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Considering the number of near-poverty retail workers trying to pay off college debt, I think it's a good idea for the government to focus more on improving the

Considering the number of near-poverty retail workers trying to pay off college debt, I think it's a good idea for the government to focus more on improving the quality of teaching, even if that comes at the cost of diminished research output. As it stands, the system saddles undergrads with tons of debt and not much to show for it, with socially disastrous results. If a university wants to focus on research and doesn't care about undergrad teaching quality, let them drop the pretense of offering undergrad education at all.

yamtaddle 3y ago
I'm not sure increasing the quality of teaching will do much for outcomes. A little, probably, but likely not much. AFAIK the vast majority of jobs that expect applicants to have a degree, or favor those who do, don't do it because they need their workers to have a good college education. I think if we increased the quality of education, say, 20% (let's just assume there's some useful measure of quality here, and that expressing it in percentages makes sense) across the entire country, it'd have only a small effect on employment for grads, all else being equal (i.e. those changes don't also reduce the number of grads per year) From what I can tell, most people attending US colleges and universities are mainly paying a fee to participate in a scheme that keeps the unemployment rate down by warehousing capable workers in dorms, keeping them out of the "seeking work" category, and those students-but-potentially-workers are doing so because (they believe that) participating in that program gives them advantage in the employment market, some years later... but not exactly to learn anything, which is a secondary concern at best, for a majority of those attending. I'm dunno how much of it was intended to work that way, but it seems like the main actual thing the whole system is doing now, whatever anyone's intentions were or are. Only semi-reasonable way I can think of to break the cycle would be to decrease the unemployment rate and keep it low for a long time, which ought to get employers to start "out-bidding" the alternative of "go to college, delay career" for recent high school grads, and to stop worrying so much about whether applicants have a degree. In fact, now that I lay it all out like that, I'm pretty sure one of the core problems with higher ed is that labor is too weak, which has led to some really weird outcomes as far as how higher ed is treated. [EDIT] Put another way, that seems perhaps less at-odds with itself than the above contention that increased university attendance acts to keep unemployment rates down, while I also think decreasing the unemployment rate might be a way to reduce university attendance—so many people are going to college, because companies aren't desperate enough for workers to offer many "mere" high school grads real money—they can afford to hold out for college grads, even if they don't really need them.
threeseed 3y ago
US government should focus on making higher education more affordable. In Australia for example college debt is managed through the taxation system allowing people to invest in the careers in the early days and then pay off their debt when their taxable income reaches a high enough threshold.
- stametseater 3y ago
  America has affordable higher education; state schools and community colleges are generally very affordable. The problem is when naive highschool students get lured into taking on huge amounts of debt by expensive private schools that have no intention of teaching undergrads well, but nevertheless assert that pretense to lure in more suckers.
  - giantg2 3y ago
    And when they want to live away from home. The living arrangements are getting more expensive. My college tore down their old, low cost dorms. They replaced them with suites that cost twice as much.
- Alupis 3y ago
  There's an awful lot of students that held no job during college, and instead relied 100% on student loans to buy Taco Bell, pay rent, and put gas in the car. The huge numbers you see tossed around almost always include living expenses. "$120k for a state school!" sort of thing. The failure in reporting is those living expenses would have been incurred regardless if the person attended university or not. As a society, I think we need to encourage people to work at least part time, if not full time during university - and take a slower path toward their degree. The result will be more experienced, mature graduates that have had time to evaluate their future.
  - giantg2 3y ago
    While I agree that the high numbers are often because people are ill informed or even irresponsible about the loan, I don't think dragging out schooling is the best answer either, especially if you have higher earning power once you get a degree. Also keep in mind the current system incentives - aid is inversely correlated with income and balances are forgiven in some cases. Why work harder if it means getting a worse deal? If one really wants it for "free" then there's always the military route.
Alupis 3y ago
You found the symptom, but prescribed the wrong treatment. > Considering the number of near-poverty retail workers trying to pay off college debt > As it stands, the system saddles undergrads with tons of debt and not much to show for it, with socially disastrous results. If you have a degree, and are working retail, and are near-poverty, then you screwed up somewhere. Your degree is objectively useless if this is the only prospects available after graduation - so why did you get that degree? Why didn't you continue into postgrad or change degree paths? Perhaps we should stop offering student loans for useless degrees. Still offer them, but no loans allowed. That would go a long ways towards solving the diagnosed problem. We've spent decades telling everyone they must get a degree to live a successful life - then we puppy-mill them into garbage/completely-useless degree programs, and are surprised when they go back to the same job they held in highschool. Now, we're going to forgive all those poor choices, because we think we did everyone wrong, but we're going to change not one thing to prevent it from happening again. Brilliant.
- petsfed 3y ago
  I worked retail for 2 years after completing a master's in condensed matter and transistor physics. It just happened to be during a time (~2014) when that degree alone was insufficient in getting me a job, even an entry-level one. I think barring student loans is part of the strategy. Also, focusing on financial literacy prior to high school graduation. If we must have student loans, then colleges need to publish data about graduation rates, job placement rates, etc for a given program, and let lenders determine if loans for that program are a good idea. The whole situation is maddening because there are so many loud voices blaming the literal children who signed for the loans in the first place but (as you say) nobody making any meaningful change to prevent it happening again. I really wish I could go back in time to slap 18-year-old me before I signed on for student loans, but by the time I understood what I was in for, my options were "take on more loans to pay to finish school and get a high-paying job, or take on jobs that will never pay well enough to pay off this debt". The sunk-cost fallacy is supposed to be a fallacy but perversely, as it pertains to student loans, its the inventive to keep going.
  - Alupis 3y ago

