4 ms·

Isn't the issue that liberal arts educations have not changed in the past 40 years, but the cost has gone from $10K to $100-200K?. So, there is an order of magn

by 001sky 14y ago

Isn't the issue that liberal arts educations have not changed in the past 40 years, but the cost has gone from $10K to $100-200K?. So, there is an order of magnituded cost and some minor Nx delta on the Return (~inflation). English/logic/philosophy/history etc should be plumeting in cost. With the internet, the cost of books/articles should have gone to zero by now. Non-profit universities could force sharing of peer-reviewed work online for the priviledge of the peer review publication (for example). A degree of this type is not worth more or less (especially as a social rank signifier) today than yesterday. And they are valuable. But they sure as hell cost way more than they should. Its time to question why they are priced as if they were luxury, brand name handbags. Rather than public goods being distributed by non-profit, tax exempt organizations.

jacques_chester 14y ago
Capital gets cheaper, labour gets more expensive. This has been the general trend in education since the invention of the printing press.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- 001sky 14y ago
  Relevant data: _________ Princeton: Endowment US$ 17.1 billion (2011) Harvard: Endowment US$ 32.0 billion (2011) Yale: Endowment US$ 19.4 billion (2011) Stanford: Endowment US$ 16.5 billion (2011) ___________ Facebook: IPO US$ 10.0 billion (2012) _________ Its not the payout to the staff. That its typically 1/3 of the budget spent at a University. Princeton just raised $1.8B for its latest fundraising project. etc.
  - jacques_chester 14y ago
    I'm not sure if generalising from a handful of massively-endowed private universities to all universities everywhere is a meaningful thing. It used to be that books were so rare and expensive that they were chained to desks. A single copy would be read aloud to students -- the very word "lecturer" means "reader". These days, for a liberal arts education heavy in classics and great books, the cost of the materials is close to nought. That's what I meant by the capital.
    - 001sky 14y ago
      The attack need not be general. Quick specific examples are even stonger. The degree from Uni X N years ago is not worth less than Uni X today. Their values are ordinal not cardinal, although arguably decreasing in relative value in any event on a more absolute scale.
patio11 14y ago
English/logic/philosophy/history etc should be plumeting in cost. If one assume that an English degree's purpose is to teach the comprehension and production of English vis-a-vis a body of literature, and assuming that degree is priced cost-plus, one would assume the price of degrees to come down modestly over time due to efficiency gains. Consider the alternative hypotheses where a) an English degree is primarily a signaling mechanism to demonstrate that you are in the upper N% of some distribution measured by the university admissions office, b) the LTV of being in the upper N% is widely perceived to be high, c) credit is available in quantity, and d) universities price degrees at 100% of their customers ability to pay. If these hypotheses all hold, you would expect the price of degrees to inflate to capture all familial ability to pay plus all aid plus all available loans plus a bit of a fudge factor for blood plasma, summer jobs, and gifts from grandma. Which world more closely resembles the world we are living in? P.S. I believe your use of the term "public good" is non-standard in this paragraph. Do you mean that, as an aspirational statement, we should subsidize the consumption of English degrees, or that perhaps "English degrees have positive externalities"? The more common use of "public good" in economics is "a good which, when produced, is enjoyed non-rivalrously by the public, such that one's enjoyment of the good does not content with another's enjoyment of the good." For example, national defense (well, precisely, the state of nation-not-under-attack) is a public good. University educations are not a public good under the standard usage of that term: buying you a degree does not buy me a degree.
- 001sky 14y ago
  This is a fair point. I'm using the term probably in all of the ways you mention, plus another. Partly thats rhetorical, and partly analytical. Huge portions of reserach are paid for by the US government. The logic is to finance knowledge as an economic public good (ie, can't patent science, ideas, flow freely etc). That is the positive externality. And we fund it like we fund NASA and Defense, a communal public works. Or like roads, etc. The idea is that all should be able to drive on the information superhighway...etc (i know, this is stretching slightly optimistic, traffic etc;). But this is not what we are getting out of the system as a society. & You raise some interesting points on what that front...But it just points to the answer: Universities are acting as hierarchies (ie, like firms) with monopolistic pricing power under assumptions of profit maximization (viz, rent seeking). You have to ask your self: self: why are these 20-30Bn investment hedge funds being not only tx exempted by the government, but having their operations/cost based subsidezed (viz, grants) and having their revenues subsidized (viz subsidized loans, grants) etc? These institutions are highjacking huge flows of money that are supposed to be charitable contributions. The are leveraging the prestige of the projects financed to create a massive rent-seeking opportunities for themselves, not to further the free flow of information. This rent seeking is counterthetical to their stated mission and the public policy principles that underly their tax-exmpt and socially privledged status. The degree as entrenched credential is now a giant "hold-up-problem", with universities as the opportunists. And With kids as the hostages. They should just hand out Birkin Bags at graduation. In the latest colors. To he!! with the sheepskin. =D http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birkin_bag http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birkin_bag [edits]

