9 ms·

The college-for-all model isn't working

68 points by austenallred 13y ago

mathattack 13y ago
It does seem like the drop out rate (and debt associated with non-degrees) is high enough that the current model isn't working. My concern is that replacing it with less education hurts more. The Vocational Education trend seems like it's on the right track. It would also be good to copy the German apprenticeship model.
buckbova 13y ago
" More Americans attend college today than ever before: this year, 42% of young people 18 to 24 years old." This is why education costs so much nowadays and the product is so poor. Everyone has the right to pursue learning. But, these folks aren't owed anything because they've sat through enough classes to earn a BA.
- fleitz 13y ago
  I don't understand how putting more students through college increases the cost per student, in normal industries more business generally means reduced costs.
  - scotch_drinker 13y ago
    High demand almost always means higher prices unless the supply is increased proportionally. That's different from what I think you are saying which is as a product is easier to produce, it's price goes down.
ctdonath 13y ago
"Supply and demand" at work.
- interstitial 13y ago
  Subsidy and demand, you mean.
  - ctdonath 13y ago
    As the upper limits of cost are reached, people will explore every avenue for obtaining funds for paying for what they demand, including borrowing from their own future (mortgage), pooling money for odds-based distribution (insurance), and confiscating money from others just this side of being theft (tax-funded subsidies). When you run out of other people's money, you find something else suitable to spend the limited funds on.
    - interstitial 13y ago
      Well, said. Have you written any more on this subject?
smurph 13y ago
A lot of kids are attending college because it's a status symbol for their parents, and I think it's been that way since the 90s. I remember being in high school and hearing about my friends getting in big fights with their parents because they did not want to go to college, which of course was unacceptable in white upper middle class suburbia.
ebbv 13y ago
What college for all model? What we have is not college for all, not even close. We have capitalistic college education; where it costs as much as the market will bear, and the ability of the market is distorted by massive student loans which kids are told they have to get as it is an investment into their future. College for all would be if college was free to every high school graduate, and costs were kept down by universities being run like places of learning and not capitalistic enterprises focused on football tickets and massive stadiums.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- nsxwolf 13y ago
  We have crony capitalistic college education, where easy access to government loans causes prices to skyrocket.
- enraged_camel 13y ago
  I think by "college for all" they mean a model where everyone needs a college degree to have a chance in the job market. I didn't read it as "everyone goes to college" but rather "everyone must go to college."
- fleitz 13y ago
  College education is about as capitalist as China is socialist.
- bkmartin 13y ago
  I agree with you in principle, but please choose another target other than football tickets and massive stadiums. Most massive stadiums are filled with paying customers whose money is then used to fund all the other athletics programs that don't charge money because too few people would actually pay to watch them.
Jormundir 13y ago
College-for-all is fine, and probably an inevitable pursuit. What's not working is the college administrative model.
- buckbova 13y ago
  Do you expect junior colleges to deny admission? You pay the fees and get degrees. They should not be giving out these student loans so easily.
- Iftheshoefits 13y ago
  College-for-all accomplishes two things: commoditization and (failed) attempts at one-size-fits-all education. Simply put, not everybody is equipped to handle an academic education (in fact, a small minority truly are). At the same time, the vast majority of work being done today in the US in almost any field (including the majority of software development) really ought not be considered "academic" work--it's essentially vocational already. One doesn't need--and shouldn't be required to have--a college degree to be employable in a web app shop or for most development (or other) roles. The following may be an unpopular sentiment, but I truly believe that the focus on "college-for-all" just frustrates people who are talented in ways that are not academically inclined and, frankly, consumes resources unfairly for those who are. All parties are worse off for it. What we need is less focus on conflating "academic education" with "education", and the result of that is less focus on "college-for-all."
pflats 13y ago
"Meanwhile, companies in a range of sectors — manufacturing, construction, healthcare and other STEM fields — report severe skilled labor shortages." Construction and manufacturing have severe labor shortages? I'd love to see a source for that claim. In my neck of the woods, they still haven't recovered from the recession.
