Obama Seeks New System For Rating Colleges 302
PolygamousRanchKid writes "Targeting the soaring cost of higher education, President Barack Obama on Thursday unveiled a broad new government rating system for colleges that would judge schools on their affordability and perhaps be used to allocate federal financial aid. But the proposed overhaul faced immediate skepticism from college leaders who worry the rankings could cost their institutions millions of dollars, as well as from congressional Republicans wary of deepening the government's role in higher education. The new rating system does not require congressional approval, and the White House is aiming to have it set up before the 2015 school year. But Obama does need support from Congress in order to use the ratings as a basis for parceling out federal financial aid. In addition to tuition, schools will also be rated on average student loan debt, graduation rates and the average earnings of graduates. Under Obama's proposal, students attending highly rated schools could receive larger grants and more affordable loans."
Forget ratings, measure ROI. (Score:5, Insightful)
What is the median salary, divided by total cost of education, one year and five years after graduation? That is really the main thing a prospective student needs to know. Everything else is window dressing.
Re:Forget ratings, measure ROI. (Score:5, Insightful)
The value of an education does not reside solely in earnings potential.
Re:Forget ratings, measure ROI. (Score:5, Insightful)
You are correct but at some point you must wonder whether it's worth it to go into debt, and by how much, to free your mind via Art History.
Re:Forget ratings, measure ROI. (Score:5, Interesting)
What I simply don't understand is why US universities are so expensive. It's gotten to the point where it seems that any sort of education can only be gotten my pretty much taking on so much debt that you will be lucky to pay it back - which then forces the government to start putting in copious amounts of scholarships/funding to keep students there.
Degree Costs in Australia [studyinaustralia.gov.au]
Over here, a degree (not counting the really expensive ones like medicine) costs $15-30k and a masters $20-37k.
The average cost [topuniversities.com] (excluding the notoriously expensive universities) in the US is $28k per year.
Seriously, why?
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It's the free market, son. That's what makes America great.
Seriously, it's the insane near religious stance that everything has to be a) profit making b) run like a widget company and c) expand financially forever. Coupled with fair degree of rent seeking, a terrible method of allocating money to people who cannot afford it on their own (Pell grants, the student loan system), massive expansion of physical plants for sports and near complete collapse of the vocational / technical college.
The Perfect Storm,
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Only problem is its not free market. Whats the opposite of free market? Oh yea, heavily regulated, that would describe our colleges better.
Many are state run, no free market right there, getting subsidies from all levels of government in return for following their rules, again no free market, and they are accredited by the government, no free market. Lets top it off by all student loans being backed by a clause in Obamacare so it is nearly impossible to get a loan not backed by the government.
At no level
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It's the free market, son. That's what makes America great.
You should take a world history class son and you would realize your bit of sarcasism is absolute truth. Competition and free markets are what have elevated human standard of living to the point it is today.
You demonstrate a massive amount of Confirmation Selection Bias. The deregulations and privatization of government programs, even including prisons and the army are met with religious fervor today, and even McCarthyism in the past. There is no black/white binary socialism vs capitalism. You can have both in a healthy economy, but you ignore massive amounts of evidence that this pure free market capitalism has been causing strife and economic ruination since the 70's.
Just for one example, it was the de
Re:Forget ratings, measure ROI. (Score:5, Insightful)
but you ignore massive amounts of evidence that this pure free market capitalism has been causing strife and economic ruination since the 70's.
There is no pure free market capitalism.
Just for one example, it was the deregulation of the housing and mortgage industry that allowed "free market" to destroy the economy in 2008.
No, it was the regulation of the home loan "industry" that created the problem that anyone with any sense could have seen coming. When you force banks to make bad loans, those bad loans have to go somewhere. When people with as much access to information as Dodd and Frank keep claiming there is no problem and keep stonewalling any regulation that would have helped prevent the collapse, you have to wonder why.
Competition and free markets are also the cause of much evil in the world today.
