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Obama Seeks New System For Rating Colleges
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."
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.
So long, and thanks for all the Phish
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.
Try losing students to skyrocketing tuition and fees. Dur.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
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!
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 while that stupid actor was elected and re-elected by people who thought a tough talking actor with no experience at all in any government office should reside in Sacramento for 8 years.
Ha hum damn. Going to take us a long time to pay off that mountain of debt, sorry UC and CSU.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Pretty much anything is an improvement on our current system where we hand naive eighteen year olds six digits worth of grants and loans and say, "Here, spend this as you please."
You can't spell "oneiromancy" without "roman".
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?
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
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.
Then governments have no choice but to make it free and widely available to anyone on demand.
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. Refine it over time, and maybe 10 or 15 years in the future, if it is respected by students and employers as a metric of educational quality, start to apply it to funding decisions.
Any amount of development time might not be enough though: like any channel for federal funding, this thing is going to get turned into a political tool. What starts as a system to determine if an education will give you a good start in your chosen field will rapidly devolve into a contest for which colleges have the most puritanical health centers or are located in the home state of a ranking member of the controlling committee.
"Because Science" is one step from "Because old book". Try "Because of my experiment testing my falsifiable assertion".
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.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
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, protested and those unfortunate to be on the bubble had to drop out.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
is to do away with grants and to make loans more difficult to obtain.
That depends on what you are teaching. College has changed from 'The halls of higher learning' to the thing that every American HS school does because that is what you do to get ahead in life. For the majority of college students (who are kinda just idiots, and don't really need 4 years of college), the GP post is really the number that matters.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Have the NSA count the number of misspelled words in their e-mails.
Stories like these sicken me when it comes to how they are effectively ignored and swept under the rug. This case was criminally prosecuted 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.
Since a degree is primarily a qualification, its importance lies in its scarcity. It used to be since many people didn't finish high school, a high school diploma had meaning, it was a qualification. Well, then it was decided that -everyone- should have a high school diploma and curriculum gets dumbed down to the point that any person not in a vegetative state can easily obtain a high school diploma, it stops being a qualification. So naturally people looked for the next higher qualification, a college degree, when this idea that everyone should have a college degree (which, believe me is certainly taking hold) the classes start to get dumber and dumber and suddenly a college degree stops being a qualification. Soon employers are looking for your master's degree...
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
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.
There is a good article on this in the latest edition of The Baffler (sorry, that article is not available online). It is a pretty edgy takedown of the higher education system, and the needed fall
Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress
Schools have been milking students via government loans for decades now.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
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 school with a top notch GPa and spent a lot of money on an Ivy League graduate degree
The proposotion sounds like a mask for lowering the standards. Sweden is already in this path. Results droop and they cannot admit the real reason because of politics. So the culprit must be the system. Everyone suffers and the esteem of educational institutions drop when they MUST take and pass students of ... let's say, lesser capabilities, in name of multiculturalism.
USA is fast becoming a social democratic european style hellhole.
'Once scientists, even the dim-witted social scientists, get muzzled, the Western Civilization is finished.' - oldhack
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.
And a whole generation of unpaid bloggers for Huffington Post and Salon rise up........and take the bus to the Temp Agency.
I go to a local community college. Every semester the cost per semester hour has risen for the past two years. The only thing I see improved for the school is just the eye candy. The eye candy being upgrades to campus buildings and grounds. The same teachers are there and the curriculum continues to be watered down spoon-fed academics. The quality of education needs to be fixed. Not some kind of rating system.
...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.
I wonder if Obama will team up with the NSA on this? Maybe use the private emails of college professors to help develop the rankings...
Option 1 leaves out students who are plenty smart, but just goofed around in high school. Option 2 makes university degrees worthless.
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.
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 bleak as you make it out to be.
Finally, correct me if I'm wrong, but the majority of Australian universities are public and heavily subsidized (so again, compare apples to apples, publics to publics). Australian professor salaries are also lower, and Australian professorships are more akin to civilian servant positions. Professors in the US--august representatives of the academy--are basically their own social/political/economic class.
The best--or most expensive, depending on your take!--universities in the US probably cost in toto about 60k a year right. There are a LOT of families that can afford that without dipping into savings and without blinking an eye. The last figures I saw are that around 20% of all American families make 100k or more a year. The most expensive colleges are still really expensive, but there is a HUGE diversity of colleges in the US from junior colleges and community colleges, to small liberals arts, to big state publics, to privates research institutions, etc. Given the tremendous wealth in the US and the availability of cheap, easy to get government money, why NOT raise tuition? With very few exceptions (see Antioch), colleges and universities hardly ever go out of business or have trouble filling seats.
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.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
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 in the sun in the summer. Everything isn't just money: getting paid to sit on my ass, drink free coffee and play with a computer all day is its own reward.
Don't worry, eliminating market failures such as by reducing information asymmetry is the exact opposite of "meddling in the marketplace."
I forgive you, but it's sad when members of Congress wouldn't know a market failure if it slapped them upside the head. As another example, you'll have a tough time finding a Republican member of Congress who is able to define the term, "negative externality."
