A Generation Hobbled by the Soaring Cost of College

PrometheusBound said:

Finally, someone distinguished between quantity and quality. I was a National Merit scholar but I couldn't stand working without pay, which is all college means. I was never allowed to contribute my talent to society unless I sacrificed by living like a 15-year-old until I finished college and graduate schools.

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To be honest, businesses benefit less from smart people who are just there to get paid then they do from people who actually want to work. If all college means is "working without pay" - perhaps you're not one of the few who belongs there.

But you of course already know that, or you would have made the choice to go.

cmakaioz said:

You're welcome to take that up with someone if they bring up utopian dreams. Note: a practice or change being beyond *your* political imagination doesn't make something utopian.

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Imagining a world where there are no jobs, college is free... sounds like parts of that dream utopian society.

Unless you have some kind of disability, referring to the post in question as a wall of text suggest you have an incredibly low tolerance for reading.

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Yeah, a low tolerance for reading, that's it. Of course, I read pretty constantly, which throws that out the window.

So, to be clear...because you just listened to Ed Schulz, you can't be bothered to put together a reasonable and responsible response to basic points? Ok...got it.

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Because I listened to him, and his partisan hackery wore me down some, it made it next to impossible to read or respond to your partisan hackery. That's all.

radcen said:

Who will mow the lawns of all these wealthy people?

Like it or not, even the more "manual" jobs are needed and will always be needed. Somebody needs to do landscaping. Somebody needs to run a dry cleaner. Somebody needs to fix cars. And no, not all of them legitimately require a college education.

A friend of mine told me once that he has two friends... one a judge and one a plumber... and the plumber makes more money per year than the judge. Sounds like the plumber made 'something' of himself to me.

When your pipes break, are you going to fix them? Probably not. Shoot, even changing one's oil in their own car is fast becoming a lost art.

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The amount of unskilled labor we need steadily declines. Maybe there will always be people involved in landscaping, for example, but already today it requires probably only about half the number of people it did 50 years ago. Power mowers replaced those reel mowers that take at least 2-3 times as long to do a yard. Weed whackers replaced hand clippers. For heavy duty stuff little Bobcats and whatnot have made things radically less labor intensive, etc. The same is true of all those things. Dry cleaning, plumbing and auto repair all all much more efficient today than they were 50 years ago, and those trends will continue.

And, on top of that, the amount of skill required to do those jobs will is going up. A modern day plumber often times totes around a laptop with them and uses computer models to figure out what to do in big buildings and whatnot.

We can imagine that in another 50 years maybe instead of 10 landscapers operating the machines of today we will have one guy coordinating the efforts of machines from his living room miles away. Maybe that means that instead of 10 jobs you can do without a degree we have 1 job that does require a college degree. And maybe 100 years from now 1 computer programmer will replace 100 of those guys who were coordinating it from home and instead of 1,000 manual laborers, we'll need 1 guy with a Phd. in software engineering.

But, certainly it is true that some manual labor will probably always be needed, and certainly some is today. That doesn't mean that is where we should be setting our goals. That kind of work should be done by the people who can't cut it in the more high return jobs and guest workers. Our goal needs to be to get as many people as possible into better jobs. The lower reward jobs will sort themselves out just fine.

As a side note- judges are ludicrously underpaid. Many, maybe even most of them, leave jobs making 10 times as much money. Partners at law firms often make over a million a year, sometimes even $5 million or more, but people leave those jobs to become judges because of the prestige, because it's fascinating work, because the want to give something back, etc.

teamosil said:

Aren't you contradicting yourself? On one hand you're saying it is "all about the research", but on the other hand you seem to be saying that they don't spend much any paid time researching... It has definitely been my experience that professors spend at least as much time writing and researching as they do teaching. That may not be true at lower tier schools, but lower tier schools also generally don't charge as much.

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Where did I say "they don't spend much of any paid time researching"? I made the opposite point - that teaching is almost a side activity for many professors. Stated another way - students are paying a lot more than they used to, but aren't benefiting from the extra cost.

(As anyone who has sat - with 350 of their best friends - through a semester-long course taught by a graduate student can attest)

Taylor said:

To be honest, businesses benefit less from smart people who are just there to get paid then they do from people who actually want to work. If all college means is "working without pay" - perhaps you're not one of the few who belongs there.

But you of course already know that, or you would have made the choice to go.

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But businesses benefit more from smart people who actually want to work than from the typical mediocre college graduate who actually wants to work. How much effort someone puts into working without pay in college does not indicate how hard he will work when he finally does get paid for it. People have been making the usual suggestions about college education for 50 years and it keeps getting worse. The reason for the failed discussion is that nobody yet has suggested that students get paid for their grades. People bang their heads against the wall with their irrelevant and prompted suggestions and only get headaches. They feel intellectually superior about the incentive motivation, yet won't apply it rationally to college education. "Deferred gratification" is not the most effective incentive and it only motivates anal-retentive students.

Taylor said:

Where did I say "they don't spend much of any paid time researching"? I made the opposite point - that teaching is almost a side activity for many professors. Stated another way - students are paying a lot more than they used to, but aren't benefiting from the extra cost.

