More Students Are Turning Away From College and Toward Apprenticeships

[Hefeweizen 5,328]

5 minutes ago, 52-80 said:

How many people working in finance have an art history degree tho

I was chuckling thinking of Vincent van Rockefeller and Claude Morgan.

[Mrs Whiggins 13,050]

12 minutes ago, 52-80 said:

How many people working in finance have an art history degree tho

Hard to say. There is data on humanities as a whole, which includes more than just art history (classical studies, history, philosophy, etc). According to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, there were 202,665 humanities degrees awarded in 2018. I can't recall the percentage of total degrees conferred this category represents, but it isn't a large percentage.

[Mrs Whiggins 13,050]

13 minutes ago, Hefeweizen said:

I was chuckling thinking of Vincent van Rockefeller and Claude Morgan.

IIRC, the three founders of Starbucks have degrees in history and english.

[Hermanator 7,127]

We're heading towards an America where you can get a TV that covers your wall for $500 while a good college education costs $1 million. 

 

[wildcat09 29,361]

14 hours ago, gurt said:

Where does the 5% come from? That seems pretty low…

Also I think the point is that much of the anecdotes here about getting a good job with non-STEM/specialized degrees/whatever are becoming increasingly less relevant. A 45 year olds experience is not relevant to a 21 year olds in todays competitive landscape, where every kid their age has a degree.

Not to mention taking that bet saddled with 50k+ of debt.

From a CR thread, on the topic of bullshit degrees that don't provide tangible skills:

Quote

We really don't. The number of people graduating with "bullshit degrees" (as you'd characterize them) are a fairly small percentage of total college graduates. Two seconds on Google turned up this list of the most popular majors. Of the top 25, I'd guess maybe you'd consider anthropology and sociology bullshit, but that comes in at 10. After that, you'd probably consider art at 18 bullshit, foreign languages at 21 bullshit, design at 22 bullshit. But all combined those barely exceed psychology at 3 and are less than half of the number of business majors. And as a percentage of total degrees, you can add all the lower "bullshit" degrees that each award a few thousand per year and we're still talking about a very small percentage of total degrees awarded. 

You can find different lists that rank things a little differently (apparently due to different classifications for certain majors), but you'll see pretty much the same thing using any list you look at. The common boomer "kids these days all go to college for bullshit degrees and graduate with no skills" take is basically nonsense based on a couple of anecdotes from their friends bitching about their kids. 

 

[Murfdogg21 4,419]

Thanks @tx 3 putt for the data point on trade school costs. ROI on whatever education should be a primary consideration. The liberal arts type degrees do not forbid people from professional success, but there’s a lot more people with those majors that go into them as naive or undecided 18 year olds and don’t utilize those specific degrees in their later careers. The problem obviously compounds when they go to very expensive private universities and pile up debt. My personal anecdotes are my wife’s sisters. One got a music degree from a private university in Boston, then worked as a nanny for 6 years and is now a realtor ($50k in debt). The other switched colleges and majors twice, got a BA in psychology ($60k in debt) , worked as a special ed teacher, and is now going back for a masters degree in education. Neither are paying more than minimum payments on their loans and the second is taking on new debt all because they think Uncle Biden and Bernie are going to nuke their student debts. 
 

The system has created almost limitless demand (“everyone should go to college” narrative + unlimited federally backed student loans) allowing universities to skyrocket their tuition and fees. If student loans (amount and interest rates) were awarded like other loans based value of the asset and risk of default, maybe more kids would choose less expensive colleges or higher ROI majors. 

[gurt 749]

11 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

From a CR thread, on the topic of bullshit degrees that don't provide tangible skills:

 

this shows that 8% are social sciences and history, 6% is psychology, visual and performing arts is 5% and communications is 5%.  That's nearly a quarter that are varying levels of bullshit.  Of course many of those folks go on to have successful careers, like myself, a history and geography major.  But I found my way into tech and learned a lot on the job.  I can't honestly attribute all that much of my degree to doing this.  The ability to communicate clearly and effectively, I suppose.  But that is a pretty nebulous ROI for 50k in debt.