No, abuse of power is the cause of much evil in the world today. There are no truly free markets, so that can't be the excuse. Perhaps if the markets were freer and legislation and external control wasn't being applied to turn the market into a political and social tool for power. You know, like if banking regulations didn't force banks to make home loans to people who couldn't afford them if they wanted to avoid lawsuits over potential redlining, then maybe the banks wouldn't have had so much bad paper to find some way of dealing with. You know, just a thought.
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Banks were not forced to make bad loans. The various incentive programs still required the borrower to pass through the bank's lending criteria before making a loan.
What was new is banks didn't have to hold bad loans, thanks to securitization. So banks made a crapload of bad loans and then bundled them into a financial product. The bank got paid back long before the loan went bad. That removed the bank's incentive to not make b
Re:Forget ratings, measure ROI. (Score:5, Insightful)
Just for one example, it was the deregulation of the housing and mortgage industry that allowed "free market" to destroy the economy in 2008. You should take a world history class, fool. Hell, just get up to date on current events! Competition and free markets are also the cause of much evil in the world today. [youtube.com]
1997 the government decided that people should not pay capital gain taxes on houses but should pay capital gain taxes on everything else
2001 to come out of the recession, the government (via the federal reserve) artificially lowered interest rates to 1% and kept them there for 3 years. Fueling a borrowing spree
You have monsters like Fannie mae and Freddy mac, which are entities created by government with an implicit government garantee now made explicit. That bought mortgage securities from anyone capable of fogging a mirror. Creating a massive wave of creative loans such as ARMs. Banks hurried to finance anyone, so that they could turn around and sell the mortgage to government backed Fannie Mae and Freddy mac.
CRA (community reinvestment act) forced banks to give loans to lower income brackets that they would not have done otherwise
FHA provided garantees to mortages that allowed people to get a loan with 0% down. This meant that the minute houses went down even a little, a lot of people would end up underwater, which further fuels foreclosures creating a massive snowball effect.
Wake up, there is nothing free about the housing market, there is no deregulation. Please tell me what housing related law was struck down?. The bubble was made entirely courtesy of massive government distortions (which are still at full force). The minute the free marked tried to correct the misallocation in 2007 - 2008, and get rid of all these wasteful activities, the government doubled down on distortions (called them stimulus), fueling yet another bubble that will be sure to burst sooner or later.
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Here's where your theory starts to fall apart. Fannie and Freddy could only make or purchase "conforming" loans until well after the bubble had inflated. "Conforming" loans meant Fannie and Freddy could not buy all the bad loans the banks were making inflating the bubble.
Until the end of t
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Speaking of history, are you aware that undergrad degrees are at an all time high in the US?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Educational_Attainment_in_the_United_States_2009.png [wikipedia.org]
Looks like theres more than enough ignorance to go around in this topic.
but you ignore massive amounts of evidence that this pure free market capitalism
Also, we dont have "pure, free capitalism", and very few people actually want one.
Just for one example, it was the deregulation of the housing and mortgage industry that allowed "free market" to destroy the economy in 2008.
Wasnt there some pressure on Fannie Mae to give out a bunch of risky mortgage loans?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fannie_Mae#1990s [wikipedia.org]
Seems to me that played a role, and I dont think yo
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Competition and free markets are what have elevated human standard of living to the point it is today
It helped, so did cooperation. Nation-states were built to allow cooperation to trump competition in some areas, and they played a huge role in human development.
Re: Forget ratings, measure ROI. (Score:3)
The schools are pretty cheap if you go to your state school and live with mom and dad
If you go to another state's school the tuition is twice the in state and you have to pay lots of living expenses that people borrow
Why do kids do this? They are dumb. They want to get away from parents. They want to go to a party school and one with a good sports program.
There are some awesome and expensive schools like Stanford , Harvard and others where it's worth it paying all that money. Just not if you go to an averag
Re:Forget ratings, measure ROI. (Score:5, Interesting)
There was an article about this a few years back. Basically, the costs of college are so high that families are disassociated from the costs of repaying them if they're taking out government-subsidized loans. So, there's no difference between a $5K/semester school or a $7.5K/semester school when you have to borrow and won't pay off for 4 years anyway. People think, "damn this is expensive" which includes a wide range of prices. Schools have figured this out and know that whatever they charge for tuition they'll get from the government to some extent. It's not like profit-motivated banks are going to stop giving out loans. It's in the interest of the government to educate the workforce in a technical age. Add to that a crappy market where even secretary positions ask for college educations. Schools know how valuable their diplomas are, so they dangle them over our heads on a platinum barb.
