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The main issue I feel is fixing our public universities, and that has a very easy fix - simply restore the percentage of funding that the university gets from the state back to historic levels. Back in the 80s about 75% (on average) of costs were paid for by the state, and now less than 30% are, and falling. Effectronica posted:So how much of that money is grants/donations for specific purposes and how much of it can be used for anything? Because if they get money to build a new dorm, and they use it to make up for the state of Washington slashing funding again, they are liable to be sued, and in any case, are less likely to get any more money from that donor. The way grants normally work is that a certain percentage is taken out by the university for general maintenance relating to the project (so for example, if you get a grant to run a machine to analyze rocks, the university takes some of that to pay for the electricity the machine uses). The percentage varies, but is apparently between 30-70% (the upper bound commonly being for military research). Note that this only has to be devoted to the project in theory, there's not actually a mechanism to determine "oh yeah this money went for the rock machine electricity and not the atom smasher electricity", etc. Ghost of Reagan Past posted:Also, when the student loan bubble bursts it's going to destroy the economy. So we've got that to look forward to! A large part of the student loan "bubble" actually is solely within the purview of the US Government, so as long as the government remains solvent you really don't have much to worry about. computer parts fucked around with this message at 09:51 on Jan 23, 2015 |
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Jan 23, 2015 09:46
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computer parts posted:The main issue I feel is fixing our public universities, and that has a very easy fix - simply restore the percentage of funding that the university gets from the state back to historic levels. Back in the 80s about 75% (on average) of costs were paid for by the state, and now less than 30% are, and falling. Why do people always cite percentage of funding, rather than the absolute amount? It seems disingenuous and masks the problem of feature creep at public universities. Here's a great source of data for this point: http://chronicle.com/article/25-Years-of-Declining-State/144973/ If we look at UC Berkeley at random, the share of funding was ~50% in 1987 and only ~22% in 2012. drat those rethuglicans! But the actual numbers are $335mm from the state in 1987, and $383mm in 2012, so the state has actually increased the funding, but the school's expenditures had risen far faster than this increase in state support. Most schools seem to follow this pattern. If schools are going to grow expenditures faster than a state will increase funding, maybe governments should hesitate to throw more gasoline on the fire and maybe take some time to shrink universities back down to size. Restrict capital expenditures and the growth of administration, and other stuff needed to bring costs down.
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Jan 23, 2015 10:49
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on the left posted:Why do people always cite percentage of funding, rather than the absolute amount? It seems disingenuous and masks the problem of feature creep at public universities. Because absolute amount (as in, $/student) has also gone down.
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Jan 23, 2015 10:50
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computer parts posted:The main issue I feel is fixing our public universities, and that has a very easy fix - simply restore the percentage of funding that the university gets from the state back to historic levels. Back in the 80s about 75% (on average) of costs were paid for by the state, and now less than 30% are, and falling. i don't think just boosting funding would help, my old university was actively fleecing students on dorm costs. they would charge more than double the cost of a two bedroom apartment per month for a small room you have to share with another student. they also forced all first year students to stay in the dorms for the "college experience". they built luxury dorms this year that cost even more, but half the rooms are reserved for athletic program students. nearly everything student oriented in the US is predatory nowadays
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Jan 23, 2015 10:51
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Condiv posted:i don't think just boosting funding would help, my old university was actively fleecing students on dorm costs. they would charge more than double the cost of a two bedroom apartment per month for a small room you have to share with another student. they also forced all first year students to stay in the dorms for the "college experience". they built luxury dorms this year that cost even more, but half the rooms are reserved for athletic program students. No, you also need to cut down on excessive administration. But I can assure you that gutting funding is directly related to them turning predatory, at least as one major factor.
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Jan 23, 2015 10:56
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on the left posted:Why do people always cite percentage of funding, rather than the absolute amount? It seems disingenuous and masks the problem of feature creep at public universities. If you think percentages are disingenuous I don't even know what to say. $335m in 1987 dollars is about $700m in 2015 dollars.