[YGIFS 19,452]

1 hour ago, 52-80 said:

How many people working in finance have an art history degree tho

Fair point.  But remember, people that major in liberal arts/humanities degrees sometimes.  Oftentimes.  Go on to graduate degrees in law, business, and medicine.  Myself being one of them.  Majoring in a liberal art/humanity/fine art degree is not a condemnation to a life not well lived/earned.  You can still go on to do great things.  Just as a dumbfuck white-trash rural piece of shit Texan can still graduate some fucking two-bit fucking garbage high school of racist pustule shitheads and somehow manage to make something of themselves.  It ain't the paper, it's the person.

[CooterBrown 18,022]

How many people working in finance have an art history degree tho

It’s anecdotal but from what I’ve seen, a very large percentage of tech product managers, sales, client services, and the like are liberal arts degrees instead of business or STEM.

[gurt 749]

1 minute ago, CooterBrown said:

It’s anecdotal but from what I’ve seen, a very large percentage of tech product managers, sales, client services, and the like are liberal arts degrees instead of business or STEM.

That is true in my experience too.  There are emerging roles via tech that Liberal Arts backgrounds have a fair amount of utility in.

[GringoSalado 1,651]

4 hours ago, MonkeyDoughnut said:

College is inherently classist and has always been.

If college education was actually worth it for most people it would be getting cheaper and not more expensive for students.

I think this must be why more folks aren't as gobsmacked at the indefensible and insane tuition hike as I am. Nobody would pay $40 for a Happy Meal. Even if your cost was $10 due to a Happy Meal-need scholly, you would be, at least, perturbed by the fact that something that should require so little effort, and also confers such little benefit, would cost that much regardless who pays for it. But this happened to public school tuition and I feel like I'm the only person pissed off. I used to love to brag about the value of my Texas degree, but it is a huge buttfucking at today's prices IMO. In the late 90s I remember reading that a Texas MBA was a questionable decision from a cost-benefit perspective for a typical student.

I think everybody should get a degree that wants one, in whatever you want. But it should not cost, by any measure, $1,130 per hour of instruction. This pricing is saying that in order to educate you on Art History that is the economic cost. Of course we all know this is insane, if things really "cost" that much we would all be living in log cabins.

/rant

[YGIFS 19,452]

I sometimes wonder if the fact that legislative contributions to the higher ed budgets of Texas public universities going down from 50% to almost 10% may have had some impact on the rising cost of tuition.  Just asking questions.  Do your own research.  But don't, because research is expensive and pointless and could lead to tenure.

[GringoSalado 1,651]

Just now, YGIFS said:

I sometimes wonder if the fact that legislative contributions to the higher ed budgets of Texas public universities going down from 50% to almost 10% may have had some impact on the rising cost of tuition.  Just asking questions.  Do your own research.  But don't, because research is expensive and pointless and could lead to tenure.

lol

[GringoSalado 1,651]

According to SHEEO (State Higher Education Officers Asssoc.), which may be a propaganda site idk, in 1985 Texas spent $9,123 per FTE (full time equivalent) student enrolled in college. this fell to $8,300 in 2021.

https://shef.sheeo.org/state-profile/texas/

 

could be bullshit

says inflation adjusted, so I guess that is 2021 dollars

Edited March 19, 2023 by GringoSalado

[GringoSalado 1,651]

Apologies for the hijack of this thread but I can't edit and it the above is not CPI (inflation) adjusted, they use an "alternative" to the CPI they call the HECA (higher ed cost adj.). I can't find an exact number rn but it doesn't seem like a material distortion in this context*. But notable.

* there was a 2015-2007 discount of a revenue figure that resulted in $12,723 using HECA and $12,440 using CPI, I would calculate and adjust this but I only paid $40 a credit hour so that is above my cost grade.

Edited March 19, 2023 by GringoSalado

[MonkeyDoughnut 10,336]

Problem with college system is they have a huge incentive to attract wealthier kids. That is the reason wealthier students get more aid from colleges than "students in need".  It's no surprise that the lions share of merit aid goes to wealthier kids from good schools with higher educated parents.  It's the same reason sports scholarships are trending the same (outside of football and men's basketball) at this time. Kids best prepared tend to come from that background.

Colleges will charge whatever system will bear. Wealthy have a higher threshold and ironically often pay less than most.

[RDCanecutter 26,461]

My best career choice was when I was 9 and started selling lemonade. NOT one of those cutesy passive begging stands where people who don't want lemonade stop because aww it's so cute. No.

I filled a portable cooler with ice and lemonade, grabbed cups, and scampered like Gunga Din through a nearby building site. 100% heat? Here comes that kid. I'd climb up to where they were, get my damn money.