- crygin 13y ago
  They have skilled labor shortages at the prices they're willing to pay. Every time you hear an employer claim they can't find someone for a position, inquire about the salary they're offering.
  - enraged_camel 13y ago
    This type of bullshit seems to be widely believed on HN. I work in the engineering department of a software company and I'm closely involved with recruitment and interviews. I'll tell you this: the vast majority of people (over 95%) we turn down are unqualified, period. Meaning, we wouldn't hire them even at half the salary level advertised for the position. It has nothing whatsoever to do with what we're willing to pay - our salaries are actually very generous and we aren't afraid to pay someone what they are actually worth. The problem is we can't actually find people like that. So yes, from our perspective (250+ person tech company in SoCal), the talent shortage is very, very real.
    - aantix 13y ago
      So why not train them yourselves? Why do they have to be the complete package upfront? You get the liberty of guiding their education in a way that most benefits your company and they get to extend their skillsets. Sounds like a win-win.
      - enraged_camel 13y ago
        >>So why not train them yourselves? Why do they have to be the complete package upfront? I didn't say they have to be the complete package upfront. We actually do have comprehensive training programs for new hires, most of which were designed by me. The problem is that people need a certain mix of base level skills and character traits to succeed and excel. Most people we interview don't have those, which means they are unqualified.
geosith 13y ago
The boomers made it a big deal, I do web development with my BA and wish every day I had all that money back. I even tried to major in CS but couldn't follow my classes because the school had brought in Russian grad students who couldn't understand questions that were asked in class.
salient 13y ago
Perhaps, but what's definitely not working is the guaranteed loans from governments, which gives universities access to virtually unlimited funds. If the government wouldn't give loans for college, US tuitions would probably be 10x less, just like they are even in the most expensive universities in Europe or elsewhere.
- codegeek 13y ago
  Exactly. If only I could upvote you a million times.
- Trezoid 13y ago
  I strongly disagree. In the Australian system everyone gets a higher education loan from the government(with interest locked to the inflation rate and repayment only required if and when taxable income passes a certain threshold), and yet our tuition rates are much lower than in the US. For example, I just finished a Bachelors degree in a STEM field at a relatively middle of the road university and my total education debt comes out just short of $30k.
patja 13y ago
A discussion on an EconTalk podcast about trends in college education resonated with me. They discussed college as being an extended adolescence for many students: today many students treat it as an expensive way to find one's way in the world and learn about oneself whereas going back 20 or 30 years it was more about improving your employment prospects. They cited as evidence the doubling of psychology undergraduate degrees (nice for learning about oneself, but lacking a corresponding increase in jobs available) granted over a period where STEM degrees remained flat. A similar doubling in performing and visual arts degrees was another trend they contrasted to STEM degree popularity stagnation. The podcast is at http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2011/12/tabarrok_on_inn.html http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2011/12/tabarrok_on_inn.htm...
ignostic 13y ago
It's a joke among engineers that you need to graduate from college so that you can start learning. My college experience (non-technical bachelors) was just a joke, period - high school 2.0. Still, I wouldn't have the good job I do now if I hadn't completed my degree. We keep running into this problem where employers think college degrees are more valuable than they probably are. Part of that is impressed culturally, but more than anything we lack better methods of certification in most jobs. We need certification that matters, is widely accepted, and that employers actually trust. It has to be marketed well, and it has to actually produce graduates with up-to-date skills. It's not easy, especially in fields where curriculum must change yearly. Underlying all of this is a larger, unavoidable change taking place: the disappearance of unskilled work. Computers and machines are slowly taking over every unskilled job, starting at the least skilled and moving upwards to things we used to think of as skilled labor. Taxi drivers and factory workers will hardly exist in 10 years. Construction workers will only supervise machines in our lifetimes. Unless you want to work in a low-paying retail job for the rest of your life, you need to get a degree so you can work your way up some corporate ladder - or so the thinking goes.
- wil421 13y ago
