_fees_2023-24.pdf https://www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/sites/www.undergra... The only people I personally know who think bureaucratic bloat isn't a big problem at elite universities in the US are themselves members of that bureaucracy. All the college professors I personally know think bureaucratic bloat is a problem. All the college students I personally know (mostly relatives) also think bureaucratic bloat is a problem.
naasking 4y ago
> Even granting that the post is likely to ineffective and silly (something I'd agree with, FWIW) lots of people at the school value things like inclusion, community and "integrative learning" and want to see the school prioritize it in its staffing decisions. Because the costs are hidden. Ask them if they'd continue to fund that bureaucracy if they knew that cutting it would cut their tuition in half. I think you'll see a very different result. > The idea of tuition being "out of hand" is mostly just a meme. You're in a bubble. US tuition is the most expensive in the world.
amluto 4y ago
> lots of people at the school value things like inclusion, community and "integrative learning" Probably true. Although you might find considerable disagreement as to what, exactly, “community” means. > and want to see the school prioritize it in its staffing decisions. Prioritize how? If you mean that hiring for unrelated positions should be require DEI statements, I think you’ll find this is an unpopular view. If you mean that one should choose one’s hires inclusively such that one preferentially hires people of specific races, ethnicities, etc, then you may find that this is unpopular, or illegal, or dubiously legal, or maybe even unproductive for the purpose of improving the degree to which one’s staff is a representative sample of the population. If you mean that a university should hire such that the student community feels like a community, then I bet many people agree but may feel that the universities are not actually succeeding.

verdenti 4y ago

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