5 ms·

The author seems to have particular ax to grind against tenured faculty. This seems, at least in my personal experience, to be a bit of red herring. I've spent

by ekidd 13y ago

The author seems to have particular ax to grind against tenured faculty. This seems, at least in my personal experience, to be a bit of red herring. I've spent time around a couple of research universities (the kind where the degrees do pay for themselves), and I've known a lot people who pursued PhDs, post-docs and faculty positions. Most of these people are extremely bright and incredibly hard-working, and many of them were paid less than than third of what a typical programmer makes. Why did they put up with it? Because they loved their subject, and they convinced themselves they had a shot at tenure. But tenure is incredibly hard to obtain at an elite university. You've got to sacrifice your 20s and much of your 30s in a haze of work, and the odds are still very slim that you'll win the tenure lottery. And if you do win it, well, you've just spent the last 15 years proving you're a workaholic who can't stop. And if you do manage to slack off? I know at least one professor who was told, "Absolutely, you're a professor for life, no question. But your salary is paid for by the research you bring in. If you can't bring in the grants, we can't afford to pay you. At least not much." So for every piece of tenured deadwood, there are probably at least 4 crazed workaholics (and in my personal experience, far more). And beyond that, there's 50 or 100 grad students, postdocs and young faculty all working for ridiculously low wages in hopes of getting tenure. So let's do a little thought experiment: What happens if we do what this writer from the American Enterprise Institute wants, and get rid of tenure? Well, to make an analogy, how would the behavior of startup founders change if they no longer had a tiny chance of a big payout someday? I do not know why US education keeps getting more expensive. But tenure, ironically, seems to be one of the things holding down salaries at elite universities, in the same way that big chunks of equity hold down startup wages. Unless somebody can provide actual numbers demonstrating that tenure is a problem, I'm inclined to look elsewhere.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
jseliger 13y ago
I do not know why US education keeps getting more expensive There are two major hypotheses, along with variants. One hypothesis, advanced mostly by Bill Bowen, holds that colleges are eating the student loan subsidies and engaging in amenities arms races (the growth in the number of administrators fits into this hypothesis). The other is related to Baumol's cost disease, which happens when some goods experience major productivity improvements (think of most physical goods) while others don't (think of education or medicine). See here: http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2012/11/measuring-baumol-and-bowen-effects-in-public-research-universities.html http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2012/11/mea... for one good discussion. See here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/09/02/the-tuition-is-too-damn-high-part-vi-why-theres-no-reason-for-big-universities-to-rein-in-spending/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/09/02/t... for another. See Why Does College Cost So Much? for an elaboration on the Baumol hypothesis. I buy the Bowen hypothesis. Tenure is not a major part of the cost story, but in any system that's not working so hot almost every part starts to come under scrutiny. I tend to favor limiting or removing tenure because of the way it distorts the academic labor market, but that's a pretty long discussion.
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  The major explanation I've heard is neither of those (though its a more general version of the Bowen explanation), but simple market-specific demand-pull inflation: higher education has increasingly become perceived as essential, so more people want to buy it and those who would have been willing to buy it anyway are less price sensitive, so the market-clearing price goes up. (This is different than "eating up subsidies", since, while the subsidies are a contributor, they aren't generally viewed as the only, or even the most important, driver of increased demand.)
- eli_gottlieb 13y ago
  There's actually a much simpler hypothesis, which is that price competition from cheap state universities has disappeared due to state-level budget cuts.
- superuser2 13y ago
  People throw around offensive-sounding numbers of millions of dollars for college amenities, but often they work out to pocket change per student (quite a few people will circulate through a large state university over the lifetime of a building) or are paid for by private donors. The Bowen hypothesis makes people feel better about themselves - it says the root of all our problems is that kids today are spoiled. However, one must consider that state subsidization of public higher education has been slashed in half since 1975; students and their families pay a higher proportion of the cost than they once did. http://www.nasfaa.org/advocacy/perspectives/articles/Myths_and_Realities_about_Rising_College_Tuition.aspx http://www.nasfaa.org/advocacy/perspectives/articles/Myths_a...
  - AJ007 13y ago
    The reason why prices are high won't matter once the customer stops purchasing. I think there are enough metrics to suggest a peak in US higher education growth, probably around 2010. ( www.nytimes.com/2013/12/26/education/getting-out-of-discount-game-small-colleges-lower-the-price.html & http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-30/student-loan-defaults-rise-in-u-s-as-borrowers-struggle-1-.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-30/student-loan-defaul... for a few recent examples.) The debate needs to encompass the entirety of the US higher education system rather than making generalizations based on specific pieces of it. State universities, private schools, not for profits, for profits, schools with massive endowments, and so on, each have their own piece of the story. Secondly, given that the issue in question involve debt, some portion of the analysis here is future prediction -- both for the students borrowing and for schools which are borrowers. Borrowing a ton of money today seems rational if the future brings great inflation, and lunacy if deflation or stagnation.
Brashman 13y ago
The salary quote point which is that a good portion of a professor's salary is paid of the grants they bring in. In addition, they are also often the ones supporting grad students and postdocs. Although this isn't true in all cases, from what I can tell, the professors I've interacted with actually bring in more money to the university than they are being paid. I'm not actually sure where tuition is going exactly.
- gregpilling 13y ago
  The university might typically take 40% of the grant money, for "administrative costs"
michaelochurch 13y ago
I do not know why US education keeps getting more expensive. What's killing the middle class in the US is the Satanic Trinity: housing, healthcare, and tuition. Healthcare is an obvious need, usually bought in crisis. With housing and tuition, it's the need for people to increasingly pull themselves closer to successful people and make connections as the middle class breaks apart and mostly falls into the ocean. Tuition (and dark tuition, such as legacy-family donations, admissions counselors, elite high schools and grade schools and pre-schools, and test prep) is skyrocketing because of middle-class panic-- and non-dischargeable, federally-enabled debt fuels it. Nothing more.