  > It's a joke among engineers that you need to graduate from college so that you can start learning. My college experience (non-technical bachelors) was just a joke, period - high school 2.0. Still, I wouldn't have the good job I do now if I hadn't completed my degree. Yes and yes I wasted the first two years in college learning High School 2.0 and the last 2 learning technical concepts that people used 5-10 years ago. XHTML, CGI and using tables for layouts to name a few.
- aantix 13y ago
  I'm not sure why companies ever got away from the idea that they could avoid training employees? In Silicon Valley you see the same pool of startups competing for the same pool of Rails/Backbone.js developers all because they'd rather perceive to get a complete package up front. The apprenticeship model should be re-embraced.
  - fleitz 13y ago
vondur 13y ago
This has been a problem here in California for a while now. Schools push kids into a college track, even though they are not going to be successful. This has caused the state universities and community colleges to take in larger amounts of students which stretches budgets and also has caused the graduation rates to decline. Many of these students would be better served by a vocational school, but it seems that there has been a stigma placed on students who don't want to go to a university.
mrxd 13y ago
It's hard for me to take this article seriously with so many falsehoods. Shortage of STEM workers? Debunked: http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/education/the-stem-crisis-is-a-myth http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/education/the-stem-crisis-i... College costs out of control? Only because states are cutting subsidies for higher education and forcing students to pay more. That said, towards the end there are some good points. It could be argued that there's a public interest in promoting higher education because its necessary for a functional democracy. But if the public abandons this goal and higher education is only for job preparation, then why should the state be involved at all? In that case, state tuition subsidies are really corporate welfare. Although on-the-job training and apprenticeships are more effective for many jobs, that would mean employers have to shoulder the cost rather than the state.
- Legion 13y ago
  > College costs out of control? Only because states are cutting subsidies for higher education and forcing students to pay more. "Oh it's true, but because of this stupid reason" != "falsehood".
  - mrxd 13y ago
    Cost is not the same as price.
- roc 13y ago
  Tuition couldn't skyrocket if students had no means to pay it. The enabler in this situation, is the disconnect between the availability of financing and the product being financed. You can't get a $60,000 loan for a $20,000 car, but you can absolutely rack up that much (or more) in college debt, for an education indistinguishable from one at a third of the cost. With that kind of distortion in the market, why would anyone be surprised at rising tuition?
  - mrxd 13y ago
    If your explanation were true, we should expect tuition to immediately shift to students when federal loans and grants became available in 1965. But in fact, the data shows that state tuition subsidies for public 4-year colleges have declined slowly, except in the years following recessions when states cut their budgets. These years show much more dramatic declines. This is consistent with my hypothesis that state budget cuts are the primary driver of tuition increases. It's possible that your point still holds, that the availability of federal loans made it easier for states to cut tuition subsidies. But that's a change in the politics of the issue, not a market distortion. Without federal aid, politicians would be more vulnerable to the charge that they're making college less accessible. Federal loans have obviously not created a tuition bubble, for the simple reason that the cost of a public 4-year education (the price charged to states + students) is essentially unchanged over the last 25 years. The story may be different for for-profit colleges. If you want to argue that there's a market distortion there, essentially that for-profit colleges are gouging students and the government, I could easily be persuaded. But since only 10% of students are enrolled in these schools, they're unlikely to be the main source of increasing student debt.
jellicle 13y ago
For those who aren't aware, this is an op-ed (meaning the newspaper doesn't stand behind any of the facts claimed) from a right-wing Koch brothers organization. Several commenters have already noted that the fundamental "fact" here, that certain vocations are experiencing major shortages (the "skills mismatch" claim) is completely false, which it is. The Great Recession stretches across all job fields and locations in the United States and beyond. Nutshell: this op-ed is from someone who hates broad-based education and wants to bring in a sort of reverse work-training system: you pay them for the privilege of working at various companies, and we call it modern vocational education.
- nsxwolf 13y ago
  Great that you noticed it's an op-ed by the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, but, is the college for all model working?