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The value of a college degree is decreasing as your two statements show. As more jobs require them, justified or not, more people will get the degree just to satisfy that job requirement. As more people do get it, the higher the degree level requirement will become since having say an undergraduate degree will no longer di
Re:Forget ratings, measure ROI. (Score:5, Insightful)
What I simply don't understand is why US universities are so expensive.
They are fiercely competitive, so they spend gobs of money trying to outdo one another. And they get away with it because there are government-backed loans for domestic students and they draw from rich foreign student populations. When I visit my alma mater, or my wife's, the tuition has doubled over 20 years and so has the campus - there are literally twice as many buildings for roughly the same student population. I don't think the instruction has improved much - particularly at my wife's institution which has always been very prestigious - but the perks are amazing... the cafeteria looks like a fancy mall food court now. The gym is like a YMCA from heaven. There are cafés in the library. Ubiquitous WiFi. The newer dorms are not the bare painted cinderblock walls that we had. Landscaping and student areas are all immaculate. And of course, every bullet point in the US News and World Report rankings checklist has been addressed.
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Why? I'll tell you why. Because they CAN.
It used to be that they simply could not charge that much, because the average person simply could not afford to pay. Folks got though college on the "pay as you go" plan or arranged for *personal* loans to pay for it. Colleges customers didn't have the money so they could not charge it. So what changed?
The same thing happened for Cars... It used to be that you could by a Model-T for pretty cheap money but you paid all up front. Manufacturers found out that folk
Re:Forget ratings, measure ROI. (Score:5, Insightful)
As someone whose parents both retired recently from teaching at four-year universities, I don't buy that explanation. At all. It's pure and utter bulls**t. The fact is, most universities are barely holding on financially, having to cut entire programs to keep from going under. Professors' salaries barely keep up with inflation most of the time, if that, and staff salaries don't fare much better. They rely more and more on adjunct instructors to cover classes because they can't afford to hire additional professors to cover the classes.
Why are the costs going up? The main reason is that the cost of living is going up, while the states keep cutting the portion of the tuition that they pay so that they can spend that money on other programs. Most universities are getting smaller and smaller portions of their operating budget from the state, which inevitably means that they have to charge higher and higher tuition to make up the difference. There's no market magic involved here. There's no supply and demand at work. The demand is fixed; everyone wants an education. The supply is also fixed; every school can handle only a certain number of people. There's no profit margin—most schools are purely nonprofit and cannot make money except as temporary savings towards future costs—therefore, the cost is purely driven by the cost of operation. Any statements to the contrary, at least as far as public universities are concerned, are just plain wrong.
This is not to say that there isn't bloat in the system; if you dig in, you can find lots of small places where costs could easily be cut, and together they add up to big inefficiencies. The problem is that those inefficiencies are hard to rout out without a concerted effort by someone who understands how to motivate people. For example, policies along the lines of "Any money your department doesn't spend by the end of the year is returned to the general budget and may result in a reduction in your budget next year" are a big part of why we have this bloat creep problem. Fixing those sorts of policies at a systemwide level and giving bonuses for finding ways to improve efficiency are what is needed. Unfortunately, that sort of thinking seems to be very contrary to the university culture, at least in the United States. And this is another reason why the cost of education (and government in general) keeps going up.
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Here's why:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/ripping-off-young-america-the-college-loan-scandal-20130815 [rollingstone.com]
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The problem is that you're taking an average where an average is useless. There are too many variables. Many popular schools charge outrageous tuition not because it costs a lot of money, but rather to limit the number of applicants. You can recognize these schools because their sports teams are regularly mentioned on ESPN.