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Jan 23, 2015 11:49
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blah_blah posted:If you think percentages are disingenuous I don't even know what to say. $335m in 1987 dollars is about $700m in 2015 dollars. Legislatures have not defunded higher education, they have simply failed to track the explosive growth of costs. The cost increases don't seem to be spent on extra faculty either, primarily useless administrative employees and capital projects that are of varying usefulness. The state government should not be writing a blank check to university presidents who have every incentive to use those public funds for private gain.
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Jan 23, 2015 13:04
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on the left posted:Legislatures have not defunded higher education, they have simply failed to track the explosive growth of costs. The cost increases don't seem to be spent on extra faculty either, primarily useless administrative employees and capital projects that are of varying usefulness. Administration is a major cost sink but a lot of those costs is infrastructure (physical or otherwise) to support the vast numbers of new students being added each year.
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Jan 23, 2015 13:08
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computer parts posted:Administration is a major cost sink but a lot of those costs is infrastructure (physical or otherwise) to support the vast numbers of new students being added each year. Some facts and figures on that: In the US, enrollment in degree-granting institutions increased by 11 percent between 1991 and 2001. Between 2001 and 2011, enrollment increased 32 percent, from 15.9 million to 21.0 million. (http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=98) Those aren't big numbers when you break them down to annual returns (1% and 2.8% annualized increase respectively), and you don't ever hear professors talking about how great the academic job market is because of expanding universities.
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Jan 23, 2015 13:50
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The rot is spreading in Seattle, the job market for college grads and even people with a little experience under their belts is awful and the cost of living is exploding. We're quickly transforming into San Francisco. I've already started fantasizing about moving back to the Midwest and combining a good education with a not-insane rental market. The University of Washington from every story I hear is essentially unaffordable unless you somehow get a full ride.
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Jan 23, 2015 13:54
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on the left posted:Some facts and figures on that: In the US, enrollment in degree-granting institutions increased by 11 percent between 1991 and 2001. Between 2001 and 2011, enrollment increased 32 percent, from 15.9 million to 21.0 million. (http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=98) Growing 30% in a decade is pretty big in general, doubly so if you're starting from a large population base. And again, I never talked about academic jobs, I talked about capital projects. If you have a large population to start (many state universities do) and you experience 30% growth over the course of a decade? You're going to be spending lots of money for new buildings. This is doubly true if you want to maintain a low student:teacher ratio (although many don't). computer parts fucked around with this message at 14:06 on Jan 23, 2015 |
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Jan 23, 2015 14:03
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computer parts posted:Growing 30% in a decade is pretty big in general, doubly so if you're starting from a large population base. Individual colleges aren't necessary posting huge increases to student enrollment, there's always other upstart universities and private universities to take the additional students. There's no reason a university has to greatly expand, rather then just taking the opportunity to be more selective. Also, why wouldn't academic jobs be a way better predictor of college capacity than buildings? You need a professor for every class, but creative use of buildings can dramatically increase capacity.
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Jan 23, 2015 14:09
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on the left posted:Individual colleges aren't necessary posting huge increases to student enrollment, there's always other upstart universities and private universities to take the additional students. There's no reason a university has to greatly expand, rather then just taking the opportunity to be more selective. The public universities are the ones seeing the most growth though, and that's to be expected because they're the cheapest ones. quote:Also, why wouldn't academic jobs be a way better predictor of college capacity than buildings? You need a professor for every class, but creative use of buildings can dramatically increase capacity. Class size can vary by a very large amount, and graduate students can and often do provide teaching.