  - nickthemagicman 13y ago
    The other option is college for the rich. So it's working better than the alternative.
    - conjecTech 13y ago
      How is that the only other option? How about college for those that will increase their economic productivity beyond the added cost?
      - chongli 13y ago
        Or how about an acknowledgement that it's becoming harder and harder for people to compete against machines?
    - pc86 13y ago
      What about college for those who want a career that demands a degree (realistically, not according to HR)? The discussion here should be about under what circumstances college is meaningful and appropriate, not whether author's world view. If the article is wrong, dispute it with sources.
nsxwolf 13y ago
We're not saving for our kids' college. The oldest is 16 years away, and we believe that college will either be totally unaffordable, or the bubble will have burst and won't exist in its current form. We are focusing on our retirement instead, because we believe it's far better to take care of that and not become a burden on your kids just when they're trying to take care of their own families and retirements.
- danudey 13y ago
  It's also far more valuable to teach your kids to save for their own college. A few years of odd jobs, paper delivery, whatever will make them appreciate that money isn't infinite. My parents didn't (and couldn't) afford to pay for my college, and thanks to that I knew that every year I stayed would be another ten grand in debt I would have to pay off. That led to me leaving university after a pointless year and going into the workforce. As I suspected, it was the best education-related decision I'd made. That said, be careful. Student loans offices generally make the assumption that parents will contribute towards their kids' education; if the current status quo does remain at that point (and I hope it doesn't) they may find themselves unable to afford college because they'll be told that you'll be paying for half of it.
  - sliverstorm 13y ago
    I don't know that a paper delivery route will have a meaningful impact on college tuition.
    - chongli 13y ago
      Yeah, unless they plan on delivering papers for about a century or two.
austinl 13y ago
Grants for vocational programs are nice and all, but the damage has already been done. The huge expectation in the United States for every student to attend college - that has to be overcome for these things to be successful.
jheriko 13y ago
Slightly disappointed to not see the obvious arguments. As a university drop out I may be biased but I do believe that 'education for all' is a horribly misguided premise which persists because of the practicality of cheap childcare it provides (!) I believe that vocational education is pretty flawed too... I fail to see the value in qualification X if everyone can get it. All qualifications seem to be an exercise in desire and discipline... and this is why it doesn't work. IMO. It works fine for serious and competitive fields like medicine and dentistry, but for the vast majority of fields out there a degree isn't worth much at all. I can, and maybe have, written your dissertation from your textbook with no lectures... and I will do just fine. Smart guys will drop out and succeed because of the same reasons they drop out, not in spite of it... just a shame so many drop outs are probably dropping out because education is not for them - or possibly university or vocational education is not right for their entire field.
kyzyl 13y ago
I see a lot of folks here talking about college education in economic terms. So, sure, the evidence is certainly mounting that we've mucked something up: tuition is stupidly high, graduation rates are low, people are dogging their way through college 'just because' et cetra. But nobody (around here, anyhow) seems to be speaking on higher education in terms of intrinsic value. I'm talking about the way going to a university integrates you with a ton of strange, weird, different people. How there is a tremendous amount of information and culture that is absorbed, either by directly learning it or simply by osmosis. The 'by osmosis' thing might be a bit of an assertion, but I think that most people who've been to university can probably relate to the concept. In my opinion that adds a lot of value to a society. I know these are not original ideas, and it wouldn't be nice to live in a highly educated society where absolutely nobody has work, but I wouldn't immediately discount the value that is added by sending the masses through university. As explained by numerous people here, this strategy is clearly broken as a method of certification and job training. Does that mean that we should do a 180 and reserve anything beyond vocational training for the Marxes, Shakespeares, and Feynmans? I think not. I'm not suggesting that people here are promoting that idea, just illustrating that moving in that direction might destroy a lot of value that's not as plainly seen as one's student loan balance (something I can certainly relate to...) or the national unemployment rate. Maybe I'm just being young and naive.
ddd1600 13y ago
Libertarian thinktank computer says yes?