Also, not all students pay the same amount. If you choose to attend a school in another state, you get to pay a much higher out-of-state tuition rate because you have to pay the port
The obvious reasons... (Score:3, Informative)
First of all, you're comparing an Australian government propaganda site--excuse me--an Australian government site that's sole purpose is to show off what a good idea it is to come to Australia to study to a list of "topuniversities." There's a difference.
Secondly, an Australian bachelors degree is only three years versus four for the US. From my admittedly limited experience, Australian degrees tend to be more trade-oriented than most traditional US universities, so again, the difference is probably not as
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A degree here is nominally three years, but honours requires an extra year and a substantial project, which most people take up (this might not be the case outside of maths). Engineering is always four years; essentially one has to do the same work whether or not they receive honours.
I can't speak for the trade-oriented claim, as I study in a research-heavy university. However, one isn't forced to take courses unrelated to their degree as in the US, which might be what you allude to. There isn't anything
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Over here, a degree (not counting the really expensive ones like medicine) costs $15-30k and a masters $20-37k.
Here is an even more extreme example: France [wikipedia.org]
One can therefore get a Master's degree (in 5 years) for about €750-3,500.
And this includes health insurance. The bulk of the educational cost is socialized through taxes. Education (K12 to university) accounts for 1/3 of the state expenses, IIRC.
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Good question, but difficult to answer, since you have to consider some french higher education system oddities.
First, there are Universities, and there are Grandes Ecoles, which are smaller structures but highly subsided, and obvious first choices for students to get engineering or management degrees. Management can be expensive, but engineering remains very affordable, which means it is heavily subsided. The latter is especially true for the ones that manage to get into the top students of the top schools
Re:Forget ratings, measure ROI. (Score:5, Insightful)
Subsidies are not difficult to understand. (Score:3, Insightful)
Now we have grants and the ability to take out tens of thousands of dollars... per year... for tuition. All an adult student has to do is sign his or her name, and it is like free unlimited money for all the education you can eat.
How can anyone be confused by the idea that colleges
Re:Forget ratings, measure ROI. (Score:4, Insightful)
What I simply don't understand is why US universities are so expensive.
Theyre not.
Over here, a degree (not counting the really expensive ones like medicine) costs $15-30k and a masters $20-37k.
Same here.
Well, until someone decides that they want to go out of state, to a really expensive school, and then complain about debt, sure. For the record, I live in Va, and I can go to any of the following schools for ~$400 /credit:
I can also complete the first two years of undergrad for ~$100/credit at Va's community college system, and transfer into any of those. As I work it out, youre looking at ~$20k for your undergrad from fairly terrific schools ( I hear that UVA is considered "decent"....).
The "Why" is that sometimes people decide its a good idea to go to a university that they cant afford for a degree in an unmarketable field, and then complain that theyve dug themselves into a hole.
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And if Obama gets his way those community colleges will have less funding. Why? Because of low graduation rates.
Many kids don't graduate from community colleges, they transfer out to 4 year schools. Further more, many community colleges do not have strict admissions (if any) and allow anyone to attend. So they reduce aid to schools like this because their rating declines due to low graduation rates. Students are forced to look at 4 year schools and pay more for their education or can't get admissions at all
Re:Forget ratings, measure ROI. (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, some of them could make more in industry -- e.g. the hard sciences, math, engineering, some soft sciences like psychology, communications. Others, not so much. There's no commercial marked for history professors. English literature, not so much. Everybody thinks they can write and Amazon is shoveling out shlock in the name of literature. Your chances of making it big as a writer are about the same as your chances of making it big as a NBA basketball player. Lawyers, same thing. Law schools have been turning out too many Juris Doctors for the market for decades.
But you're right in the big picture. It's not that professors cost too much. You're talking the highest level of professional educators. They should be damn good (in my experience most are) and be paid well for what they do, commensurate with what other highly skilled professionals make. Their incomes have more or less kept pace with the professional workforce over the last few decades. They're not driving the college inflation trend. One big factor is a drastically reduced PUBLIC share of the budgets of state universities. There used to be much bigger subsidies.
