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This has been discussed before in many other sources. The cause of the bubble is probably the way tuition and financial aid are used by many colleges. Perhaps

This has been discussed before in many other sources. The cause of the bubble is probably the way tuition and financial aid are used by many colleges. Perhaps the most in-depth analysis was by The Atlantic. http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200511/financial-aid-leveraging http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200511/financial-aid-leveragi... If this hypothesis is correct, then it has interesting implications for how a pop in the education bubble might play out. Since a fair portion of college budgets are propped up by moms and pops taking Mortgage Equity Withdrawals to finance their kid's education (who may or may not actually be deserving to go the college of their choice, but probably not) then we can expect (1) the tuition portion of institutions' income to drop precipitously and (2) that there will be fewer sort-of-rich-kids going to elite schools. This doesn't seem all bad in my opinion. Maybe academia should return to humbler roots. Do the top schools really need Olympic sized swimming pools, or gyms that would require a $100 a month membership in any big city?

timwiseman 17y ago
I think part of the point of the article in the Chronicle is that the top schools will be fine and do not need cut back. While this only applies to the very top schools, they will still have people willing to pay the tuition and endowments large enough to cover any student they want to admit that cannot cover the tuition themselves. It is the small and mid grade schools that may need to carefully look at their models. Personally, I think a bigger question is what will it do to families trying to help their children climb into a higher income bracket if there is a major shake up in the higher education market?
- adamc 17y ago
  I think the real solution is to stop overvaluing university degrees. Most of the folks coming out of universities don't have any particularly valuable job skills. (I'm thinking of majors in business, or liberal-arts fields, or for that matter most people with a BA/BS in the sciences.) Will that happen? Not unless getting university grads gets hard.
  - potatolicious 17y ago
    There needs to be a real separation between vocational schools and comprehensive universities. I get the feeling that as a society we have a thing against vocational training - even though some of the most celebrated jobs really belong there instead of at a traditional college (e.g. engineering, accounting, etc). The problem here is that people are going to university expecting this to lead nicely into a job - it does not, particularly for the liberal arts where the path is even more vague. People expect the fact that they have a degree to mean something to employers, when it in fact does not. This whole thing would be a lot simpler if we didn't have such a grudge against vocational schools - who by and large do not seem to have trouble placing their graduates into jobs.
    - netsp 17y ago
      I don't think we do really. Just against the name and against the professions that use vocational schools intensively. The medicine path is very similar to the electrician path. Medical school is vocational school. We have nothing against those.
    - timwiseman 17y ago
      I think you have a very good point. Personally, I got a traditional degree and am working on my Master's, but there are people in my family that learned things like welding instead and they are doing quite well for themselves. Similarly, a fully certified mechanic is in an excellent position. Some people need traditional degrees, but we as a society do need to value significant trades more highly.
  - joe_the_user 17y ago
    Actually, I think that just the opposite should happen. The goal of higher should not be crude "job skills". The value of higher education includes a wide view of the world and broad participation in intellectual life. This goal should be furthered by private foundations and government. More things should be "priceless".
noonespecial 17y ago
I think it will pop much differently. There will be enough PhD waiters and Home Depot employees that people will start to question if college was worth it. The recession also seems to be triggering a wave of self employment. That will reduce the need for the all important degree on the resume. Attendance will just evaporate as people ask "do I need college?" Not in the smug 90's startup way, but in the cold, calculated "great recession" way.
anamax 17y ago
> Do the top schools really need Olympic sized swimming pools, or gyms that would require a $100 a month membership in any big city? I'd guess that students are less likely to use their college gym than members are to use their gym. If I'm correct, the per-student cost of a college gym may be in the noise.
- hs 17y ago
  if this continues, 'college dropout' will be replaced by 'high school graduate' -- simply because s/he takes high ed as cost-saving bootstrap strategy
netsp 17y ago
I'm still hoping for some sort of disruption that will change the game. The line of thinking is along these lines: The core of what elite colleges (or any colleges) is not really valuable. A university course is mostly a syllabus, a textbook, lectures, tutorials, papers & exams. All are based on knowledge that is freely available. You do not need a Professor who spends most of his time on research that doesn't benefit you teaching you. It wouldn't even be hard to offer the core of what Universities offer at a much lower cost. What is hard to offer is the vast periphery. The clubs & socialisation. The Gyms. The contact with researchers & other talented and/or rich young people. The social norms & leeway associated with Undergraduate life (this might be more important then we think). The prestige. The prospects created by the contacts, the prestige, the social conditioning & whatever else goes in to making a University education other then education. A potential catalyst could be the growing Internationalisation of Uni education.
- potatolicious 17y ago
  I just finished my undergrad degree a month ago, and I think I have some insight into this. By far the most valuable thing I take away from university is not the classes, but rather the experience. As a student you get a lot of leeway to screw up and learn - even interning at large, private corporations. This has helped me in my life (and my career) more immensely than anything else I've ever learned at school (most of which I doubt I will apply in a job, ever). Secondly, the networking opportunities that you have at a university is ridiculously useful. Short of going to war together I doubt there are many forces that bind people together as tightly as the college experience. I have made many friends, many of whom are incredibly talented and will no doubt go far in life - it's a network that you can't replicate, say, studying online. Thirdly is the name - prestigious schools, whether justifiably or not, do for some reason make you more employable in a lot of places. I know many a hacker from "lesser" colleges who can't find a job in this economy, while I had multiple offers before my final semester even started.
  - netsp 17y ago
    I suspect that the strongest thing holding all those aspects together is convention. I think the institution is very entrenched in the US. maybe the place for innovation is outside. In Israel (where I am from), a lot of people do go to war together. So they're sorted for friends. Actually, most don't physically fight, but they still make friends. There is an additional (recent) institution of backpacking/travelling that tackles some of this friends/experiences/growth/leeway territory. University entrance tends to be 20-25 yr olds. So, the whole dynamic is very different. A lot of no frills courses are offered. Cost effectiveness is a big factor ,though naturally the level of Government intervention messes with this and doesn't allow private colleges to compete with research Unis on equal footing. Another place change might come from are the places in the world now entering the growing middle income per capita range (not sure what that is exactly. But I think around 2-$10k pa) where people care about education, can afford some of it, but can't afford $100k or even 10k. They also are first generation entrants & don't have too formulated an idea of what schools should be. Basically, what I am saying is that if you took Universities away and then let something else grow in their place, it probably wouldn't be universities.