Every single job and college course since then has been a waste.

[Schulz2.0 29,000]

5 minutes ago, MonkeyDoughnut said:

That is the reason wealthier students get more aid from colleges than "students in need".

Any evidence to back this up? My experience in college directly disagrees with you.

[Mrs Whiggins 13,050]

I don't believe you are the only person who is upset @GringoSalado. I do think it is complicated, however, and the solution would require people sitting at the table who have some knowledge (political issues aside no CR) about what all goes into this (costs both tangible and otherwise). So many stakeholders, which to a degree most of us are but *some have more insight into various consequences both short and long term.

For example: let's ignore faculty salaries as those have mostly remained stagnant. So if teaching, research, and service (which relates to various metrics) are the three main ways faculty are reviewed, would you have them increase teaching and cut research? At many public universities with tuition being higher, it actually brings in more $$ than research (obviously institution dependent) Faculty used to be advisors at most public schools, and at smaller schools they still are I think. With my oldest child, there were dedicated advisors with subject knowledge to help students and degree plans. To slice those positions, you save money but it comes at the expense of documented data driven student success. Also, some faculty just don't seem to be very good at advising (temperament and other skills).

With increases in student populations you have space issues. Do you make more online classes? Some of the rate payers (i.e. parents and students) are not very happy with those and believe it diminishes the 'college experience.' What about labs? Those require space. More students means more space or running labs around the clock. For safety, labs are usually numbers limited. Cut labs?

In other words, what to cut and where and would you be willing for salaries for educators be diminished? If you ignore all of the support services, the grounds crews and maintenance staffs (mostly outsourced these days) at what price point are parents willing to pay for the person instructing the class? I obviously cherry picked the more personal cuts because those are ones that many would object to--when a student fares poorly how much responsibility are 'we' willing to place on them if we cut those student services and the unfunded (by the state) mandates that require universities to provide data, services, and other miscellanea? @MonkeyDoughnut is spot on with the thoughts regarding wealth based tie ins to universities and outcomes. Those families are also the ones that are orbiting around campus and emailing profs (according to second-hand info) and otherwise highly involved in their offsprings' future.

What would happen, for example, if athletics were divorced from public universities? Many athletic departments are self-sustaining, but are they really? What are some of the costs that are not tabulated in the operating expenses that are still provided by employees? How much of a 'jobs' program are universities for the communities in which they are located and is that important?

 

Edited March 19, 2023 by Mrs Whiggins
*that 'some' is not me, but what I have learned from asking questions of people in higher ed is that there are a lot of self-preservation and agenda driven decisions that get made by people w/o enough oversight.

[GringoSalado 1,651]

1 minute ago, Mrs Whiggins said:

For example: let's ignore faculty salaries as those have mostly remained stagnant. So if teaching, research, and service (which relates to various metrics) are the three main ways faculty are reviewed, would you have them increase teaching and cut research?

 

I don't see "administration" as a choice, but my very simple answer would be it appears by this logic then that students are subsidizing research by as much as $800-$1,000 per credit hour, which is criminal, if true. So I would arrest research, and double faculty salary.

[GringoSalado 1,651]

Unless we find out why it is costing $40 for a fast food order and fix that talking about how to pay for it seems ludicrous. Tuition triples every 10 years. If we "fully fund" education it won't be very long before it consumes the entire budget.

 

I need to ignore this thread.

[MonkeyDoughnut 10,336]

15 minutes ago, Schulz2.0 said:

Any evidence to back this up? My experience in college directly disagrees with you.

Good article describing issues:

https://www.newamerica.org/education-policy/reports/crisis-point-how-enrollment-management-and-merit-aid-arms-race-are-destroying-public-higher-education/

 

Dataset:

Trends in Undergraduate Nonfederal Grant and Scholarship Aid by ... https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2019/2019486.pdf

 

[Mrs Whiggins 13,050]

Just now, GringoSalado said:

I don't see "administration" as a choice, but my very simple answer would be it appears by this logic then that students are subsidizing research by as much as $800-$1,000 per credit hour, which is criminal, if true. So I would arrest research, and double faculty salary.