68 points by austenallred 13y ago

It does seem like the drop out rate (and debt associated with non-degrees) is high enough that the current model isn't working. My concern is that replacing it with less education hurts more. The Vocational Education trend seems like it's on the right track. It would also be good to copy the German apprenticeship model.

buckbova 13y ago

" More Americans attend college today than ever before: this year, 42% of young people 18 to 24 years old." This is why education costs so much nowadays and the product is so poor. Everyone has the right to pursue learning. But, these folks aren't owed anything because they've sat through enough classes to earn a BA.

fleitz 13y ago
I don't understand how putting more students through college increases the cost per student, in normal industries more business generally means reduced costs.
- scotch_drinker 13y ago
  High demand almost always means higher prices unless the supply is increased proportionally. That's different from what I think you are saying which is as a product is easier to produce, it's price goes down.

ctdonath 13y ago

"Supply and demand" at work.

interstitial 13y ago
Subsidy and demand, you mean.
- ctdonath 13y ago
  As the upper limits of cost are reached, people will explore every avenue for obtaining funds for paying for what they demand, including borrowing from their own future (mortgage), pooling money for odds-based distribution (insurance), and confiscating money from others just this side of being theft (tax-funded subsidies). When you run out of other people's money, you find something else suitable to spend the limited funds on.
  - interstitial 13y ago
    Well, said. Have you written any more on this subject?

smurph 13y ago

A lot of kids are attending college because it's a status symbol for their parents, and I think it's been that way since the 90s. I remember being in high school and hearing about my friends getting in big fights with their parents because they did not want to go to college, which of course was unacceptable in white upper middle class suburbia.

ebbv 13y ago

What college for all model? What we have is not college for all, not even close. We have capitalistic college education; where it costs as much as the market will bear, and the ability of the market is distorted by massive student loans which kids are told they have to get as it is an investment into their future. College for all would be if college was free to every high school graduate, and costs were kept down by universities being run like places of learning and not capitalistic enterprises focused on football tickets and massive stadiums.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
nsxwolf 13y ago
We have crony capitalistic college education, where easy access to government loans causes prices to skyrocket.
enraged_camel 13y ago
I think by "college for all" they mean a model where everyone needs a college degree to have a chance in the job market. I didn't read it as "everyone goes to college" but rather "everyone must go to college."
fleitz 13y ago
College education is about as capitalist as China is socialist.
bkmartin 13y ago
I agree with you in principle, but please choose another target other than football tickets and massive stadiums. Most massive stadiums are filled with paying customers whose money is then used to fund all the other athletics programs that don't charge money because too few people would actually pay to watch them.

Jormundir 13y ago

College-for-all is fine, and probably an inevitable pursuit. What's not working is the college administrative model.

buckbova 13y ago
Do you expect junior colleges to deny admission? You pay the fees and get degrees. They should not be giving out these student loans so easily.
Iftheshoefits 13y ago
College-for-all accomplishes two things: commoditization and (failed) attempts at one-size-fits-all education. Simply put, not everybody is equipped to handle an academic education (in fact, a small minority truly are). At the same time, the vast majority of work being done today in the US in almost any field (including the majority of software development) really ought not be considered "academic" work--it's essentially vocational already. One doesn't need--and shouldn't be required to have--a college degree to be employable in a web app shop or for most development (or other) roles. The following may be an unpopular sentiment, but I truly believe that the focus on "college-for-all" just frustrates people who are talented in ways that are not academically inclined and, frankly, consumes resources unfairly for those who are. All parties are worse off for it. What we need is less focus on conflating "academic education" with "education", and the result of that is less focus on "college-for-all."

pflats 13y ago

"Meanwhile, companies in a range of sectors — manufacturing, construction, healthcare and other STEM fields — report severe skilled labor shortages." Construction and manufacturing have severe labor shortages? I'd love to see a source for that claim. In my neck of the woods, they still haven't recovered from the recession.