timwiseman 17y ago

I think part of the point of the article in the Chronicle is that the top schools will be fine and do not need cut back. While this only applies to the very top schools, they will still have people willing to pay the tuition and endowments large enough to cover any student they want to admit that cannot cover the tuition themselves. It is the small and mid grade schools that may need to carefully look at their models. Personally, I think a bigger question is what will it do to families trying to help their children climb into a higher income bracket if there is a major shake up in the higher education market?

adamc 17y ago
I think the real solution is to stop overvaluing university degrees. Most of the folks coming out of universities don't have any particularly valuable job skills. (I'm thinking of majors in business, or liberal-arts fields, or for that matter most people with a BA/BS in the sciences.) Will that happen? Not unless getting university grads gets hard.
- potatolicious 17y ago
  There needs to be a real separation between vocational schools and comprehensive universities. I get the feeling that as a society we have a thing against vocational training - even though some of the most celebrated jobs really belong there instead of at a traditional college (e.g. engineering, accounting, etc). The problem here is that people are going to university expecting this to lead nicely into a job - it does not, particularly for the liberal arts where the path is even more vague. People expect the fact that they have a degree to mean something to employers, when it in fact does not. This whole thing would be a lot simpler if we didn't have such a grudge against vocational schools - who by and large do not seem to have trouble placing their graduates into jobs.
  - netsp 17y ago
    I don't think we do really. Just against the name and against the professions that use vocational schools intensively. The medicine path is very similar to the electrician path. Medical school is vocational school. We have nothing against those.
  - timwiseman 17y ago
    I think you have a very good point. Personally, I got a traditional degree and am working on my Master's, but there are people in my family that learned things like welding instead and they are doing quite well for themselves. Similarly, a fully certified mechanic is in an excellent position. Some people need traditional degrees, but we as a society do need to value significant trades more highly.
- joe_the_user 17y ago
  Actually, I think that just the opposite should happen. The goal of higher should not be crude "job skills". The value of higher education includes a wide view of the world and broad participation in intellectual life. This goal should be furthered by private foundations and government. More things should be "priceless".