I didn't want to get too far into the weeds so yeah, I left out a lot. With respect to research, a neighbor is a retired faculty from one of the big unis here in Texas. When we were chatting, I learned that universities take ~50% of a grant off the top for operating costs. So a million dollar 5 year grant goes to a physicist and he/she gets 500K and the university takes 500K. If I understood it correctly, that university share is to pay for the staff that handles the paperwork, keeps the lights on, etc. The faculty prof pays for equipment, materials, post doctoral/grad student/undergraduate salaries, and whatnot. With federal grants there is a minimum salary requirement for post-doctoral salaries (includes benefits) while for graduate students the salary is whatever the competitive rate is (I think) but includes benefits and tuition. So, a professor will need to maximize that 100k a year. 

Meanwhile, tuition dollars bring in so much a head.

Another thing I learned is that if a prof wants to take a semester off to focus on writing/research, some departments have them 'buy' out their teaching to pay for the faculty that will take on their course load. I suspect that they are using their grant money for this but I don't know how that works.

[52-80 19,213]

33 minutes ago, MonkeyDoughnut said:

Colleges will charge whatever system will bear. Wealthy have a higher threshold and ironically often pay less than most.

Problem is the “system” is not the college asking a price vs student paying it, its the government providing the liquidity that gives an illusion of the student’s willingness to pay. 

If the colleges had to shoulder the risk of default, im not sure that their costs for all degrees will be equivalent. Putting skin in the game has a funny way of altering pricing. 

[GringoSalado 1,651]

 

10 minutes ago, Mrs Whiggins said:

I didn't want to get too far into the weeds so yeah, I left out a lot. With respect to research, a neighbor is a retired faculty from one of the big unis here in Texas. When we were chatting, I learned that universities take ~50% of a grant off the top for operating costs.

It would be interesting to see some analysis/comparison in admin bloat in grant writing and admin vs. everything else like water parks and 1,000 Assoc VP Provost of XYZ positions (some of these positions make multiples of the typical prof salary).

I think a big part of that is the stagnation of Prof salaries. I definitely see the need for professors that are engaged in R&D in their field and how this is valuable for current AND future students, but I wonder if we have professors chasing grants incessantly as the only way to make more money or prestige. Perhaps we need to recognize the lack of other incentives like lack of pay competitive with private sector jobs of equivalent experience and skill.

 

If you are a badass prof. you should be able to sit on your ass and still make, I dunno, $200k? without having to whore your staff out incessantly for (dubious?) research grants.

[SHOOTER12 8,819]

16 hours ago, GringoSalado said:

I'm relatively young compared to Brat, if my tuition followed inflation it would cost $120 today (google says $1,130). Now it is equivalent to a mortgage. I paid my tuition with bartending tips, and spent more on books. Let's say I was only paying half the true cost, so today it should be about $250.

University should be less expensive now with modern technology, not 20x more expensive. So now if you get a worthless degree you are reminded of it for the rest of your life. Good job, everyone.

I wish I could remember the exact cost but I  paid for my 3 years of college (SWT) by working summer jobs basically. 

[MonkeyDoughnut 10,336]

10 minutes ago, 52-80 said:

Problem is the “system” is not the college asking a price vs student paying it, its the government providing the liquidity that gives an illusion of the student’s willingness to pay. 

If the colleges had to shoulder the risk of default, im not sure that their costs for all degrees will be equivalent. Putting skin in the game has a funny way of altering pricing. 

For sure, the govt lending is leading it. Bennet's Hypothesis is just that. Ability to pay and willingness are getting farther apart but the college "dream" takes a while to become the nightmare it is for many.

[YGIFS 19,452]

So we want government to be somewhat involved in higher education?  Think about that when you look at how much we spend on higher ed as a state and how much we spend on stuff we're not supposed to be involved in like health care.  

[Mrs Whiggins 13,050]

48 minutes ago, GringoSalado said:

Unless we find out why it is costing $40 for a fast food order and fix that talking about how to pay for it seems ludicrous. Tuition triples every 10 years. If we "fully fund" education it won't be very long before it consumes the entire budget.

 

I need to ignore this thread.

At the state universities and the systems (i.e. UT system, A&M system etc) the budgets are all public. Most folks aren't really into digging into that type of reading but if we actually paid more attention to money trails, we might encourage our public officials and their 'friends' to be better stewards of our tax dollars.

Here is your McDonald's burger:

Costs:

Building and maintenance and utilities

Shipment of food, storage containers, serving containers, cleaning supplies, etc.

