Nm

[Knight In TN]

I think @Knight In TN made a good point when he said this was all well intentioned. I think this problem is similar to the housing bubble in that initially, there are no losers. More kids can to school, the skilled workforce grows, colleges increase revenue and improve their campus and programs. At the start, the debt incurred is reasonable to incomes and there's no structural issue. The financial industry is profiting and happy to lobby to protect their income stream and get politicians on board.

From there, it's a relatively slow burn. More and more kids choose college over alternatives. They end up fueling the growth of degree programs that have low market value. Some fields become saturated with an over-supply of graduates. Demand fuels cost increases as colleges compete with each other for growth, investing in more amenities and campus life.

I think this system is bound to fail. But there's so much structural headwind that the government will prop it up indefinitely. This is one reason I'd support some kind of "Free College" national program. If the government is going to backstop the entire system anyway, might as well cut out the financial industry middle men, simplify everything, and send checks straight to colleges. You immediately control costs because the Universities will have to adapt to the reimbursement rates going forward.

All correct, but I don’t agree with the conclusion, respectfully.

Or at the very least I don’t in any way support taxpayers paying for a huge number of degree programs that don’t benefit the economy.

I have far less issue with STEM degrees being subsidized but there’s no benefit to paying for kids to go study Russian literature.

 

[Knight In TN]

indentured servants, sounds like the good ole days.

How is that worse than the current student debt situation?

That program is only 17% of income, and only 24 months.

 

[sk8knight]

All correct, but I don’t agree with the conclusion, respectfully.

Or at the very least I don’t in any way support taxpayers paying for a huge number of degree programs that don’t benefit the economy.

I have far less issue with STEM degrees being subsidized but there’s no benefit to paying for kids to go study Russian literature.

I think even most libertarians could get on board with subsidized college for skills that the country needs to be successful while not subsidizing those that aren't essential fields. I worry if we would ever truly be able to put that into practice, though, with the state of our political environment. It's not hard to see the gap in black and hispanic participation in STEM fields and imagine politicians decrying that only those fields are subsidized thus unfairly benefitting white and asian populations. Another factor in the equation is that schools react to subsidized money and increase tuition according to the extra subsidy (65 cent increase for every subsidized dollar) which makes you worry about the overall cost to the taxpayers versus the cost of backstopping the current system.

 

[Boosted87]

All correct, but I don’t agree with the conclusion, respectfully.

Or at the very least I don’t in any way support taxpayers paying for a huge number of degree programs that don’t benefit the economy.

I have far less issue with STEM degrees being subsidized but there’s no benefit to paying for kids to go study Russian literature.

And just be clear, I'm open to "free college" as an alternative to a system that I think is worse - not necessarily because I think it's ideal. The cost-benefit is hard to calculate and I don't pretend to know how to do it.

Do I want to pay for the Russian lit degree? Not really. But would I be OK paying for one Russian lit degree if I got an engineer, a teacher, and a social worker at the same time? Maybe. No system is going to be perfectly efficient. If the alternative was no teacher, no social, worker, and no engineer - I think we'd all agree we're better off with all 4 than zero. Obviously that's not the choice we have, but the point is that the return on the 75% well spent could far exceed the cost of the 25% poorly spent.

I'm making up numbers here, but that's why I have trouble drawing a conclusion. The long term economic return is not easy to assess.

 

[Boosted87]

I think even most libertarians could get on board with subsidized college for skills that the country needs to be successful while not subsidizing those that aren't essential fields. I worry if we would ever truly be able to put that into practice, though, with the state of our political environment. It's not hard to see the gap in black and hispanic participation in STEM fields and imagine politicians decrying that only those fields are subsidized thus unfairly benefitting white and asian populations. Another factor in the equation is that schools react to subsidized money and increase tuition according to the extra subsidy (65 cent increase for every subsidized dollar) which makes you worry about the overall cost to the taxpayers versus the cost of backstopping the current system.

There's value in simplicity though. I agree in principle that subsidizing fields we need makes sense. But I think that's a potential advantage on the government funding side.

The current system floods money into the hands of students. They choose a school that has what they want to study. The school is incentivized to offer what the kids want. This is completely disconnected from pushing kids into career paths that support economic needs.

If government is paying tuition, they can establish reimbursement guidelines consistent with demand. If we have a national shortage of teachers, increase the reimbursement rates for educating teachers, driving schools to grow those programs.

I know that sounds like central planning, but with all the corporate welfare and industry subsidizing we already do I don't see how it's any worse.

 

[sk8knight]

There's value in simplicity though. I agree in principle that subsidizing fields we need makes sense. But I think that's a potential advantage on the government funding side.

The current system floods money into the hands of students. They choose a school that has what they want to study. The school is incentivized to offer what the kids want. This is completely disconnected from pushing kids into career paths that support economic needs.

If government is paying tuition, they can establish reimbursement guidelines consistent with demand. If we have a national shortage of teachers, increase the reimbursement rates for educating teachers, driving schools to grow those programs.

I know that sounds like central planning, but with all the corporate welfare and industry subsidizing we already do I don't see how it's any worse.

