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‘Conversely, if everyone's education were free, then there wouldn’t be a good way to determine a) which specific programs ought to have different prices because

‘Conversely, if everyone's education were free, then there wouldn’t be a good way to determine a) which specific programs ought to have different prices because of the supply and demand for that kind of credential, b) whether particular people might be better-served by spending their time in different ways, or c) when we're allocating too much of society's resources to education, in the aggregate.’ a) If the education is free, there's no need to determine _prices_ for different programs, is there? There is a need to decide how many places to offer in each programme, but this is an easier problem. b) Particular people may decide for themselves without a prohibitive cost factor, thank you very much. c) When has this ever been a problem? If we want to allocate close to zero to begin with, it is another problem. In other words, free education for all is basically alright. It is hard to attract the best educational talent in this setting because salaries are usually capped and one can always make more in the private sector, but a combination of job security and high prestige is usually enough to have decent staff.

einpoklum 3y ago
> It is hard to attract the best educational talent in this setting because salaries are usually capped and one can always make more in the private sector, but a combination of job security and high prestige is usually enough to have decent staff. "Non-capped" salaries usually mean low median salary and very high salary for a few people with 'star' status for whom strings get pulled. And - that status, even in academia, is rarely due to stellar intellectual achievements. Rather, all sorts of fashionable business-related gurus expect to rake in large amounts of cash. A unionized academic faculty in universities, and a not-corrupt-and-bought union, allow for decent faculty salary. Add the benefit of relative autonomy in choosing one's research directions, and a tenure track that one actually has a chance of getting into, and it's an extremely attractive proposition.
jampekka 3y ago
> It is hard to attract the best educational talent in this setting because salaries are usually capped and one can always make more in the private sector, but a combination of job security and high prestige is usually enough to have decent staff. If you're talking about universities here, the job security is really bad. Until you get tenured that is, but most people doing teaching at universities will never get one. Also most university staff is there foremost to do research, but with some teaching strings attached. I'd say most people in academia aren't in it for the money, and there are a lot easier/safer ways to get money if that's what you want. A part of it may be prestige, but more important are interest in the work and quite a bit of freedom to do what you want and how. And belonging into a community in deeper way than "just doing my job".
nonrandomstring 3y ago
> combination of job security and high prestige I literally spat out my coffee reading that. Have you even been near a university in the past decade? They are filled with miserable, neurotic, anxious, demoralised husks of people who once thought they could make a difference in the world. "Academics" are broken people in a broken system, labouring under zero-hour contracts, callous, toxic management and clueless deans and chancellors who are at least two generations out of step with reality. The university system has effectively destroyed higher education. There is nothing of value left there, least of all security or prestige.
- macleginn 3y ago
  I have worked at about 6, in 4 different countries. Yes, most employees have a bad deal, but there is always a core of permanent teaching stuff who do have a pretty good deal (cf. https://www.amazon.com/Good-Work-You-Can-Get/dp/1421437961 https://www.amazon.com/Good-Work-You-Can-Get/dp/1421437961). It is a tragedy that the system produces much more people who really want to be in the system than what it can reasonably employ at the moment, but as for retaining enough good teachers to give a decent education to students, it works both in countries where education is expensive (US, UK) and where it is essentially free (Germany, Israel).
  - nonrandomstring 3y ago
    Well if we're comparing experience, I've worked at about 30 universities in dozens of countries over 30 years and I see no evidence whatsoever that at present it "works" or that permanent staff are any happier or secure than anyone else. The thing we can agree on is that it's a "tragedy". Maybe 20 years ago it wasn't like this. But let's quit living in a P. G. Wodehouse mythology.
    - michaelt 3y ago
      Academia seems like a very variable experience, depending on your ambitions and so on. If you want to bring in funding, have phd students, and publish a lot of papers it’s a lot of work, and in a lot of fields PhDs are massively overproduced, and you’ll suffer through endless postdocs. On the other hand, this is one of the only places you can get paid to do pure maths, and you can choose what you work on, and you get called professor, and you can’t be fired, and you’re surrounded by 19 year old girls? Good luck finding those employment conditions anywhere else!

einpoklum 3y ago

> It is hard to attract the best educational talent in this setting because salaries are usually capped and one can always make more in the private sector, but a combination of job security and high prestige is usually enough to have decent staff. "Non-capped" salaries usually mean low median salary and very high salary for a few people with 'star' status for whom strings get pulled. And - that status, even in academia, is rarely due to stellar intellectual achievements. Rather, all sorts of fashionable business-related gurus expect to rake in large amounts of cash. A unionized academic faculty in universities, and a not-corrupt-and-bought union, allow for decent faculty salary. Add the benefit of relative autonomy in choosing one's research directions, and a tenure track that one actually has a chance of getting into, and it's an extremely attractive proposition.

jampekka 3y ago

> It is hard to attract the best educational talent in this setting because salaries are usually capped and one can always make more in the private sector, but a combination of job security and high prestige is usually enough to have decent staff. If you're talking about universities here, the job security is really bad. Until you get tenured that is, but most people doing teaching at universities will never get one. Also most university staff is there foremost to do research, but with some teaching strings attached. I'd say most people in academia aren't in it for the money, and there are a lot easier/safer ways to get money if that's what you want. A part of it may be prestige, but more important are interest in the work and quite a bit of freedom to do what you want and how. And belonging into a community in deeper way than "just doing my job".

nonrandomstring 3y ago

> combination of job security and high prestige I literally spat out my coffee reading that. Have you even been near a university in the past decade? They are filled with miserable, neurotic, anxious, demoralised husks of people who once thought they could make a difference in the world. "Academics" are broken people in a broken system, labouring under zero-hour contracts, callous, toxic management and clueless deans and chancellors who are at least two generations out of step with reality. The university system has effectively destroyed higher education. There is nothing of value left there, least of all security or prestige.

macleginn 3y ago
I have worked at about 6, in 4 different countries. Yes, most employees have a bad deal, but there is always a core of permanent teaching stuff who do have a pretty good deal (cf. https://www.amazon.com/Good-Work-You-Can-Get/dp/1421437961 https://www.amazon.com/Good-Work-You-Can-Get/dp/1421437961). It is a tragedy that the system produces much more people who really want to be in the system than what it can reasonably employ at the moment, but as for retaining enough good teachers to give a decent education to students, it works both in countries where education is expensive (US, UK) and where it is essentially free (Germany, Israel).
- nonrandomstring 3y ago
  Well if we're comparing experience, I've worked at about 30 universities in dozens of countries over 30 years and I see no evidence whatsoever that at present it "works" or that permanent staff are any happier or secure than anyone else. The thing we can agree on is that it's a "tragedy". Maybe 20 years ago it wasn't like this. But let's quit living in a P. G. Wodehouse mythology.
  - michaelt 3y ago
    Academia seems like a very variable experience, depending on your ambitions and so on. If you want to bring in funding, have phd students, and publish a lot of papers it’s a lot of work, and in a lot of fields PhDs are massively overproduced, and you’ll suffer through endless postdocs. On the other hand, this is one of the only places you can get paid to do pure maths, and you can choose what you work on, and you get called professor, and you can’t be fired, and you’re surrounded by 19 year old girls? Good luck finding those employment conditions anywhere else!