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Re: the value of an education does not reside solely in earnings potential
Maybe for the independently wealthy, that's true. For most people, we borrow money to go to that fancy university and then we've got to pay it back plus interest. Spending years in hock to attend a school that has limited potential to aid me in getting a job to pay off that nut is not particularly useful regardless of how much I might enjoy that semester studying the works of Euripides.
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The value of an education does not reside solely in earnings potential.
It does if you're the student loan lender.
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"It might take forever, but it will get paid back."
No. If you don't ever have any money, they will not get paid back.
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All the knowledge you'd gain from college can be found for free online. And there are a hell of a lot better and more rewarding experiences you can have with 4(+) years of time and $60K.
The only reason to go to college and spend their absurd fees is so that you can get a higher paying job (or more rewarding) out of college that is worth more than the $60K and 4+ years you spent at college.
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Actually I have found for my engineering classes that a heck of a lot of the information is not available online. So far it is the only thing I have not been able to find online. Many of the equations in my heat transfer books, fluid equations, thermo equations are just not found online.
Online I have been able to find all the pure math stuff, the basics of heat transfer, fluid mechanics etc but none of the specific equations that are based on experiments. Heck if you look at Perry's Chemical Engineers' Han
Every goes to college to get ahead of everyone (Score:2)
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The irony being that because every high school student does it, they cannot, by definition, get ahead, because "ahead" is inherently relative.
One major problem is that our public K-12 system has completely failed to keep up with the times. Instead of teaching useful skills, it continues to teach the same things it did before, and at approximately the same
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The value of an education does not reside solely in earnings potential.
No, but given that the cost of it is vastly outpacing inflation and paying for it may very well eclipse the sub-prime mortgage crisis in terms of sheer economic damage, earnings potential by necessity tops the list of considerations. As well, the overwhelming majority of college applicants and programs are geared towards getting you into a new job... and one hopes, one that can at least pay the interest on all those loans you took out to land it. Worse, employers want more and more college degrees for every
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Earnings potential is a crude and incomplete measure.
But until a better measure is found it makes sense to use it.
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The practical value does.
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Re:Forget ratings, measure ROI. (Score:5, Interesting)
The cost of college will expand to consume the available student loans, grants and financial aid. This has been true since the invention of student loans.
I suspect your ROI calculation would serve only to raise the price of an economical college quickly up to the price of the most expensive schools, because the ROI would prove them to be a much better deal, and as they draw all the students they can handle the price will rise.
Re:Forget ratings, measure ROI. (Score:5, Insightful)
The cost of college will expand to consume the available student loans, grants and financial aid. This has been true since the invention of student loans.
The cost of college (at a state colleges) here has expanded because "we will cut your taxes" politicians kept getting elected, so the state cut their support of the colleges (20-odd% here from 2006-20011), so the colleges are now getting the money from the students.
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So it never went up prior to that?
I call bullshit. I've never known a time when college costs remained the same for more than two years in a row. Not 40 years ago, not 20 years ago, not even 10.
All he does is suggest "broad" change (Score:5, Interesting)
Where is the actually written bill?
He loves going place to place and telling that audience what they want to hear and then passing the actual work to Congress who he knows won't/can't do it.
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Re:All he does is suggest "broad" change (Score:5, Insightful)
Bills are written by the legislature, the President signs them. He can push an agenda, but he's not the one writing the actual bill.
Nothing's stopping him from writing a bill and giving it to a Rep. or Senator to introduce.
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Bills are written by the legislature, the President signs them. He can push an agenda, but he's not the one writing the actual bill.
Nothing's stopping him from writing a bill and giving it to a Rep. or Senator to introduce.
Nothing is stopping you from writing one either, except time and desire.
Good luck getting anything worthwhile to even be noticed, much less brought to committee or the floor. If it is a somewhat hot button, it can be argued about incessantly, then tabled to a committee for review/revision over and over until it is gutted and has riders you would have never dreamed of that are completely unrelated.
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Nothing is stopping you from writing one either, except time and desire.
On the other hand, XxtraLarGe isn't the one that keeps promising to do stuff that is beyond his power and authority to do.