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Ok, maybe I misunderstood when you were talking about outside grants.

But, I agree with your basic premise that the students are only reaping part of the benefit of the universities. That's why IMO universities should be funded with tax dollars. We all benefit from having them. Partly because they provide educated workforces, but also because they are one of the only sources of pure, non-interested, non-commercial, research and writing and thought. That kind of thing is worth huge sums of money to society.

Arbo said:

Imagining a world where there are no jobs, college is free... sounds like parts of that dream utopian society.



Yeah, a low tolerance for reading, that's it. Of course, I read pretty constantly, which throws that out the window.



Because I listened to him, and his partisan hackery wore me down some, it made it next to impossible to read or respond to your partisan hackery. That's all.

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Or, alternately, you projected partisan hackery onto posts and positions where there is none. Are you always delusional/hallucinogenic after Ed Schulz, or just occasionally?

I'm just trying to get a fix on this bizarre premise by which you consider I-Don't-Feel-Like-Thinking to be a reasonable position to take in this -- or any -- conversation.

cmakaioz said:

Or, alternately, you projected partisan hackery onto posts and positions where there is none. Are you always delusional/hallucinogenic after Ed Schulz, or just occasionally?

I'm just trying to get a fix on this bizarre premise by which you consider I-Don't-Feel-Like-Thinking to be a reasonable position to take in this -- or any -- conversation.

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Yes, I know you guys on the left like to make it personal and all, but that has nothing to do with the 'free' for everyone sort of stuff and 'freedom' from work utopian fantasy land that is often put forth... that you did put forth.

Dittohead not! said:

Why should any undergrad program cost 50 grand a year?

High schools spend around 10 grand or so, more in affluent areas and in pockets of poverty that attract federal dollars perhaps, but still somewhere around that figure. High school kids are still not considered to be adults, and so have to be watched all of the time they're at school. Universities, on the other hand, have them in class for two or three hours a day at most, and leave them on their own the rest of the time. Moreover, the college can put 200 students into a big lecture hall with one professor. Try that with high school kids and see what happens. Higher education is much less labor intensive, then, and yet the cost is a lot more. Sure, the professors have to have a high degree of education, but most of them still aren't payed any great salary. I've interviewed college professors wanting to go back to K -12, and why? Because the pay is better.

So, why should college be so expensive in the first place?

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Because our society couldn't function if everyone went to college.

Arbo said:

Yes, I know you guys on the left like to make it personal and all, but that has nothing to do with the 'free' for everyone sort of stuff and 'freedom' from work utopian fantasy land that is often put forth... that you did put forth.

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That's funny...France has essentially free education up through graduate school in many fields. Is France a utopian dream?

Most households, all volunteer organizations, many cultural and community groups, and a host of other institutions and contexts involve plenty of economic activities not structured as wage employment. Are all of those utopian dreams?

I never posited nor argued in favor of anything being free for EVERYONE. I pointed to one (1) specific subject and possibility -- college education being financially free to the student, and you still seem incapable of even acknowledging this much accurately.

I guess the real question is this: Is getting you to have an intellectually honest conversation about something a utopian dream?

apdst said:

Because our society couldn't function if everyone went to college.

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Under current terms and arrangements? Of course not.

Here's a radical idea...how about not falsely treating the current arrangement of things as if it were the only way to do things?

This may be a shocker...but things are often connected to each other, such that if you change some aspect of a societal arrangement (like bankrupting students as a tradeoff for allowing them to go to college), some other things would change as well...and some of those other changes may (I know, this is heresy) lead to results other than what you are falsely treating as inevitable.

Just a thought.

teamosil said:

Ok, maybe I misunderstood when you were talking about outside grants.

But, I agree with your basic premise that the students are only reaping part of the benefit of the universities. That's why IMO universities should be funded with tax dollars. We all benefit from having them. Partly because they provide educated workforces, but also because they are one of the only sources of pure, non-interested, non-commercial, research and writing and thought. That kind of thing is worth huge sums of money to society.

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Your state schools are funded with tax dollars? Mine are. If you want to go out of state, you have to pay a premium. But the cost of college is greatly reduced for in-state tuition. Especially here in CT.

Blue_State said:

Your state schools are funded with tax dollars? Mine are. If you want to go out of state, you have to pay a premium. But the cost of college is greatly reduced for in-state tuition. Especially here in CT.

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Yeah that's true most places. IMO education should all be totally funded out of taxes like most first world countries do. We should be eliminating as many barriers to education as possible. We're already sliding because of our lackluster pursuit of education and the next generation is going to require a lot more education than we do. We need to be ramping up educationally and when people aren't going to college just because their parents don't have a ton of money, that's huge economic waste. It's like not cashing in a $100k lottery ticket because you don't want to spend $5 on the gas to get to the store.

cmakaioz said:

Under current terms and arrangements? Of course not.

Here's a radical idea...how about not falsely treating the current arrangement of things as if it were the only way to do things?