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Jan 23, 2015 14:16
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So how expensive are public K-12 schools, and why don't we just turn the last two years of K-12 into community college? Then universities, if you want to go to one, can take just two years of students' time and loans, and later when we talk of funding education, we only need to figure out how to fund 2 years of post-high school education rather than four years. Really, focusing on the last four years of education is silly. We should look at the entire time that we spend educating students. Maybe sixteen years of education really is too expensive and it's time for us to actually do a decent job with the first twelve years. Ardennes posted:The funny thing a lot of people who really are into pressing STEM also think nursing is a "humiliating menial job for women" when it is one of the fields with the most demand and more and more nurses are men making solid middle class incomes. That's probably the problem. Who wants to study a boring field for four years in exchange for a merely middle-class income? You shouldn't need to go to college for that kind of income - you should be capable of making it when you get out of highschool and if you're not capable, then maybe the K-12 is hosed up and we should recognize that as the problem instead of worrying so much about how we're going to spend more of students' time to prepare them for jobs that pay even less (unless they're going into specific fields, where the extra time spent just gets them what they would have gotten without college a few decades ago). EB Nulshit fucked around with this message at 15:00 on Jan 23, 2015 |
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Jan 23, 2015 14:54
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What's funny is that the entire chain of logic underlying the "university is expensive because of greed" model requires that universities attract incredible motherfuckers as administrators inherently in order to justify ending universities for anybody other than the rich and expanding trade schools. Because if this is due to lack of funding and increased enrollment, then that will happen to trade schools and drive their prices up, and if it's just due to opportunism, what stops trade school administrators from doing the same thing? computer parts posted:The way grants normally work is that a certain percentage is taken out by the university for general maintenance relating to the project (so for example, if you get a grant to run a machine to analyze rocks, the university takes some of that to pay for the electricity the machine uses). The percentage varies, but is apparently between 30-70% (the upper bound commonly being for military research). Note that this only has to be devoted to the project in theory, there's not actually a mechanism to determine "oh yeah this money went for the rock machine electricity and not the atom smasher electricity", etc. I'm also talking about endowments, which fund a lot of the really bullshit projects like adding another art museum or whatever. EB Nulshit posted:So how expensive are public K-12 schools, and why don't we just turn the last two years of K-12 into community college? Then universities, if you want to go to one, can take just two years of students' time and loans, and later when we talk of funding education, we only need to figure out how to fund 2 years of post-high school education rather than four years. Good luck doing something no other nation on earth has ever figured out.
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Jan 23, 2015 15:03
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Has any nation even tried? What's the point of K-12 if not to prepare students to live in today's world? What counts as "being prepared" if not the ability to provide a decent living for yourself?
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Jan 23, 2015 15:07
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EB Nulshit posted:Has any nation even tried? Yes. The German system produced the Hauptschulen, which attempt to provide basic vocational training and ready students for apprenticeships and lasts one year less than American high schools. The proportion of students attending them has nevertheless dropped steadily.
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Jan 23, 2015 15:20
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Effectronica posted:Yes. The German system produced the Hauptschulen, which attempt to provide basic vocational training and ready students for apprenticeships and lasts one year less than American high schools. The proportion of students attending them has nevertheless dropped steadily. How has attendance been dropping? Is it not mandatory? If it's not mandatory then that's the problem.
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Jan 23, 2015 15:23
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EB Nulshit posted:How has attendance been dropping? Is it not mandatory? If it's not mandatory then that's the problem. They've gone to other schools, dumbass. People have pushed their children, and children have acted on their own initiative, to get into the Realschulen and Gymnasien, which offer a more prestigious education and in the case of the Gymnasien are the college-prep schools.
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Jan 23, 2015 15:26
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Effectronica posted:They've gone to other schools, dumbass. People have pushed their children, and children have acted on their own initiative, to get into the Realschulen and Gymnasien, which offer a more prestigious education and in the case of the Gymnasien are the college-prep schools. That's pretty much what I expected, so I don't know why you're calling me a dumbass. And the existence of prestige in pre-college education, and eliminate college-prep schools means when I ask, quote:Has any nation even tried? that Germany is not a nation that has tried. Sorry. Try picking a nation that has actually tried to make all (or even most) students from precollege schools ready to provide for themselves by the time they graduate before you say it's something that no nation has ever figured it out. EB Nulshit fucked around with this message at 15:38 on Jan 23, 2015 |
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Jan 23, 2015 15:35
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computer parts posted:The way grants normally work is that a certain percentage is taken out by the university for general maintenance relating to the project Not quite, because that money can really end up almost anywhere, as long as you can say it has something to do with research support. Indirect costs don't need to relate to the project at all, they just need to be within reasonable bounds. You need facilities maintenance, but it doesn't need to be the building that researcher is in, it could go into a general fund. There's zero transparency about how the money is used; from the perspective of the researcher who got the grant, it just disappears.