noonespecial 17y ago

I think it will pop much differently. There will be enough PhD waiters and Home Depot employees that people will start to question if college was worth it. The recession also seems to be triggering a wave of self employment. That will reduce the need for the all important degree on the resume. Attendance will just evaporate as people ask "do I need college?" Not in the smug 90's startup way, but in the cold, calculated "great recession" way.

anamax 17y ago

> Do the top schools really need Olympic sized swimming pools, or gyms that would require a $100 a month membership in any big city? I'd guess that students are less likely to use their college gym than members are to use their gym. If I'm correct, the per-student cost of a college gym may be in the noise.

hs 17y ago
if this continues, 'college dropout' will be replaced by 'high school graduate' -- simply because s/he takes high ed as cost-saving bootstrap strategy

netsp 17y ago

I'm still hoping for some sort of disruption that will change the game. The line of thinking is along these lines: The core of what elite colleges (or any colleges) is not really valuable. A university course is mostly a syllabus, a textbook, lectures, tutorials, papers & exams. All are based on knowledge that is freely available. You do not need a Professor who spends most of his time on research that doesn't benefit you teaching you. It wouldn't even be hard to offer the core of what Universities offer at a much lower cost. What is hard to offer is the vast periphery. The clubs & socialisation. The Gyms. The contact with researchers & other talented and/or rich young people. The social norms & leeway associated with Undergraduate life (this might be more important then we think). The prestige. The prospects created by the contacts, the prestige, the social conditioning & whatever else goes in to making a University education other then education. A potential catalyst could be the growing Internationalisation of Uni education.

potatolicious 17y ago
I just finished my undergrad degree a month ago, and I think I have some insight into this. By far the most valuable thing I take away from university is not the classes, but rather the experience. As a student you get a lot of leeway to screw up and learn - even interning at large, private corporations. This has helped me in my life (and my career) more immensely than anything else I've ever learned at school (most of which I doubt I will apply in a job, ever). Secondly, the networking opportunities that you have at a university is ridiculously useful. Short of going to war together I doubt there are many forces that bind people together as tightly as the college experience. I have made many friends, many of whom are incredibly talented and will no doubt go far in life - it's a network that you can't replicate, say, studying online. Thirdly is the name - prestigious schools, whether justifiably or not, do for some reason make you more employable in a lot of places. I know many a hacker from "lesser" colleges who can't find a job in this economy, while I had multiple offers before my final semester even started.
- netsp 17y ago
  I suspect that the strongest thing holding all those aspects together is convention. I think the institution is very entrenched in the US. maybe the place for innovation is outside. In Israel (where I am from), a lot of people do go to war together. So they're sorted for friends. Actually, most don't physically fight, but they still make friends. There is an additional (recent) institution of backpacking/travelling that tackles some of this friends/experiences/growth/leeway territory. University entrance tends to be 20-25 yr olds. So, the whole dynamic is very different. A lot of no frills courses are offered. Cost effectiveness is a big factor ,though naturally the level of Government intervention messes with this and doesn't allow private colleges to compete with research Unis on equal footing. Another place change might come from are the places in the world now entering the growing middle income per capita range (not sure what that is exactly. But I think around 2-$10k pa) where people care about education, can afford some of it, but can't afford $100k or even 10k. They also are first generation entrants & don't have too formulated an idea of what schools should be. Basically, what I am saying is that if you took Universities away and then let something else grow in their place, it probably wouldn't be universities.