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Indeed. Since the colleges control most of the cards here (via accreditation bodies and what not; students are replaceable, loan companies are replaceable, col

by khuey 14y ago

Indeed. Since the colleges control most of the cards here (via accreditation bodies and what not; students are replaceable, loan companies are replaceable, colleges are not) if left unchecked you would expect them to capture all of the value generated through college attendance.

intended 14y ago
This assumes a thoroughly mercenary/market oriented focus of colleges, and ignores altruistic or societal motives of many if not most colleges/universities/educators and professors.
- davorb 14y ago
  I don't think that it's a good idea to build a system on the premise that people have to act nice. It's much better to incentivize them to do so.
  - dalke 14y ago
    True. It's better to build a system which assumes that most people will act nice, knows that incentives can cause them to act worse, and has a fallback mechanism to handle those which don't act nice.
- michaelt 14y ago
  Lots of educators and professors are great, but they have no say in tuition policies. Every college and university presents itself as altruistic and socially motivated in its publicity material - but if you judge colleges and universities by their actions instead of their words, which is to say in terms of inflation-adjusted tuition costs, they seem pretty mercenary/market oriented to me. According to [1] the same public college 4 year education rose in cost by more than 300% between 1988 and 2008, while median family income rose by only 90%, and the cost of a new car by just 20%. I don't blame them for this in a market-driven system - a free market actor maximizing its share of the economic surplus is like a dog humping your leg, it's just being a dog. But I don't think it's wise to deny that it's happening. [1] http://www.deltacostproject.org/resources/pdf/Trends-in-College-Spending-98-08.pdf http://www.deltacostproject.org/resources/pdf/Trends-in-Coll...

by khuey 14y ago

intended 14y ago

This assumes a thoroughly mercenary/market oriented focus of colleges, and ignores altruistic or societal motives of many if not most colleges/universities/educators and professors.

davorb 14y ago
I don't think that it's a good idea to build a system on the premise that people have to act nice. It's much better to incentivize them to do so.
- dalke 14y ago
  True. It's better to build a system which assumes that most people will act nice, knows that incentives can cause them to act worse, and has a fallback mechanism to handle those which don't act nice.
michaelt 14y ago
Lots of educators and professors are great, but they have no say in tuition policies. Every college and university presents itself as altruistic and socially motivated in its publicity material - but if you judge colleges and universities by their actions instead of their words, which is to say in terms of inflation-adjusted tuition costs, they seem pretty mercenary/market oriented to me. According to [1] the same public college 4 year education rose in cost by more than 300% between 1988 and 2008, while median family income rose by only 90%, and the cost of a new car by just 20%. I don't blame them for this in a market-driven system - a free market actor maximizing its share of the economic surplus is like a dog humping your leg, it's just being a dog. But I don't think it's wise to deny that it's happening. [1] http://www.deltacostproject.org/resources/pdf/Trends-in-College-Spending-98-08.pdf http://www.deltacostproject.org/resources/pdf/Trends-in-Coll...