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Bills are written by the legislature, the President signs them. He can push an agenda, but he's not the one writing the actual bill.
I know - I learned that in college. Oh wait, no I didn't. I learned it from Saturday morning cartoons: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyeJ55o3El0 [youtube.com]
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Well, to date I haven't seen any actual work, either by him or congress.
While the population turns more resentful by the day from intrusive government meddling and spying, he fiddles with programs that really don't need more government intervention.
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Ah, no. Look, when even the mainstream press keeps nagging on this NSA spying issue, its because People DO Care.
That you don't is pretty disheartening.
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Check congress's approval rating. See who comes out on top.
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Yeah. We have a President who blames congress for not writing bills based on vague descriptions of ideas that he has.
Congress does a lousy job defending itself because both parts are controlled by opposite sides and they are constantly blaming each other. The end result is that people hear 3 groups of people blaming Congress for all our woes. Of course Congress has a lower rating.
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As of last week, 46% of respondents approve of the President's job performance, 45% disapprove, and 8% have no opinion.
The statement "Most of the population either likes what he is doing, or don't care" is absolutely true.
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I'm going to need some proof that the 46% constitutes living, breathing people.
Personally, any poll showing a president not taking a hit for the unveiling of a giant surveillance program is rather suspect -> you could have been totally against the program from day one, with video proof every day you were in office, spending every moment railing against it, and you'd still take a hit. For someone who is for it to come out with a 46% approval rating is, well, what we could call "Putin-high" in the business
Ratings cost colleges?!? (Score:2)
Try losing students to skyrocketing tuition and fees. Dur.
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See, there are some little things called Pell Grants, Scholarships and Student Loans, these make it so college is much less price sensitive. Mix this with 6 years of guidance councilors stressing the importance of college, a depressed job market where a college degree is a requirement for even the most basic of entry-level positions and you have a market that isn't very price sensitive.
Its not like a student applies for college and is hit by a $15K bill for their first year, lo
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...Except they don't.
See, there are some little things called Pell Grants, Scholarships and Student Loans, these make it so college is much less price sensitive. Mix this with 6 years of guidance councilors stressing the importance of college, a depressed job market where a college degree is a requirement for even the most basic of entry-level positions and you have a market that isn't very price sensitive.
Its not like a student applies for college and is hit by a $15K bill for their first year, loans and grants cover it and so they might only pay $1-2 thousand per year up front.
The smart money is to spend your first two years at Junior or Community College, where all the credits will transfer, leaving only years 3 & 4 at the U.
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The smart thing to do is to not go to college at all unless it's a legal requirement to get into your profession. Honestly, we need to go back to the days when there weren't tons of worthless losers enrolling in college; what we don't need is this 'everyone has to go to college' nonsense.
Yeah, the good old days when the companies just went to Congress and begged for more H1B Visas, because them furriners is so smart, we needs moar of them.
Well played.
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" a depressed job market where a college degree is a requirement for even the most basic of entry-level positions"
That's just not true. There are tons of skilled trade jobs available that do not require college.
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" a depressed job market where a college degree is a requirement for even the most basic of entry-level positions"
That's just not true. There are tons of skilled trade jobs available that do not require college.
And when those positions are lost due to shifting job markets, shifting work overseas, etc. Guess where those people end up - trying to learn a new trade. I watched em flock in when the Auto industry began imploding, then throughout as people in jobs that depended upon Autoworkers income and spending were folding, too.
Colleges Will LOVE This... (Score:2)
The way it's written will negatively impact a lot of the higher ranked colleges from the past with the financial incentives that are mentioned. For the large private schools they're not going to care so much, but I have to imagine this will be dead in the water from the get go. Too much alumni power in the legislature for this to be something that will ever make its way through!
If a degree is the new high school diploma.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Then governments have no choice but to make it free and widely available to anyone on demand.
Then comes the arms race... (Score:3)
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Tell that to my GED.
I showed up most days to HS, quit caring mid-way through, kept attending, kept getting failing grades in classes I didn't care about. Week after my class graduated (without me clearly) I went and did the GED test, passed and moved on (BS, MS, lucrative job).