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Jan 23, 2015 15:39
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OneThousandMonkeys posted:The rot is spreading in Seattle, the job market for college grads and even people with a little experience under their belts is awful and the cost of living is exploding. We're quickly transforming into San Francisco. I've already started fantasizing about moving back to the Midwest and combining a good education with a not-insane rental market. The University of Washington from every story I hear is essentially unaffordable unless you somehow get a full ride. It was cheaper for me to attend Harvey Mudd than the University of Washington ('07). That's batshit crazy.
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Jan 23, 2015 15:45
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Forceholy posted:You only get a degree if you get a STEM degree, at least according to the internet. It's actually according to any statistic you can find on the matter. Not sure why anyone would think differently when STEM only represents 20% of college graduates and pretty much every new job, or job with 20%+ employment growth per year is all in STEM fields. It's basic supply and demand.
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Jan 23, 2015 15:48
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Also we've seen this sort of bubble formation before. When you give out money 'for free' nobody ever looks at the final price, they either look at monthly payments (mortgages) or in the case of college, ignore it completely. In fact a school costing more is seen as a plus to many people - more money is more prestigious in most people's minds. So even if costs could be controlled there's absolutely no reason colleges should actually not just keep raising tuition as far as they can go. Of course there's lots of things going into this, so the above may be just a small factor. But it allows for the existence of schools and programs that have no business existing. Yes, we want everyone who wants to go to college to go to college. But there are many programs where the placement rate is absurdly low, and the average salary even if you get a job would mean the loan takes decades to pay off. Giving a kid a bag of debt in that case isn't charity, it's a noose. We also need to stop pretending that going to college is some noble pursuit of education- it's an investment in a future career and needs to be treated as such. This again loops back to looking at how to eliminate programs that hurt their graduates more often than they help. ed: Ardennes posted:
Nursing is solid as well, but I've never heard that "humiliating menial job for women" from anyone so I'm not sure what that is about. It is getting fairly competitive though, STEM is better protected because people just loving hate calculus. Not sure what your second part means. EB Nulshit posted:So how expensive are public K-12 schools, and why don't we just turn the last two years of K-12 into community college? Then universities, if you want to go to one, can take just two years of students' time and loans, and later when we talk of funding education, we only need to figure out how to fund 2 years of post-high school education rather than four years. There's lots of things that would be very nice but the days of making good money on high school diplomas is dead and ain't coming back. tsa fucked around with this message at 16:11 on Jan 23, 2015 |
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Jan 23, 2015 16:00
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on the left posted:Legislatures have not defunded higher education, they have simply failed to track the explosive growth of costs. The cost increases don't seem to be spent on extra faculty either, primarily useless administrative employees and capital projects that are of varying usefulness. Congratulations on being completely wrong:  
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Jan 23, 2015 16:30
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So, when Science Year Zero kicks off, are Dostoevsky and Pynchon gonna get burned extra-hard for apostasy?.