crygin 13y ago
They have skilled labor shortages at the prices they're willing to pay. Every time you hear an employer claim they can't find someone for a position, inquire about the salary they're offering.
- enraged_camel 13y ago
  This type of bullshit seems to be widely believed on HN. I work in the engineering department of a software company and I'm closely involved with recruitment and interviews. I'll tell you this: the vast majority of people (over 95%) we turn down are unqualified, period. Meaning, we wouldn't hire them even at half the salary level advertised for the position. It has nothing whatsoever to do with what we're willing to pay - our salaries are actually very generous and we aren't afraid to pay someone what they are actually worth. The problem is we can't actually find people like that. So yes, from our perspective (250+ person tech company in SoCal), the talent shortage is very, very real.
  - aantix 13y ago
    So why not train them yourselves? Why do they have to be the complete package upfront? You get the liberty of guiding their education in a way that most benefits your company and they get to extend their skillsets. Sounds like a win-win.
    - enraged_camel 13y ago
      >>So why not train them yourselves? Why do they have to be the complete package upfront? I didn't say they have to be the complete package upfront. We actually do have comprehensive training programs for new hires, most of which were designed by me. The problem is that people need a certain mix of base level skills and character traits to succeed and excel. Most people we interview don't have those, which means they are unqualified.

geosith 13y ago

The boomers made it a big deal, I do web development with my BA and wish every day I had all that money back. I even tried to major in CS but couldn't follow my classes because the school had brought in Russian grad students who couldn't understand questions that were asked in class.

salient 13y ago

Perhaps, but what's definitely not working is the guaranteed loans from governments, which gives universities access to virtually unlimited funds. If the government wouldn't give loans for college, US tuitions would probably be 10x less, just like they are even in the most expensive universities in Europe or elsewhere.

codegeek 13y ago
Exactly. If only I could upvote you a million times.
Trezoid 13y ago
I strongly disagree. In the Australian system everyone gets a higher education loan from the government(with interest locked to the inflation rate and repayment only required if and when taxable income passes a certain threshold), and yet our tuition rates are much lower than in the US. For example, I just finished a Bachelors degree in a STEM field at a relatively middle of the road university and my total education debt comes out just short of $30k.

patja 13y ago

A discussion on an EconTalk podcast about trends in college education resonated with me. They discussed college as being an extended adolescence for many students: today many students treat it as an expensive way to find one's way in the world and learn about oneself whereas going back 20 or 30 years it was more about improving your employment prospects. They cited as evidence the doubling of psychology undergraduate degrees (nice for learning about oneself, but lacking a corresponding increase in jobs available) granted over a period where STEM degrees remained flat. A similar doubling in performing and visual arts degrees was another trend they contrasted to STEM degree popularity stagnation. The podcast is at http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2011/12/tabarrok_on_inn.html http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2011/12/tabarrok_on_inn.htm...

ignostic 13y ago

It's a joke among engineers that you need to graduate from college so that you can start learning. My college experience (non-technical bachelors) was just a joke, period - high school 2.0. Still, I wouldn't have the good job I do now if I hadn't completed my degree. We keep running into this problem where employers think college degrees are more valuable than they probably are. Part of that is impressed culturally, but more than anything we lack better methods of certification in most jobs. We need certification that matters, is widely accepted, and that employers actually trust. It has to be marketed well, and it has to actually produce graduates with up-to-date skills. It's not easy, especially in fields where curriculum must change yearly. Underlying all of this is a larger, unavoidable change taking place: the disappearance of unskilled work. Computers and machines are slowly taking over every unskilled job, starting at the least skilled and moving upwards to things we used to think of as skilled labor. Taxi drivers and factory workers will hardly exist in 10 years. Construction workers will only supervise machines in our lifetimes. Unless you want to work in a low-paying retail job for the rest of your life, you need to get a degree so you can work your way up some corporate ladder - or so the thinking goes.