Food ingredients, subject to use by dates, spoilage, etc

Equipment to store and prepare food at temperature appropriate levels

Advertising and marketing

Whatever the hell HQ does

Workers to prepare food, sell food, clean building

I probably left out a bunch. We know that a lot of this has been streamlined for efficiency and profit and so on, but when it comes down to it, we really don't want to buy a burger and then die from it, so there is also an element of risk that we're willing to take when we eat cheaply. Sure, McDonald's doesn't want the bad press either, but just as a take out fast food burger has a break point, then you and I have to figure out what is the break point for a bachelor's degree from an R1 university of which there are 137 (as of 2021).

 

 

With your last reply while I was typing: very good points IMO. I will say that our oldest is not going into academia despite the encouragement of department faculty (it is in a STEM field); while there is higher job security (to an extent depending upon publications, tenure, etc) the salary and other intangibles stifled the desire to pursue that lifestyle. As a parent who wishes to have healthy happy adult children, I'm fine with whatever. As someone who takes in interest in American competitiveness on the world stage, there is another type of reckoning coming and that is: that other countries that are continuing to invest in the sciences (among other things) are going to outpace us as there is a great wave of retirements coming and those positions will need to be filled. If graduate students are not staying in academia and there will be a break point for that as well, then we will be bringing in more H1B1 faculty and that, in turn, may make it harder for academic placements for native talent. Remember: some of that grant money discussed earlier goes towards a graduate student's salary and benefits while they acquire experience and knowledge to then, in turn, go forth and teach and research further. Applied research is great, I'm all for it. But where the US has been a historic leader is in basic research. We've all heard the trope about ketchup viscosity being studied, but there are many questions out there yet to be answered.

Edited March 19, 2023 by Mrs Whiggins
spellcheck

[SHOOTER12 8,819]

17 hours ago, smokebomb said:

First - a 2015 OpEd from the NYT discussing the increase in tuition: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/05/opinion/sunday/the-real-reason-college-tuition-costs-so-much.html

 

2nd - I’ve always hated the assertion that a college degree is the sole reason people are successful later in life. College self-select the smartest people - high grades, activities, test scores, etc. The traits that got the kids into college are the main reason kids are successful in life, not just the degree they obtained. Colleges love to tout this but it’s just marketing to justify their existence. 
 

3rd - I am not anti college. If your parents have $300k and you want to study international basket weaving & English at Patchouli U, go for it. But fuck that same university for trying to recruit a kid whose parents that make less than $50k and will never get out of that debt. A reckoning is coming for those schools and I have zero sympathy. If colleges want to be so expensive, kids should get an appropriate paying career out of it. 
 

Finally - I think trade schools are a great path for kids today. With the increase in technology and the high cost of shipping, factory work is coming back to the US. Plus, everyone needs to shit and plumbers will always have a job. I personally think that kids in high school should be able to start apprenticeships so that when they graduate, they are on a great career path. 

I will now step off my soap box. 

+rep for patchouli U.

I remember the most bad assed house I had ever seen in my life belonged to my BIL, a plumber with an 8th grade education and he was making bank big time. Made me want to be a plumber for a short minute until I realized the shit involved.

[SHOOTER12 8,819]

27 minutes ago, Mrs Whiggins said:

At the state universities and the systems (i.e. UT system, A&M system etc) the budgets are all public. Most folks aren't really into digging into that type of reading but if we actually paid more attention to money trails, we might encourage our public officials and their 'friends' to be better stewards of our tax dollars.

Here is your McDonald's burger:

Costs:

Building and maintenance and utilities

Shipment of food, storage containers, serving containers, cleaning supplies, etc.

Food ingredients, subject to use by dates, spoilage, etc

Equipment to store and prepare food at temperature appropriate levels

Advertising and marketing

Whatever the hell HQ does

Workers to prepare food, sell food, clean building

I probably left out a bunch. We know that a lot of this has been streamlined for efficiency and profit and so on, but when it comes down to it, we really don't want to buy a burger and then die from it, so there is also an element of risk that we're willing to take when we eat cheaply. Sure, McDonald's doesn't want the bad press either, but just as a take out fast food burger has a break point, then you and I have to figure out what is the break point for a bachelor's degree from an R1 university of which there are 137 (as of 2021).

