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The biggest problem is the fundamental inability of two higher education camps: "education should be free" and "education should be market priced" to agree on a

by ptero 2y ago

The biggest problem is the fundamental inability of two higher education camps: "education should be free" and "education should be market priced" to agree on anything. It would be better to have a mix: free education slots for students who pass (tough-ish) entrance exams and slots that university can add at market price for students who do not meet the bar. If there are more market price applications than slots schools can select any way they want except on price (i.e., all market rate slots should be priced the same). My 2c.

hikingsimulator 2y ago
The main issue with this approach is that it doesn't help people who struggle financially or come from disfavorable backgrounds -- whom federal student loans aimed to help. Some sets of circumstances don't favor score maximization on such tests, whereas being in a high income family favors prior access to education that help get those scores for instance. Ergo you'd not solve a better access to education that way. Similarly, means testing for those slots also has negatives incentives. It's a hard issue to solve.
- gedy 2y ago
  Offering loans to those who struggle financially is a problem. Offer them scholarships if they have potential, not loans for everyone.
- whimsicalism 2y ago
  Test scores are one of the primary vehicles for social mobility in modern America. There are other reasons for correlations between affluence and test scores beyond just environmental unfairness.
- ethbr1 2y ago
  Federal student loans themselves have always expressed the tension in parent poster's dichotomy. On the one hand, we could fund college for only those who need the help. On the other hand, that would be a political shitstorm because people with means wouldn't receive as much (or potentially even any) benefit. So the system now has lots of loopholes and sliding scales, so that everyone gets some benefit and supports it. Replace states with families, and it's the NASA approach to political support. Personally, I think the removal of objective testing is dumb. It may be income/background correlated, but it is objective. You can address the disparities by providing benefit to those who come from disadvantaged backgrounds. More critically, you want a system that doesn't allocate money to 'dumb/lazy but also from an advantaged background'.
joe_the_user 2y ago
The biggest problem is the fundamental inability of two higher education camps: "education should be free" and "education should be market priced" to agree on anything. What does that mean? The two camps disagree fundamentally - so "the problem is they don't agree"? Why should they be expected to agree something? Perhaps they could agree that "Paris is the Capital France" (see Kids In The Hall's Brain Candy).
giantg2 2y ago
"It would be better to have a mix: free education slots for students who pass (tough-ish) entrance exams and slots that university can add at market price for students who do not meet the bar." We already have this on a small scale and in niches. Scholarships are essentially giving free or reduced cost slots to performance graded people. Then we have other free (or later forgiven) slots based on service, such as GI bill and teach for America, etc. There are all sorts of ways to get free/reduced/forgiven tuition if it's important enough to someone. The bigger problem is the marketing and credentialing. Companies want credentials, schools want students, and so it's sold from multiple angles as the necessary thing to do for a good job. We end up with people getting junk degrees to work gate-kept jobs for low wages. Or they can't even get a job in their field. Clearly the market is broken, but free tuition isn't going to fix the problems either.
- jack_h 2y ago
  I don't think the market is broken, I do think it has been heavily distorted by government intervention though. I think you are correct that credentialism is a problem here. For those who suggest free tuition for everyone (government funded), I would ask how that would solve this particular problem. It seems like it would worsen this problem and probably lead to an even larger shortage of people going in the trades.
  - giantg2 2y ago
    I would consider distortion at this magnitude to be broken. It's pretty much stuck in a vicious cycle of number of degrees increasing from accessibility, businesses increasing demand for credentials because there are more of them, demand for easy loans increasing, etc. It would take a monumental shift to fix this from multiple areas of society.
- ptero 2y ago
  The problem with scholarships is that the criteria is not clear and selection is (at least seen as being) at a whim of whoever is in charge at the moment. Merit slots, given via clear exams, give everyone a good idea of whether they are likely to get in or not, for example by doing practice tests and looking at passing scores from previous years.

by ptero 2y ago

hikingsimulator 2y ago

The main issue with this approach is that it doesn't help people who struggle financially or come from disfavorable backgrounds -- whom federal student loans aimed to help. Some sets of circumstances don't favor score maximization on such tests, whereas being in a high income family favors prior access to education that help get those scores for instance. Ergo you'd not solve a better access to education that way. Similarly, means testing for those slots also has negatives incentives. It's a hard issue to solve.

gedy 2y ago
Offering loans to those who struggle financially is a problem. Offer them scholarships if they have potential, not loans for everyone.
whimsicalism 2y ago
Test scores are one of the primary vehicles for social mobility in modern America. There are other reasons for correlations between affluence and test scores beyond just environmental unfairness.
ethbr1 2y ago
Federal student loans themselves have always expressed the tension in parent poster's dichotomy. On the one hand, we could fund college for only those who need the help. On the other hand, that would be a political shitstorm because people with means wouldn't receive as much (or potentially even any) benefit. So the system now has lots of loopholes and sliding scales, so that everyone gets some benefit and supports it. Replace states with families, and it's the NASA approach to political support. Personally, I think the removal of objective testing is dumb. It may be income/background correlated, but it is objective. You can address the disparities by providing benefit to those who come from disadvantaged backgrounds. More critically, you want a system that doesn't allocate money to 'dumb/lazy but also from an advantaged background'.

joe_the_user 2y ago

The biggest problem is the fundamental inability of two higher education camps: "education should be free" and "education should be market priced" to agree on anything. What does that mean? The two camps disagree fundamentally - so "the problem is they don't agree"? Why should they be expected to agree something? Perhaps they could agree that "Paris is the Capital France" (see Kids In The Hall's Brain Candy).

giantg2 2y ago

"It would be better to have a mix: free education slots for students who pass (tough-ish) entrance exams and slots that university can add at market price for students who do not meet the bar." We already have this on a small scale and in niches. Scholarships are essentially giving free or reduced cost slots to performance graded people. Then we have other free (or later forgiven) slots based on service, such as GI bill and teach for America, etc. There are all sorts of ways to get free/reduced/forgiven tuition if it's important enough to someone. The bigger problem is the marketing and credentialing. Companies want credentials, schools want students, and so it's sold from multiple angles as the necessary thing to do for a good job. We end up with people getting junk degrees to work gate-kept jobs for low wages. Or they can't even get a job in their field. Clearly the market is broken, but free tuition isn't going to fix the problems either.

jack_h 2y ago
I don't think the market is broken, I do think it has been heavily distorted by government intervention though. I think you are correct that credentialism is a problem here. For those who suggest free tuition for everyone (government funded), I would ask how that would solve this particular problem. It seems like it would worsen this problem and probably lead to an even larger shortage of people going in the trades.
- giantg2 2y ago
  I would consider distortion at this magnitude to be broken. It's pretty much stuck in a vicious cycle of number of degrees increasing from accessibility, businesses increasing demand for credentials because there are more of them, demand for easy loans increasing, etc. It would take a monumental shift to fix this from multiple areas of society.
ptero 2y ago
The problem with scholarships is that the criteria is not clear and selection is (at least seen as being) at a whim of whoever is in charge at the moment. Merit slots, given via clear exams, give everyone a good idea of whether they are likely to get in or not, for example by doing practice tests and looking at passing scores from previous years.