wil421 13y ago
> It's a joke among engineers that you need to graduate from college so that you can start learning. My college experience (non-technical bachelors) was just a joke, period - high school 2.0. Still, I wouldn't have the good job I do now if I hadn't completed my degree. Yes and yes I wasted the first two years in college learning High School 2.0 and the last 2 learning technical concepts that people used 5-10 years ago. XHTML, CGI and using tables for layouts to name a few.
aantix 13y ago
I'm not sure why companies ever got away from the idea that they could avoid training employees? In Silicon Valley you see the same pool of startups competing for the same pool of Rails/Backbone.js developers all because they'd rather perceive to get a complete package up front. The apprenticeship model should be re-embraced.
- fleitz 13y ago

vondur 13y ago

This has been a problem here in California for a while now. Schools push kids into a college track, even though they are not going to be successful. This has caused the state universities and community colleges to take in larger amounts of students which stretches budgets and also has caused the graduation rates to decline. Many of these students would be better served by a vocational school, but it seems that there has been a stigma placed on students who don't want to go to a university.

mrxd 13y ago

It's hard for me to take this article seriously with so many falsehoods. Shortage of STEM workers? Debunked: http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/education/the-stem-crisis-is-a-myth http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/education/the-stem-crisis-i... College costs out of control? Only because states are cutting subsidies for higher education and forcing students to pay more. That said, towards the end there are some good points. It could be argued that there's a public interest in promoting higher education because its necessary for a functional democracy. But if the public abandons this goal and higher education is only for job preparation, then why should the state be involved at all? In that case, state tuition subsidies are really corporate welfare. Although on-the-job training and apprenticeships are more effective for many jobs, that would mean employers have to shoulder the cost rather than the state.

Legion 13y ago
> College costs out of control? Only because states are cutting subsidies for higher education and forcing students to pay more. "Oh it's true, but because of this stupid reason" != "falsehood".
- mrxd 13y ago
  Cost is not the same as price.
roc 13y ago
Tuition couldn't skyrocket if students had no means to pay it. The enabler in this situation, is the disconnect between the availability of financing and the product being financed. You can't get a $60,000 loan for a $20,000 car, but you can absolutely rack up that much (or more) in college debt, for an education indistinguishable from one at a third of the cost. With that kind of distortion in the market, why would anyone be surprised at rising tuition?
- mrxd 13y ago
  If your explanation were true, we should expect tuition to immediately shift to students when federal loans and grants became available in 1965. But in fact, the data shows that state tuition subsidies for public 4-year colleges have declined slowly, except in the years following recessions when states cut their budgets. These years show much more dramatic declines. This is consistent with my hypothesis that state budget cuts are the primary driver of tuition increases. It's possible that your point still holds, that the availability of federal loans made it easier for states to cut tuition subsidies. But that's a change in the politics of the issue, not a market distortion. Without federal aid, politicians would be more vulnerable to the charge that they're making college less accessible. Federal loans have obviously not created a tuition bubble, for the simple reason that the cost of a public 4-year education (the price charged to states + students) is essentially unchanged over the last 25 years. The story may be different for for-profit colleges. If you want to argue that there's a market distortion there, essentially that for-profit colleges are gouging students and the government, I could easily be persuaded. But since only 10% of students are enrolled in these schools, they're unlikely to be the main source of increasing student debt.

jellicle 13y ago

For those who aren't aware, this is an op-ed (meaning the newspaper doesn't stand behind any of the facts claimed) from a right-wing Koch brothers organization. Several commenters have already noted that the fundamental "fact" here, that certain vocations are experiencing major shortages (the "skills mismatch" claim) is completely false, which it is. The Great Recession stretches across all job fields and locations in the United States and beyond. Nutshell: this op-ed is from someone who hates broad-based education and wants to bring in a sort of reverse work-training system: you pay them for the privilege of working at various companies, and we call it modern vocational education.