 

 

With your last reply while I was typing: very good points IMO. I will say that our oldest is not going into academia despite the encouragement of department faculty (it is in a STEM field); while there is higher job security (to an extent depending upon publications, tenure, etc) the salary and other intangibles stifled the desire to pursue that lifestyle. As a parent who wishes to have healthy happy adult children, I'm fine with whatever. As someone who takes in interest in American competitiveness on the world stage, there is another type of reckoning coming and that is: that other countries that are continuing to invest in the sciences (among other things) are going to outpace us as there is a great wave of retirements coming and those positions will need to be filled. If graduate students are not staying in academia and there will be a break point for that as well, then we will be bringing in more H1B1 faculty and that, in turn, may make it harder for academic placements for native talent. Remember: some of that grant money discussed earlier goes towards a graduate student's salary and benefits while they acquire experience and knowledge to then, in turn, go forth and teach and research further. Applied research is great, I'm all for it. But where the US has been a historic leader is in basic research. We've all heard the trope about ketchup viscosity being studied, but there are many questions out there yet to be answered.

Dammit Mrs. Whiggins...that's a lot of words.

[Celery Man 20,982]

Art History is harder than finance.

[YGIFS 19,452]

Aren't they both just long-cons?  

[Schulz2.0 29,000]

1 hour ago, MonkeyDoughnut said:

Good article describing issues:

https://www.newamerica.org/education-policy/reports/crisis-point-how-enrollment-management-and-merit-aid-arms-race-are-destroying-public-higher-education/

 

Dataset:

Trends in Undergraduate Nonfederal Grant and Scholarship Aid by ... https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2019/2019486.pdf

 

They have some interesting definitions on what constitutes a student needing aid. 

[HamsterHookah 112]

8 hours ago, Celery Man said:

Art History is harder than finance.

We really just say anything on this website, don't we?

[fattyflattie 4,638]

12 minutes ago, HamsterHookah said:

We really just say anything on this website, don't we?

I have a degree in finance.  He’s not lying. Art history was absolutely brutal.  

[HamsterHookah 112]

20 minutes ago, fattyflattie said:

I have a degree in finance.  He’s not lying. Art history was absolutely brutal.  

I, too, have a degree in finance. I also took art history as a freshman. With those supporting facts, I think y’all are insane.

Heck let’s go all-in on subjective anecdotes: Cultural Anthropology was harder than both!

[Guest]

I agree that college is too expensive.  I also think a person should be able to pay for their college over time and society should not have to cover the cost.  But earning potential often dominates these discussions.  There is more to life than earning money.  Philosophy degrees and humanities degrees going extinct would be a bad thing for society.  

[fattyflattie 4,638]

52 minutes ago, HamsterHookah said:

I, too, have a degree in finance. I also took art history as a freshman. With those supporting facts, I think y’all are insane.

Heck let’s go all-in on subjective anecdotes: Cultural Anthropology was harder than both!

Art history rekt me.  I spent so much time studying for that shit. Unfortunately, I don’t believe any of it took. 

[wackawacka 179]

16 hours ago, 52-80 said:

Problem is the “system” is not the college asking a price vs student paying it, its the government providing the liquidity that gives an illusion of the student’s willingness to pay. 

If the colleges had to shoulder the risk of default, im not sure that their costs for all degrees will be equivalent. Putting skin in the game has a funny way of altering pricing. 

This is a nice soundbite but does not hold water as private schools, grad especially MBAs, law, etc has seen similar price increases as undergrad. The price of education is almost unrelated to holds the loan risk.

It is the driven by the decades of public funding cuts to higher education so cost transfer has occurred from a public good to a private one.

[YGIFS 19,452]

Taxpayers subsidize loans on depreciating assets all the time.  

Between an FHA or Ag loan on some home or tract of land in some dying part of America, I'll take my odds with the kid with the degree from the liberal arts college who may accidentally get a decent paying job after impressing his roommate's dad and his firm while visiting for the holidays.   But I like the idea of "underwriting" a student loan the same way we perform due diligence on other asset-backed loans.  Where you're going to school, what you're studying, your credit score, how long you take to graduate, what part of the country you'll be living in, even your GPA and grad school admission test scores.  There's the cost of living element to it as well.  Make fun of humanities degrees, but if the student is studying that in rural Ohio, it's a cheap loan still because the chunk going to cost of living is pennies on the dollar versus the guy studying engineering at MIT and living in downtown Boston where it's insanely expensive.  sure the second student will have a higher earning potential, but they need $40k a year in loans just to eat, sleep, and park.  