by 001sky 14y ago

jacques_chester 14y ago

Capital gets cheaper, labour gets more expensive. This has been the general trend in education since the invention of the printing press.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
001sky 14y ago
Relevant data: _________ Princeton: Endowment US$ 17.1 billion (2011) Harvard: Endowment US$ 32.0 billion (2011) Yale: Endowment US$ 19.4 billion (2011) Stanford: Endowment US$ 16.5 billion (2011) ___________ Facebook: IPO US$ 10.0 billion (2012) _________ Its not the payout to the staff. That its typically 1/3 of the budget spent at a University. Princeton just raised $1.8B for its latest fundraising project. etc.
- jacques_chester 14y ago
  I'm not sure if generalising from a handful of massively-endowed private universities to all universities everywhere is a meaningful thing. It used to be that books were so rare and expensive that they were chained to desks. A single copy would be read aloud to students -- the very word "lecturer" means "reader". These days, for a liberal arts education heavy in classics and great books, the cost of the materials is close to nought. That's what I meant by the capital.
  - 001sky 14y ago
    The attack need not be general. Quick specific examples are even stonger. The degree from Uni X N years ago is not worth less than Uni X today. Their values are ordinal not cardinal, although arguably decreasing in relative value in any event on a more absolute scale.

patio11 14y ago

English/logic/philosophy/history etc should be plumeting in cost. If one assume that an English degree's purpose is to teach the comprehension and production of English vis-a-vis a body of literature, and assuming that degree is priced cost-plus, one would assume the price of degrees to come down modestly over time due to efficiency gains. Consider the alternative hypotheses where a) an English degree is primarily a signaling mechanism to demonstrate that you are in the upper N% of some distribution measured by the university admissions office, b) the LTV of being in the upper N% is widely perceived to be high, c) credit is available in quantity, and d) universities price degrees at 100% of their customers ability to pay. If these hypotheses all hold, you would expect the price of degrees to inflate to capture all familial ability to pay plus all aid plus all available loans plus a bit of a fudge factor for blood plasma, summer jobs, and gifts from grandma. Which world more closely resembles the world we are living in? P.S. I believe your use of the term "public good" is non-standard in this paragraph. Do you mean that, as an aspirational statement, we should subsidize the consumption of English degrees, or that perhaps "English degrees have positive externalities"? The more common use of "public good" in economics is "a good which, when produced, is enjoyed non-rivalrously by the public, such that one's enjoyment of the good does not content with another's enjoyment of the good." For example, national defense (well, precisely, the state of nation-not-under-attack) is a public good. University educations are not a public good under the standard usage of that term: buying you a degree does not buy me a degree.

001sky 14y ago
This is a fair point. I'm using the term probably in all of the ways you mention, plus another. Partly thats rhetorical, and partly analytical. Huge portions of reserach are paid for by the US government. The logic is to finance knowledge as an economic public good (ie, can't patent science, ideas, flow freely etc). That is the positive externality. And we fund it like we fund NASA and Defense, a communal public works. Or like roads, etc. The idea is that all should be able to drive on the information superhighway...etc (i know, this is stretching slightly optimistic, traffic etc;). But this is not what we are getting out of the system as a society. & You raise some interesting points on what that front...But it just points to the answer: Universities are acting as hierarchies (ie, like firms) with monopolistic pricing power under assumptions of profit maximization (viz, rent seeking). You have to ask your self: self: why are these 20-30Bn investment hedge funds being not only tx exempted by the government, but having their operations/cost based subsidezed (viz, grants) and having their revenues subsidized (viz subsidized loans, grants) etc? These institutions are highjacking huge flows of money that are supposed to be charitable contributions. The are leveraging the prestige of the projects financed to create a massive rent-seeking opportunities for themselves, not to further the free flow of information. This rent seeking is counterthetical to their stated mission and the public policy principles that underly their tax-exmpt and socially privledged status. The degree as entrenched credential is now a giant "hold-up-problem", with universities as the opportunists. And With kids as the hostages. They should just hand out Birkin Bags at graduation. In the latest colors. To he!! with the sheepskin. =D http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birkin_bag http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birkin_bag [edits]