nsxwolf 13y ago
Great that you noticed it's an op-ed by the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, but, is the college for all model working?
- nickthemagicman 13y ago
  The other option is college for the rich. So it's working better than the alternative.
  - conjecTech 13y ago
    How is that the only other option? How about college for those that will increase their economic productivity beyond the added cost?
    - chongli 13y ago
      Or how about an acknowledgement that it's becoming harder and harder for people to compete against machines?
  - pc86 13y ago
    What about college for those who want a career that demands a degree (realistically, not according to HR)? The discussion here should be about under what circumstances college is meaningful and appropriate, not whether author's world view. If the article is wrong, dispute it with sources.

nsxwolf 13y ago

We're not saving for our kids' college. The oldest is 16 years away, and we believe that college will either be totally unaffordable, or the bubble will have burst and won't exist in its current form. We are focusing on our retirement instead, because we believe it's far better to take care of that and not become a burden on your kids just when they're trying to take care of their own families and retirements.

danudey 13y ago
It's also far more valuable to teach your kids to save for their own college. A few years of odd jobs, paper delivery, whatever will make them appreciate that money isn't infinite. My parents didn't (and couldn't) afford to pay for my college, and thanks to that I knew that every year I stayed would be another ten grand in debt I would have to pay off. That led to me leaving university after a pointless year and going into the workforce. As I suspected, it was the best education-related decision I'd made. That said, be careful. Student loans offices generally make the assumption that parents will contribute towards their kids' education; if the current status quo does remain at that point (and I hope it doesn't) they may find themselves unable to afford college because they'll be told that you'll be paying for half of it.
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  I don't know that a paper delivery route will have a meaningful impact on college tuition.
  - chongli 13y ago
    Yeah, unless they plan on delivering papers for about a century or two.

austinl 13y ago

Grants for vocational programs are nice and all, but the damage has already been done. The huge expectation in the United States for every student to attend college - that has to be overcome for these things to be successful.

jheriko 13y ago

Slightly disappointed to not see the obvious arguments. As a university drop out I may be biased but I do believe that 'education for all' is a horribly misguided premise which persists because of the practicality of cheap childcare it provides (!) I believe that vocational education is pretty flawed too... I fail to see the value in qualification X if everyone can get it. All qualifications seem to be an exercise in desire and discipline... and this is why it doesn't work. IMO. It works fine for serious and competitive fields like medicine and dentistry, but for the vast majority of fields out there a degree isn't worth much at all. I can, and maybe have, written your dissertation from your textbook with no lectures... and I will do just fine. Smart guys will drop out and succeed because of the same reasons they drop out, not in spite of it... just a shame so many drop outs are probably dropping out because education is not for them - or possibly university or vocational education is not right for their entire field.

kyzyl 13y ago

I see a lot of folks here talking about college education in economic terms. So, sure, the evidence is certainly mounting that we've mucked something up: tuition is stupidly high, graduation rates are low, people are dogging their way through college 'just because' et cetra. But nobody (around here, anyhow) seems to be speaking on higher education in terms of intrinsic value. I'm talking about the way going to a university integrates you with a ton of strange, weird, different people. How there is a tremendous amount of information and culture that is absorbed, either by directly learning it or simply by osmosis. The 'by osmosis' thing might be a bit of an assertion, but I think that most people who've been to university can probably relate to the concept. In my opinion that adds a lot of value to a society. I know these are not original ideas, and it wouldn't be nice to live in a highly educated society where absolutely nobody has work, but I wouldn't immediately discount the value that is added by sending the masses through university. As explained by numerous people here, this strategy is clearly broken as a method of certification and job training. Does that mean that we should do a 180 and reserve anything beyond vocational training for the Marxes, Shakespeares, and Feynmans? I think not. I'm not suggesting that people here are promoting that idea, just illustrating that moving in that direction might destroy a lot of value that's not as plainly seen as one's student loan balance (something I can certainly relate to...) or the national unemployment rate. Maybe I'm just being young and naive.

ddd1600 13y ago

Libertarian thinktank computer says yes?