For years I've heard about kids being passed through the system as you describe... and I'm forced to lau
Congress might delay? Good. (Score:2)
I think that a delay in congress approving this scheme as a factor in funding would be a good thing. I doubt that US News and World Report had their ranking system perfected in just a year; even if the executive branch hired the most brilliant minds (for which they have neither the budget nor the appeal) it would be impossible to come up with a system reliable enough to guide billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidy. By all means, come up with a system, publish the results each year, and see how it works. Re
His solution isn't one (Score:4, Insightful)
College costs are due to the easy borrowing as a perverse consequence of trying to make college easier for people to afford. As with a car loan, nobody wants to pay $2000 for a fancy radio, but an extra $35/month, sign me up!
8% a year? No problem...on my loan! Sign me up!
The way to reign this in is to deny government backing for cheap loans to any college that increases costs more than 2% this year. And keep that up for 10 years to drag relative costs back down vs. inflation.
All these loudmouths in charge of colleges who throw up their hands and say hey don't know why, the liars will sort things out quickly.
Perverse incentives are perverse.
I hope it accounts for Winston-Salem (Score:2)
Stories [thecollegefix.com] like [nationalreview.com] these [popecenter.org] sicken me when it comes to how they are effectively ignored and swept under the rug. This case was criminally prosecuted [blackcollegewire.org] only because there was a lot of money involved and it was students and not the staff.
If people are going to spend ridiculously high costs for schooling, they need to know that it's not going to support criminals like those at Winston-Salem.
About time the gov. pushed back (Score:2)
Schools have been milking students via government loans for decades now.
From a European perspective (Score:3)
MFA's in Lesbian puppet theater: Furious! (Score:2)
And a whole generation of unpaid bloggers for Huffington Post and Salon rise up........and take the bus to the Temp Agency.
Throwing money at affordable schools seems... (Score:2)
...as silly as subsidizing successful businesses. How is a start-up supposed to displace the incumbents if the incumbents have access to government funds that can make them more affordable for students? In this case, maybe it's not a start-up, so much as a school that has simply turned things around. They'd face the same issue.
Graduation rates = lowered standards (Score:3, Insightful)
Option 1 leaves out students who are plenty smart, but just goofed around in high school. Option 2 makes university degrees worthless.
who's footing the bill (Score:2)
Small government repubtards: government is bad always. Hmm, if the government is already paying towards peoples education shouldn't they at least be able to base their loans on affordability or results (percentage of grads employed in their field, percentage making larger than median wage etc)? Somehow it is better to keep things the way they are then to risk actually considering whether or not to subsidize an expensive basket weaving program.
Lame duck. (Score:3)
At this point, he's got such a huge back log of other things and such a huge investment in other things that reforming higher education is really not something anyone is going to cooperate on. As in anything, there are entrenched interests.
The president should spend what time he has left finishing the things he's started. Very little new he attempts at his point will be accepted or catch on.
The first term is where you push these things. And the second term is where you cement them. Well.... finish what you've started and stop creating new programs and ideas for entirely unrelated issues that in most cases are no great matter.
Just stop (Score:4, Insightful)
So students going to lesser schools will be fucked with less affordable loans? WTF?
How about the government just STOP guaranteeing student loans (which can't even be discharged in bankruptcy). Get the fuck out of the system, it's the loan program that has driven up tuition rates for 25 years. When I went there were several students who worked to pay their own way. As hard as that seems to do back then, it must be nearly impossible today, so they get loans and then get fucked for life. Same thing happened with subsidized housing, all that did is drive up home prices to the point of a bubble that crippled the economy for years. Just fucking stop meddling.
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I'm neither a Congressman nor a Republican, but you can put me in the 'wary of deepening the government's role in higher education' column. So far their meddling in the marketplace has led to an inflation rate for higher education not only several times higher than the general inflation rate - but even higher than the 'skyrocketing healthcare cost' inflation rate we are alway hearing about.
Wary?!? Ha!