by ekidd 13y ago

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

jseliger 13y ago

I do not know why US education keeps getting more expensive There are two major hypotheses, along with variants. One hypothesis, advanced mostly by Bill Bowen, holds that colleges are eating the student loan subsidies and engaging in amenities arms races (the growth in the number of administrators fits into this hypothesis). The other is related to Baumol's cost disease, which happens when some goods experience major productivity improvements (think of most physical goods) while others don't (think of education or medicine). See here: http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2012/11/measuring-baumol-and-bowen-effects-in-public-research-universities.html http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2012/11/mea... for one good discussion. See here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/09/02/the-tuition-is-too-damn-high-part-vi-why-theres-no-reason-for-big-universities-to-rein-in-spending/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/09/02/t... for another. See Why Does College Cost So Much? for an elaboration on the Baumol hypothesis. I buy the Bowen hypothesis. Tenure is not a major part of the cost story, but in any system that's not working so hot almost every part starts to come under scrutiny. I tend to favor limiting or removing tenure because of the way it distorts the academic labor market, but that's a pretty long discussion.

dragonwriter 13y ago
The major explanation I've heard is neither of those (though its a more general version of the Bowen explanation), but simple market-specific demand-pull inflation: higher education has increasingly become perceived as essential, so more people want to buy it and those who would have been willing to buy it anyway are less price sensitive, so the market-clearing price goes up. (This is different than "eating up subsidies", since, while the subsidies are a contributor, they aren't generally viewed as the only, or even the most important, driver of increased demand.)
eli_gottlieb 13y ago
There's actually a much simpler hypothesis, which is that price competition from cheap state universities has disappeared due to state-level budget cuts.
superuser2 13y ago
People throw around offensive-sounding numbers of millions of dollars for college amenities, but often they work out to pocket change per student (quite a few people will circulate through a large state university over the lifetime of a building) or are paid for by private donors. The Bowen hypothesis makes people feel better about themselves - it says the root of all our problems is that kids today are spoiled. However, one must consider that state subsidization of public higher education has been slashed in half since 1975; students and their families pay a higher proportion of the cost than they once did. http://www.nasfaa.org/advocacy/perspectives/articles/Myths_and_Realities_about_Rising_College_Tuition.aspx http://www.nasfaa.org/advocacy/perspectives/articles/Myths_a...
- AJ007 13y ago
  The reason why prices are high won't matter once the customer stops purchasing. I think there are enough metrics to suggest a peak in US higher education growth, probably around 2010. ( www.nytimes.com/2013/12/26/education/getting-out-of-discount-game-small-colleges-lower-the-price.html & http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-30/student-loan-defaults-rise-in-u-s-as-borrowers-struggle-1-.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-30/student-loan-defaul... for a few recent examples.) The debate needs to encompass the entirety of the US higher education system rather than making generalizations based on specific pieces of it. State universities, private schools, not for profits, for profits, schools with massive endowments, and so on, each have their own piece of the story. Secondly, given that the issue in question involve debt, some portion of the analysis here is future prediction -- both for the students borrowing and for schools which are borrowers. Borrowing a ton of money today seems rational if the future brings great inflation, and lunacy if deflation or stagnation.

Brashman 13y ago

The salary quote point which is that a good portion of a professor's salary is paid of the grants they bring in. In addition, they are also often the ones supporting grad students and postdocs. Although this isn't true in all cases, from what I can tell, the professors I've interacted with actually bring in more money to the university than they are being paid. I'm not actually sure where tuition is going exactly.

gregpilling 13y ago
The university might typically take 40% of the grant money, for "administrative costs"

michaelochurch 13y ago

I do not know why US education keeps getting more expensive. What's killing the middle class in the US is the Satanic Trinity: housing, healthcare, and tuition. Healthcare is an obvious need, usually bought in crisis. With housing and tuition, it's the need for people to increasingly pull themselves closer to successful people and make connections as the middle class breaks apart and mostly falls into the ocean. Tuition (and dark tuition, such as legacy-family donations, admissions counselors, elite high schools and grade schools and pre-schools, and test prep) is skyrocketing because of middle-class panic-- and non-dischargeable, federally-enabled debt fuels it. Nothing more.