yamtaddle 3y ago

I'm not sure increasing the quality of teaching will do much for outcomes. A little, probably, but likely not much. AFAIK the vast majority of jobs that expect applicants to have a degree, or favor those who do, don't do it because they need their workers to have a good college education. I think if we increased the quality of education, say, 20% (let's just assume there's some useful measure of quality here, and that expressing it in percentages makes sense) across the entire country, it'd have only a small effect on employment for grads, all else being equal (i.e. those changes don't also reduce the number of grads per year) From what I can tell, most people attending US colleges and universities are mainly paying a fee to participate in a scheme that keeps the unemployment rate down by warehousing capable workers in dorms, keeping them out of the "seeking work" category, and those students-but-potentially-workers are doing so because (they believe that) participating in that program gives them advantage in the employment market, some years later... but not exactly to learn anything, which is a secondary concern at best, for a majority of those attending. I'm dunno how much of it was intended to work that way, but it seems like the main actual thing the whole system is doing now, whatever anyone's intentions were or are. Only semi-reasonable way I can think of to break the cycle would be to decrease the unemployment rate and keep it low for a long time, which ought to get employers to start "out-bidding" the alternative of "go to college, delay career" for recent high school grads, and to stop worrying so much about whether applicants have a degree. In fact, now that I lay it all out like that, I'm pretty sure one of the core problems with higher ed is that labor is too weak, which has led to some really weird outcomes as far as how higher ed is treated. [EDIT] Put another way, that seems perhaps less at-odds with itself than the above contention that increased university attendance acts to keep unemployment rates down, while I also think decreasing the unemployment rate might be a way to reduce university attendance—so many people are going to college, because companies aren't desperate enough for workers to offer many "mere" high school grads real money—they can afford to hold out for college grads, even if they don't really need them.

threeseed 3y ago

US government should focus on making higher education more affordable. In Australia for example college debt is managed through the taxation system allowing people to invest in the careers in the early days and then pay off their debt when their taxable income reaches a high enough threshold.

stametseater 3y ago
America has affordable higher education; state schools and community colleges are generally very affordable. The problem is when naive highschool students get lured into taking on huge amounts of debt by expensive private schools that have no intention of teaching undergrads well, but nevertheless assert that pretense to lure in more suckers.
- giantg2 3y ago
  And when they want to live away from home. The living arrangements are getting more expensive. My college tore down their old, low cost dorms. They replaced them with suites that cost twice as much.
Alupis 3y ago
There's an awful lot of students that held no job during college, and instead relied 100% on student loans to buy Taco Bell, pay rent, and put gas in the car. The huge numbers you see tossed around almost always include living expenses. "$120k for a state school!" sort of thing. The failure in reporting is those living expenses would have been incurred regardless if the person attended university or not. As a society, I think we need to encourage people to work at least part time, if not full time during university - and take a slower path toward their degree. The result will be more experienced, mature graduates that have had time to evaluate their future.
- giantg2 3y ago
  While I agree that the high numbers are often because people are ill informed or even irresponsible about the loan, I don't think dragging out schooling is the best answer either, especially if you have higher earning power once you get a degree. Also keep in mind the current system incentives - aid is inversely correlated with income and balances are forgiven in some cases. Why work harder if it means getting a worse deal? If one really wants it for "free" then there's always the military route.

Alupis 3y ago

You found the symptom, but prescribed the wrong treatment. > Considering the number of near-poverty retail workers trying to pay off college debt > As it stands, the system saddles undergrads with tons of debt and not much to show for it, with socially disastrous results. If you have a degree, and are working retail, and are near-poverty, then you screwed up somewhere. Your degree is objectively useless if this is the only prospects available after graduation - so why did you get that degree? Why didn't you continue into postgrad or change degree paths? Perhaps we should stop offering student loans for useless degrees. Still offer them, but no loans allowed. That would go a long ways towards solving the diagnosed problem. We've spent decades telling everyone they must get a degree to live a successful life - then we puppy-mill them into garbage/completely-useless degree programs, and are surprised when they go back to the same job they held in highschool. Now, we're going to forgive all those poor choices, because we think we did everyone wrong, but we're going to change not one thing to prevent it from happening again. Brilliant.

petsfed 3y ago
I worked retail for 2 years after completing a master's in condensed matter and transistor physics. It just happened to be during a time (~2014) when that degree alone was insufficient in getting me a job, even an entry-level one. I think barring student loans is part of the strategy. Also, focusing on financial literacy prior to high school graduation. If we must have student loans, then colleges need to publish data about graduation rates, job placement rates, etc for a given program, and let lenders determine if loans for that program are a good idea. The whole situation is maddening because there are so many loud voices blaming the literal children who signed for the loans in the first place but (as you say) nobody making any meaningful change to prevent it happening again. I really wish I could go back in time to slap 18-year-old me before I signed on for student loans, but by the time I understood what I was in for, my options were "take on more loans to pay to finish school and get a high-paying job, or take on jobs that will never pay well enough to pay off this debt". The sunk-cost fallacy is supposed to be a fallacy but perversely, as it pertains to student loans, its the inventive to keep going.
- Alupis 3y ago