We're also talking about two different tacks here.  There's government "bailouts"/"loan forgiveness" of student debt incurred at both public and private colleges.  And then there's the conversation about public funding mainly via a state legislature's appropriations.  Texas is an outlier in that we have several massive endowments from O&G money, but that's a separate conversation.  

 

[52-80 19,213]

51 minutes ago, wackawacka said:

This is a nice soundbite but does not hold water as private schools, grad especially MBAs, law, etc has seen similar price increases as undergrad. The price of education is almost unrelated to holds the loan risk.

It is the driven by the decades of public funding cuts to higher education so cost transfer has occurred from a public good to a private one.

The price increase for MBAs, law, is still justifiable as it delivers a higher relative return to, say, Classical Studies. 

12 hours of graduate tuition at UTs College of Liberal Arts costs the same or more than at McCombs. 

Should it?  Everyone has anecdotes but gigantic longitudinal data shows some program yielding far higher lifetime earnings than others. 

If funding was harder to secure, wouldnt you think twice about pursuing that degree in Ancient Greek?  Wouldnt the school have a stronger incentive to compete for your attendance?

[HamsterHookah 112]

28 minutes ago, 52-80 said:

The price increase for MBAs, law, is still justifiable as it delivers a higher relative return to, say, Classical Studies. 

12 hours of graduate tuition at UTs College of Liberal Arts costs the same or more than at McCombs. 

Should it?  Everyone has anecdotes but gigantic longitudinal data shows some program yielding far higher lifetime earnings than others. 

If funding was harder to secure, wouldnt you think twice about pursuing that degree in Ancient Greek?  Wouldnt the school have a stronger incentive to compete for your attendance?

You are right, but the counterpoint is by taking this financial angle, you are perpetuating a liberal arts education as one of privilege which hampers the equitable arguments.

[wildcat09 29,361]

8 hours ago, axiom of foundation said:

I agree that college is too expensive.  I also think a person should be able to pay for their college over time and society should not have to cover the cost.  But earning potential often dominates these discussions.  There is more to life than earning money.  Philosophy degrees and humanities degrees going extinct would be a bad thing for society.  

So more student debt, basically.

This is such an annoying discussion. We figured out how to provide for public schooling over a century ago. It wasn't perfect but it worked pretty damned well and was free for most and affordable for all. At worst, someone would have to work in the summer to pay their tuition.  The current situation is a problem we created because everything has to involve markets and finance and because boomers decided they didn't want to pay for schools, just like they didn't want to pay for anything else that didn't immediately and directly benefit them.

I've got a quick and easy solution that would piss everyone off:

(1) eliminate like 70% of administrative positions. Your school probably shouldn't even have a rec center, it certainly doesn't need a separate department with tons of administrators making over $100k each for doing nothing while actual professors are making poverty wages.

(2) qualifying students don't get to pick where they go but are admitted into a state university lottery and are randomly assigned to different universities across the state. You can pay extra so that your kid doesn't have to go to aggy or Tceh. This would help dilute the radicalization that going to a place like aggy has on most aggy.  Of course, actual born-and-bred aggy are too stupid so none of them would qualify for UT, protecting UT's purity.

(3) states actually fund their universities.

(4) boomers get dumped on those melting glaciers in the arctic that have starving polar bears stuck on them. 

I've only really thought about #1 and #4 (mostly #4), so I reserve the right to refine these positions, change my mind entirely on one or more of them, or come up with funnier vaguely ironic ways to get rid of the boomers. 

[CooterBrown 18,022]

2 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

Your school probably shouldn't even have a rec center

The "resort university" arms race is definitely a factor that is unique to US universities.  It'd be interesting to see how much is spent on lifestyle instead of academics and basic dormitory housing by universities. 

 

[YGIFS 19,452]

I will say that in the UT System and its schools, there is a very marked amount of administrative bloat.  In some corners of some campuses, alarmingly so.  

But 90% of those positions are paid for out of endowment G&A and philanthropy that is specifically tied to those positions.  Maybe costs the average tax paying Texan a $1 a year between taxes and tuition.  

the leanest, meanest University System I've ever worked with is the Wisconsin system.  There is an almost surreal lack of fat on their bones.  You almost don't know how they do it.  At the other end of the spectrum, the University of Tennessee system---for all it's 'fiscal conservatism' is comically bad at managing G&A.  Everybody's cousin from 'round the holler gets a fucking VP slot at one of those schools with a staff of 9.  It's laughable.  

