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I think the federal government just needs to have a 'fitness standard' for schools to be eligible to receive federal loan dollars. Like, >80% of tuition dollars
by abeppu 3y ago
I think the federal government just needs to have a 'fitness standard' for schools to be eligible to receive federal loan dollars. Like, >80% of tuition dollars must be spent on instruction staff, instruction-specific facilities that serve students, students must be able to opt-out of substantial non-instruction services (e.g. dorms, recreational facilities), etc. If you want to build a new building that doesn't have classrooms, you need to find some other source of funding than students.
I know people hate this, but I also think it would be reasonable if you weren't eligible to receive federal student loans until you had filed your own taxes without being anyone's dependent, or been out of high school for 2 years, or _something_. What if we still agreed that federal programs can help make college accessible and affordable -- but we should want students to have some perspective on what they want their life to look like, and what it will mean to pay off a giant pile of debt over years, and what kind of education might give them a chance at balancing those concerns.
- tyoma 3y agoRe: fitness standard. The federal government already has the bureaucracy for this in say the DCAA (https://www.dcaa.mil/ https://www.dcaa.mil/). I would very much like any universities accepting student loans to be audited and publish audited financial statements detailing where the money goes.
- Manuel_D 3y agoIn theory, that's what accreditation is supposed to represent: a set of standards to ensure students are educated to a certain minimum bar for a given major. However, the cynical reality is that university is as much about signalling competence relative to the rest of the population as it is about learning. Fun fact: Stanford's computer science program is not accredited. The department explained that it's a mountain of paperwork to get accredited and it wouldn't benefit Stanford at all because it's already so prestigious.
- aoki 3y agoBy ABET. The institution as a whole is accredited. The question is whether accreditation from an engineering org is worth the limits they place on your curriculum. Stanford EE and CS and Cal EECS all say no, they’d rather give their grads more flexibility than have them jump through ABET hoops.
- fallingknife 3y agoThis will just be gamed. The universities need to take on some of the financial risk of loan default. No other system will work.