Ugh. The libertarian in me wants to give them money and allow the free market to work to improve education and lower prices. Only this is a weird situation where that isn't working due to all of the forces involved in the system. That's what makes this central planning situation attractive. It's also not unprecedented for the federal government to encourage people to take on careers that the country needs, such as encouraging/subsidizing people to explore and settle the western part of the continent.

How do you get there from here without disenfranchising the people that paid for their own college by refunding nothing to them while paying off others' debts entirely? Or do you just start with the new generation and let the old system play out for a few decades? Do we even have the fortitude to do that in today's world?

 

[Boosted87]

Ugh. The libertarian in me wants to give them money and allow the free market to work to improve education and lower prices. Only this is a weird situation where that isn't working due to all of the forces involved in the system. That's what makes this central planning situation attractive. It's also not unprecedented for the federal government to encourage people to take on careers that the country needs, such as encouraging/subsidizing people to explore and settle the western part of the continent.

How do you get there from here without disenfranchising the people that paid for their own college by refunding nothing to them while paying off others' debts entirely? Or do you just start with the new generation and let the old system play out for a few decades? Do we even have the fortitude to do that in today's world?

I'm with you. Idealistically, I'm a libertarian on most things. What's changed in my views is balancing how I think the world should work with how it actually does work as a complex hot mess of competing and changing interests.

I'm pretty hardcore when it comes to sunk costs. You have to look forwards, not backwards. Going forward, I benefit if my kids benefit. I benefit if society benefits with increased economic growth. Realistically you'd have a slow transition anyway. I'd like to see it start at the vocational level. Wanna be a mechanic, welder, electrician? Sweet. Let's pay for that. Then let's actually do vocational aptitude testing (like the ASVAB) and stop steering kids to college that would be better served going that route.

 

[Knight In TN]

I'm with you. Idealistically, I'm a libertarian on most things. What's changed in my views is balancing how I think the world should work with how it actually does work as a complex hot mess of competing and changing interests.

I'm pretty hardcore when it comes to sunk costs. You have to look forwards, not backwards. Going forward, I benefit if my kids benefit. I benefit if society benefits with increased economic growth. Realistically you'd have a slow transition anyway. I'd like to see it start at the vocational level. Wanna be a mechanic, welder, electrician? Sweet. Let's pay for that. Then let's actually do vocational aptitude testing (like the ASVAB) and stop steering kids to college that would be better served going that route.

And the biggest hurdle to any of this is political. There are powerful people who enjoy running universities like businesses. Attracting huge classes, sinking money into developing programs... it all takes money. They rely on those degree programs with inexpensive instructors and classrooms stuffed with students paying by the credit hour.

They will be more than happy to fight tooth and nail to keep the system the way it is. It’s a good situation for universities and those who make a lot of money running them. It doesn’t work for students, but who’s lobbying for students?

 

[ChrisKnight06]

All I wanted to say is I love this thoughtful back and forth and hope to see more of it! ✌

 

[DaShuckster]

To read all these posts, you'd think that our major universities are focused on teaching undergraduates in employment-worthy fields. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Most undergraduates should consider themselves lucky if a third or more of their undergraduate courses are taught by honest-to-goodness professors. The most expensive faculty salaries belong to professors who bring big research bucks to the University. Teach undergraduates? Hell, those folks wouldn't know what an undergraduate student looked like, let alone ever lower themselves to teach one.

 

[Knight In TN]

To read all these posts, you'd think that our major universities are focused on teaching undergraduates in employment-worthy fields. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Most undergraduates should consider themselves lucky if a third or more of their undergraduate courses are taught by honest-to-goodness professors. The most expensive faculty salaries belong to professors who bring big research bucks to the University. Teach undergraduates? Hell, those folks wouldn't know what an undergraduate student looked like, let alone ever lower themselves to teach one.

That’s one of the biggest issues with the current university mission... it seems to be to chase grants and research dollars on one hand, and sell credit hours to students at as low a cost to the university as possible.

I wonder what my History of Film course cost UCF to provide... an instructor, some TAs, with a few hundred of us in an auditorium. Each student paying for 3 credit hours.

 

[UCFBS]

What we need are more UCFs and more DirectConnect type programs.

What we don't need is more money thrown at costly programs that are anything but an UCF and a DirectConnect.

Heck, the US Media demonized a SCOTUS justice when he even pointed out that costly college and universities were failing minorities, while - when they started at community colleges - they weren't nearly as much, questioning if the state was misguided in its efforts, and not just for African-Americans either.

We want people to graduate with minimal or no debt. We should focus on that, instead of free or forgiveness, instead.

We already have a lot of subsidy. And poor kids aren't the ones that got into some of these costly colleges.

 

[UCFBS]

Multiple uses of the L word.
Think I'll sit the rest of this one out.

 

[DaShuckster]

Heck, the US Media demonized a SCOTUS justice when he even pointed out that costly college and universities were failing minorities, while - when they started at community colleges - they weren't nearly as much, questioning if the state was misguided in its efforts, and not just for African-Americans either.

The retention and graduation rates for minority students in general are not good.

But it should also be pointed out that all students - regardless of race - who start at a community college with the intention of getting a four year degree are THREE TIMES LESS LIKELY to do so than a student who begins college at a four year college or university.