Cost of tuition has often been linked to a reduction in State Funding, you don't need to be a Republicrat or Democan, but a mathematician to figure it out. Also, helps to read the news.
Ha ha. So rich, I'm going to remember this one.
Every time I saw tuition go up when I was in school it followed cuts in public education funding. Out here in California, the tuition at UC and CSU has gone up quickly because the state is trying to get its own budget under control after running deep into the red wh
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Every time I saw tuition go up when I was in school it followed cuts in public education funding.
Did you ever link it to the availability of easy student loans?
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Every time I saw tuition go up when I was in school it followed cuts in public education funding.
Did you ever link it to the availability of easy student loans?
No, it was stated right in the announcements, published in the news. We would hear $500 M to $5 B being cut in announcements from the Governor's Office or California Department of Education - usually with a breakdown of what % would affect State of California colleges and universities as well as K-12 education, including Special Education, Early Childhood, Class Size Reduction and so on. There was quite a bit of paring of staff, but it couldn't cover it all, so tuition went up and students grumbled, prote
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To be fair, you guys generally vote yourselves lower taxes and more services on a daily basis. You kinda deserve what you've done to your state via stupidity in direct voting.
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It is also a matter of employability. Trades might lead to a quicker payoff but the public perception is for the most part you need to a professional to be a success. That means university and you'll pay what you need too. Heck it isn't exactly like the prospects for someone with just highschool is looking any better as time goes on that has to affect the price of higher education. The schools could pretty much charge me whatever they wanted to because it will sure beat being 60 years old and shoveling shit
we need get away from the 4 year for all idea (Score:2)
for most job an 2 year Community College and or tech / trade school is all that is needed. To much push for the old 4 year system.
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for most job an 2 year Community College and or tech / trade school is all that is needed. To much push for the old 4 year system.
We are on a track where only the children of the very well off will be able to afford higher education.
Sounds like the 19th century and earlier, doesn't it?
an apprentice nano-tech engineer? No, we do not take on apprentices .. though we might, because that Reginald Twit IV is proving to be quite incompetent and wants to take off afternoons to play Polo too often.
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We need to have fewer people in college. If you can't finish, you shouldn't go at all - you'd be better off getting a job and gaining experience instead of debt.
Who is to say which college graduate will be the one to start a business and employ people? I really do enjoy these discussions. Ignorance isn't bliss, it's poverty.
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They have to limit demand somehow and granting admission based on merit is just silly.
Re:How about get rid of student loans? (Score:5, Interesting)
Want the potential of college without the risk of massive debt due to picking the wrong major or flunking out?
Try Oregon's new College tuition bill "Pay Forward" (bill passed, but not yet implemented). The government pays for the full cost of tuition over 4 years. You pay them 3% of your salary for 24 years. Is it more expensive for the student? For good jobs, sure. But it gives a peace of mind that you aren't going to be hurt too badly financially, and reduces the penalty if college just didn't work out for you.
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Want the potential of college without the risk of massive debt due to picking the wrong major or flunking out?
Try Oregon's new College tuition bill "Pay Forward" (bill passed, but not yet implemented). The government pays for the full cost of tuition over 4 years. You pay them 3% of your salary for 24 years. Is it more expensive for the student? For good jobs, sure. But it gives a peace of mind that you aren't going to be hurt too badly financially, and reduces the penalty if college just didn't work out for you.
I assume there's a provision for if the student moves out of state or out of the country.
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Re: Yeah, dont' go. (Score:2)
And whiny students want new dorms with no roommates, private bathrooms, all kinds of counselors to talk to and make sure they are ok
The people I know who went to college in the 70's and 80's lived in the worst slums and worked almost full time to pay for school. Or they went to their state school or community college for the first two years, lived with mommy to save money and for the last two years transferred to a good school after getting that 3.9 GPa that first two years. Or got a degree from an average
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All of the ranking criteria are quantitative. Your school's dropout rate is your dropout rate, regardless of how many political friends or enemies you have.
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There is absolutely no shortage of wealthy foreign students who will happily pay full rate for a US education so they can take it back to their own country and make it more competitive than the United States in the global economy.