The resort arms race is a thing.  But it's a function of the expansion of big bank loans years ago.  Look at West Campus, those towers are nicer than most of the homes we live in.  Somebody got wise and realized, "If a bank will lend me enough money where my loan payment is $500 after graduation and I have to live in Jester or some shithole on Riverside Drive, or for a $700 payment after graduation I can live in a 2019-vintage Class A high-rise 3 blocks from campus...guess which one I'll pick despite the potential knock to my credit score?  

Edited March 20, 2023 by YGIFS

[52-80 19,213]

56 minutes ago, HamsterHookah said:

You are right, but the counterpoint is by taking this financial angle, you are perpetuating a liberal arts education as one of privilege which hampers the equitable arguments.

…and confronting everyone with the horrifying realization that in life things aren’t equal! 

to be clear, i’m not asserting what each program should be worth. no 3rd party should dictate that discretionarily. but they shouldnt pretend them as if theyre all equals.

[wildcat09 29,361]

4 minutes ago, YGIFS said:

I will say that in the UT System and its schools, there is a very marked amount of administrative bloat.  In some corners of some campuses, alarmingly so.  

But 90% of those positions are paid for out of endowment G&A and philanthropy that is specifically tied to those positions.  Maybe costs the average tax paying Texan a $1 a year between taxes and tuition.  

the leanest, meanest University System I've ever worked with is the Wisconsin system.  There is an almost surreal lack of fat on their bones.  You almost don't know how they do it.  At the other end of the spectrum, the University of Tennessee system---for all it's 'fiscal conservatism' is comically bad at managing G&A.  Everybody's cousin from 'round the holler gets a fucking VP slot at one of those schools with a staff of 9.  It's laughable.  

The resort arms race is a thing.  But it's a function of the expansion of big bank loans years ago.  Look at West Campus, those towers are nicer than most of the homes we live in.  Somebody got wise and realized, "If a bank will lend me enough money where my loan payment is $500 after graduation and I have to live in Jester or some shithole on Riverside Drive, or for a $700 payment after graduation I can live in a 2019-vintage Class A high-rise 3 blocks from campus...guess which one I'll pick despite the potential knock to my credit score?  

And it's tied up with the need for universities to compete for students, which my proposal for randomly assigning students to schools will 100% fix with absolutely zero problems whatsoever. That's a guarantee.*

 

guarantee only enforceable on Pluto

[Guest]

14 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

So more student debt, basically.

This is such an annoying discussion. We figured out how to provide for public schooling over a century ago. It wasn't perfect but it worked pretty damned well and was free for most and affordable for all. At worst, someone would have to work in the summer to pay their tuition.  The current situation is a problem we created because everything has to involve markets and finance and because boomers decided they didn't want to pay for schools, just like they didn't want to pay for anything else that didn't immediately and directly benefit them.

I've got a quick and easy solution that would piss everyone off:

(1) eliminate like 70% of administrative positions. Your school probably shouldn't even have a rec center, it certainly doesn't need a separate department with tons of administrators making over $100k each for doing nothing while actual professors are making poverty wages.

(2) qualifying students don't get to pick where they go but are admitted into a state university lottery and are randomly assigned to different universities across the state. You can pay extra so that your kid doesn't have to go to aggy or Tceh. This would help dilute the radicalization that going to a place like aggy has on most aggy.  Of course, actual born-and-bred aggy are too stupid so none of them would qualify for UT, protecting UT's purity.

(3) states actually fund their universities.

(4) boomers get dumped on those melting glaciers in the arctic that have starving polar bears stuck on them. 

I've only really thought about #1 and #4 (mostly #4), so I reserve the right to refine these positions, change my mind entirely on one or more of them, or come up with funnier vaguely ironic ways to get rid of the boomers. 

Meant to say society should not solely cover the cost.  I think some investment/skin in the game from the person getting the higher education is a good thing. 

But my main point was not on who covers the cost.  It was on the non-monetary value of humanities and other non-STEM degrees. 

Edited March 20, 2023 by axiom of foundation

[HamsterHookah 112]

10 minutes ago, 52-80 said:

…and confronting everyone with the horrifying realization that in life things aren’t equal! 

to be clear, i’m not asserting what each program should be worth. no 3rd party should dictate that discretionarily. but they shouldnt pretend them as if theyre all equals.

I'm making the distinction between equality (you used equal) and equity (I used the word equitable). I think you are responding to equality.