This may be a shocker...but things are often connected to each other, such that if you change some aspect of a societal arrangement (like bankrupting students as a tradeoff for allowing them to go to college), some other things would change as well...and some of those other changes may (I know, this is heresy) lead to results other than what you are falsely treating as inevitable.

Just a thought.

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Borrowing money to go to college just like borrowing money to start a business: it's a gamble and there's needs to be a reasonable assurance that you'll make enough money to pay back the loan.

If that reasonable assurance doesn't exist, then common sense dictates that you shouldn't go deep in debt to get a degree. Anyone who doesn't understand that and goes 50 grand+ in debt to get a degree in basket weaving deserves what they get.

apdst said:

Because our society couldn't function if everyone went to college.

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They do leave out the cost involved in making enough colleges to support everyone. But it seems believers of this 'free' idea, as is often seen, don't much think about the reality of funding such things.

cmakaioz said:

That's funny...France has essentially free education up through graduate school in many fields.

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Have you ever looked into the quality of any of it? Due to the lack of funding most of the school system there has?

Most households, all volunteer organizations, many cultural and community groups, and a host of other institutions and contexts involve plenty of economic activities not structured as wage employment. Are all of those utopian dreams?

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How many of them feed, shelter and cloth your family?

I never posited nor argued in favor of anything being free for EVERYONE. I pointed to one (1) specific subject and possibility -- college education being financially free to the student, and you still seem incapable of even acknowledging this much accurately.

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A repeat: If it is free to go to, more people will go just because it is free. You can not then deny people. So in essence you are allowing EVERYONE to go, and go for free.

I guess the real question is this: Is getting you to have an intellectually honest conversation about something a utopian dream?

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Funny stuff. Trying backing any of your points with unbiased data that supports it, then get back to us on intellectual honesty.

Dittohead not! said:

Why should any undergrad program cost 50 grand a year?

High schools spend around 10 grand or so, more in affluent areas and in pockets of poverty that attract federal dollars perhaps, but still somewhere around that figure. High school kids are still not considered to be adults, and so have to be watched all of the time they're at school. Universities, on the other hand, have them in class for two or three hours a day at most, and leave them on their own the rest of the time. Moreover, the college can put 200 students into a big lecture hall with one professor. Try that with high school kids and see what happens. Higher education is much less labor intensive, then, and yet the cost is a lot more. Sure, the professors have to have a high degree of education, but most of them still aren't payed any great salary. I've interviewed college professors wanting to go back to K -12, and why? Because the pay is better.

So, why should college be so expensive in the first place?

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College professors get paid more than twice what high school teachers get paid. :shrug:

Blue_State said:

Your state schools are funded with tax dollars? Mine are. If you want to go out of state, you have to pay a premium. But the cost of college is greatly reduced for in-state tuition. Especially here in CT.

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even less if you go to a junior college for the first two years.

Arbo said:

They do leave out the cost involved in making enough colleges to support everyone. But it seems believers of this 'free' idea, as is often seen, don't much think about the reality of funding such things.

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It's been my observation that people who things should given out for free, believe that things are free, to begin with. They usually don't have a clue about how it costs money to do, everything.

mac said:

College professors get paid more than twice what high school teachers get paid. :shrug:

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Really? Are you sure about that? I think it depends on how much they publish, but that might not be right.

Dittohead not! said:

Really? Are you sure about that? I think it depends on how much they publish, but that might not be right.

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The average US teacher salary is about 45k and the average professor's salary is 100k (not including grant and research income).

mac said:

The average US teacher salary is about 45k and the average professor's salary is 100k (not including grant and research income).

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I would like to point out though that most universities are using poorly paid adjuncts to teach their classes and tenure professorships are turning into a thing of the past.

iliveonramen said:

I would like to point out though that most universities are using poorly paid adjuncts to teach their classes and tenure professorships are turning into a thing of the past.

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Even the poorly paid adjuncts make more on average than the average teacher. Just not by as great a margin.

mac said:

Even the poorly paid adjuncts make more on average than the average teacher. Just not by as great a margin.

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"poorly paid adjuncts" i.e. graduate assistants, are paid more than 45 grand on average? No kidding? I think I'll go back to grad school.

mac said:

even less if you go to a junior college for the first two years.

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JC's are of course less expensive...assuming the courses you need are being offered in the first place (and then at times when working students can take them). Here in CA, the system is in shambles. A "four-year" degree is typically five due to lack of class offerings and cuts in financial aid, and in many cases (including my own), doing "two years" of JC classes ends up being three or four because anything in STEM curricula is badly overcrowded (and lab classes have an absolute maximum).

Ultimately, it's not rocket science. Higher education is a low priority in federal and in state budgets, and as a result college is more expensive, less accessible, takes more time, and provides less.

I put college on hold for a while, and I'm picking up again when I move to Massachusetts later this year.

apdst said:

It's been my observation that people who things should given out for free, believe that things are free, to begin with. They usually don't have a clue about how it costs money to do, everything.

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That's nice. What about the folks who believe education should be free to the student, and who are crystal clear that it still has to be paid for? Instead of dealing with abstractions, how about dealing with positions of actual posts which don't fit your preconceptions?