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Jan 23, 2015 16:43
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Effectronica posted:So, when Science Year Zero kicks off, are Dostoevsky and Pynchon gonna get burned extra-hard for apostasy?. Are you trying to say that the liberal arts (of which the sciences are actually part of!) are somehow incompatible with STEM education? There were certainly a poo poo ton of STEM majors and professors who were part of the college orchestra I played in. Hell, a full third of my degree was a variety of liberal arts. Solkanar512 fucked around with this message at 16:56 on Jan 23, 2015 |
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Jan 23, 2015 16:54
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tsa posted:
I agree. If something does not directly result in value to an employer, it is useless and is not needed in a modern society. In any case, nothing will be done because Americans love victim blaming. You can see it everywhere. If some college graduate complains about not having any decent employment options and a ton of debt, everyone immediately plays "gotcha" with them. Did you pick a "good" major? If no, "GOTCHA YOU DESERVE THIS." If yes... Did you go to a "good" school? If no, "GOTCHA YOU DESERVE THIS." If yes... Did you do "enough" internships? If no, "GOTCHA YOU DESERVE THIS." Repeat ad nauseum. Americans are apparently incapable of thinking beyond victim blaming and considering that there may be systemic problems. high six fucked around with this message at 17:14 on Jan 23, 2015 |
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Jan 23, 2015 17:11
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joepinetree posted:Congratulations on being completely wrong: Mind if I throw these in the OP?
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Jan 23, 2015 17:12
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Solkanar512 posted:Are you trying to say that the liberal arts (of which the sciences are actually part of!) are somehow incompatible with STEM education? There were certainly a poo poo ton of STEM majors and professors who were part of the college orchestra I played in. Hell, a full third of my degree was a variety of liberal arts. Well, I've finally done it. I've found someone who is actually too dumb to understand a post I made, instead of it just being a mean thing to say. No, I was referring to Mister Transport Safety Administration up above with his grand goal of destroying the literary, historical, and artistic worlds of the USA.
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Jan 23, 2015 17:12
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tsa posted:We also need to stop pretending that going to college is some noble pursuit of education- it's an investment in a future career and needs to be treated as such. This again loops back to looking at how to eliminate programs that hurt their graduates more often than they help. Almost half the R&D done in the US is the direct result of work done at Universities, seeing as most Corporations (excluding a few like Google, SpaceX, etc.) have cut long term research and development as not being profitable, valuing education as a noble pursuit MIGHT be a little more important than you think. Honestly? If you are going to school purely as an investment in your future career, I think you need to re-evaluate what education means to you. Then again, as a physics/STEM major, I may be a little biased. CommieGIR fucked around with this message at 17:23 on Jan 23, 2015 |
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Jan 23, 2015 17:17
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It's simple supply and demand- if you increase the number of people going into a particular field, wages in that field will remain stable or increase!
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Jan 23, 2015 17:18
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high six posted:I agree. If something does not directly result in value to an employer, it is useless and is not needed in a modern society. The answer to our college funding woes: Common Core for Colleges! Think about it. How better to spend our hard-earned government tax dollars than to make sure the money goes to the most worthy universities! Make sure all university students take standardized exams and judge colleges and professors on their students' grades on them. We might even be able to break their hold on academic tenure, by removing them to adjunct status if they fail to improve students' understanding of the material and then fire them! But let's keep in mind that judging colleges is the most important part here. Colleges whose students do well on the standardized tests should get the bulk of our strapped state university funding to make their schools better. Colleges who do poorly will get less. Let the free market do the work of weeding out bad and useless colleges and college degree programs for us! And of course we would let companies dictate the curriculum to make sure that students come out of school prepared to put their degrees in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math to work in their new jobs as burger flippers! What about Arts and Literature you say? I have a simple question for you: why spend our government tax revenue on curriculum that doesn't matter for your job as the newest barista at Starbucks (like English 101)? Let's focus on what DOES matter and make sure our colleges prepare their students for the 21st Century Knowledge Economy. Common Core for Colleges. Coming soon to a college near you! ComradeCosmobot fucked around with this message at 17:26 on Jan 23, 2015 |
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Jan 23, 2015 17:22
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There's so many ways to monetize it, too! We can hire out private contractors to the schools to teach classes! Academic temp agencies!
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Jan 23, 2015 17:47
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Rand alPaul posted:That's a huge problem, too. Everyone goes to college and majors in the "hot" degree "that will guarantee them a job when they graduate." Then you have a huge loving glut four years later. Business majors
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Jan 23, 2015 18:05
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computer parts posted:A large part of the student loan "bubble" actually is solely within the purview of the US Government, so as long as the government remains solvent you really don't have much to worry about. Aren't the majority of unmanageable student loans private loans though? At least in my case, with all the federal loans I have they are easily managed through various programs like IBR and loan rehabilitation where with my private loans they want me to make absolutely refuckingdiculous payments to the point if I actually paid I'd be a homeless person on the street with two months. I make $14 and hour support a kid and spouse and they want me to pay $1000 a month. Its gotten to the point where we use my wife's student loan money to help us pay for poo poo like rent and food. Its so loving broken and at some point the dam is going to burst and somethings going to be done, whether its being able to reasonable discharge private loans through bankruptcy or some kind of program to help people with massive amounts of private debt work their way out of the lovely permanent hole they're in. quote:Yeah, it's never going to burst unless millions of graduates just refuse to work. The Income Based Repayment policy lets people pay back their loans based on their income, so at worst the loans are just collected with a massive amount of interest as people work to pay it off their entire lives. IBR only works with federal loans, there are literally no programs to help people manage private student loan debt. If you were getting out of college during the recession chances are you were unemployed or working minimum wage bouncing between jobs for a few years, during which time at least one or more of your loans probably went into default because Sallie Mae charges you money if you want to do a hardship forbearance which makes it absolutely impossible to deal with if you're unemployed. Do you understand how the most sensible option doesn't work for the majority of adults with student loan debt? Most college graduates during the recession did not and still might not make 35k a year. I think a big thing to fix college would be to hold colleges to a higher standard, especially for-profit private colleges and diploma mill type colleges that amount to nothing. The reality is that the entire US education systems needs a real and serious reform for the US to be competitive on a global scale as far as an educated useful workforce in the future goes. Not just in administration and things like that, but also in what is taught and how its taught. Doorknob Slobber fucked around with this message at 18:13 on Jan 23, 2015 |
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Jan 23, 2015 18:08
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Effectronica posted:Well, I've finally done it. I've found someone who is actually too dumb to understand a post I made, instead of it just being a mean thing to say. I linked him this in another thread a few months back, with this chart:  He never responded.
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Jan 23, 2015 18:30
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Reason posted:I think a big thing to fix college would be to hold colleges to a higher standard, especially for-profit private colleges and diploma mill type colleges that amount to nothing. The reality is that the entire US education systems needs a real and serious reform for the US to be competitive on a global scale as far as an educated useful workforce in the future goes. Not just in administration and things like that, but also in what is taught and how its taught. Eliminate all predatory programs and you still have a massive problem. Beyond that, holding universities to a "higher standard" isn't saying much; what's your metric? Better job placement? New graduates are not suffering because they are unskilled, but because there are too many of them for the jobs available.
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Jan 23, 2015 18:36
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There's two sides to the loan problem - first, there's the negative impact on the loanees, which is huge. There is also the potential impact on the economy if those loans default, exactly like the subprime loan crisis. I think when people are speaking about a potential student loan "bubble" they are specifically referring to the latter issue, so if someone said "that is not a problem" they don't mean that the loanees aren't hurting, they simply mean they don't believe the economy is set to burn down as a whole because of loan defaults, and are not trying to minimize the impact of those loans on the people with those loans hanging over their head. edit: And speaking of the latter issue http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887323293704578334542910674174 quote:Student loans are souring at a growing rate—and investors can't seem to get enough. edit2 http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-19/navient-said-to-market-747-million-of-student-loan-backed-debt.html quote:Navient Corp. (NAVI), previously part of Sallie Mae, is marketing $747 million of bonds linked to student loans as the company starts operating under its new name. Best Friends fucked around with this message at 18:46 on Jan 23, 2015 |
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Jan 23, 2015 18:40
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I've posted this in the college thread in SAL, but I think it is appropriate here: Top majors and the top employment sectors they end up in http://www.unc.edu/~ncaren/majors/ Might help with this debate over majors and fields.
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Jan 23, 2015 18:54
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