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
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.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Oh God shutup. The new students just want what their parents got, or maybe something a little better. It's the schools dealing with the larger influx of students who have to build new dorms to house all new students (guess what, the population grew, big surprise, which means the percentage of people going to college grew as well). Many of these kids are not getting a full-ride, they have scholarships (full or partial), grants, or loans.
I am John Hurt.
Before grants and guaranteed college loans, colleges could only charge what the students could afford. I myself graduated from a big 4-year state college in the 80's for a total cost of $21k, and I was an on-campus student.
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 will adjust their cost by the amount their customers can afford to pay? This is econ 101, here. When these stupid adult children can afford $50k to get their art history degree, why do you think a college won't increase their price to accommodate the sucker windfall?
Want to watch the price of college plummet? Remove all loans. We'll return to the days of "only the rich can afford college/not fair!", but at least the stupid will not be graduating under a mountain of debt from which they will never be free. The truly academically gifted and motivated will get scholarships no matter how poor they are.
Troll?! Seriously, wtf is going on with moderation here... I thought this was one of the least trollish things I've ever posted! :p
Here's a simple and proven plan to follow until this gets implemented.
1) Find out what state you live in. This should be easy.
2) Apply to all the state schools with the programs you need and pick one with the best facilities.
3) Graduate with little or no college debt.
4) Get the same and better jobs than your heavily indebted "ivy league" educated colleagues.
5) Profit!!
Kriston
And all those new buildings and stadiums going up at the cost of hundreds of millions of dollars (each!) has nothing to do with rising costs. Nope, not at all.
cut down some of filler classes and get rid of old forced classes that are just there to keep departments in place.
Universities and Colleges spend insane amounts of money on real estate because they are often in "prime areas". They spend a lot on salaries for their boards, usually those people get way better payment than the teachers and professors get. They spend a lot of money on the sports teams and their accommodations, trainers and such. Also, they spend a lot of money on maintaining that name aka "promotion". There are exceptions to that, but in general, those colleges and universities are considered "second grade" and people tend to want to spend more money on a degree from a highly rated college/university. If a potential employer has a choice of four candidates and three of them come from MIT, Carnegy-Mellon and Princeton while the 4th one comes from Tulane (Louisiana), guess which one won't get invited for an interview? Once you are on the short list for "good universities" you can charge more, spend the money on publicity and your own salary and keep the mechanism working. Thats how the mechanism works.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
Step 1) Compare the number of students entering the school vs. the number of students graduating school. The higher the percentage, the lower the academic requirements of the school. To suggest that the academics of the school are so damn good that they can overcome the overwhelming odds that students will go nuts the second they are free from control by their parents is nonsense. If too many students are dropping out, the students are passing even though they're generally drunk.
Step 2) Evaluate the sports program. If the sports program is really good, it's less likely the academic program will be as good. It means the administration is less focused on academics and more focused on what they "Think Really Counts"
***** Most important ******
Step 3) Evaluate the number of students graduating the school during hard economic times and manage to get jobs that actually can cover the cost of their student debt. If a school knowingly admits a student who needs to borrow 50% or more of the money required to gain a degree in a career that DOES NOT offer a pay scale following graduation to cover the cost of the loan, the school should be declared predatory.
As an example, if only 10-20% of university graduates from a law school are likely to gain employment as lawyers, it means that the chances of defaulting on a student loan is high. It is then necessary to evaluate the most likely career path for a law school graduate that can't work as a lawyer and identify the amount of money that career is likely to pay. Then identify the amount the student can afford to repay.
Another example is giving a kid from a lower-middle-class home a loan to pay $150,000 for 4 years to become a pianist from Julliard. The student has about 0.5% chance of gaining a career playing piano in a concert hall. The student has a 10% chance of gaining employment as a music teacher in an elementary school. This loan should be denied.
Another example would be a student studying to become a school teacher. School teachers will earn an average of $75K a year after earning tenure. They are almost 100% guaranteed to be stable and responsible regarding loan payments. Loan then up to $125,000 for their education to be paid over a period of 25 years at national mortgage rates.
It would be interesting to see what each candidate spends on getting elected vs the increase in wealth for them and friends/family 5 and 10 years after election.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
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.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
That's the golden word in all of your support. Tenure.
That is why they do those long hours, to secure tenure. You know, the ability to lay back and not have to worry about the future - or actually work.
We all know people in IT who worked just as hard and even longer than the proto-profs and do not have tenure.
My heart does not bleed. The salaries the profs draw are anything but terrible. Hyperbole for teachers salaries is like the race card; old and unimpressive anymore.
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.
This idea is upside down, inside out and down right perverted. The very notion that the percentage that graduate indicates quality is absurd. I really hate to say it but the best educations come from schools with huge drop out rates and lots of suicides. When an academic environment is so demanding that even some high quality students can not make it you have a school that will produce great geniuses. They may come out a bit odd but they will be brilliant and exactly the type of people that history books admire.
Compounding this error is the false notion that employment should be a goal of education. Lord Byron, Leonardo, Mozart or Newton were not trained to make a living. Poe starved. Money is not a concern in education. For parents who want their kids to make a living just send them to trade schools or teach them how to repair plumbing. Keep these folks out of college as they do not belong there.
Make note that schools with unusual academic demands as well as strict honor codes produce wonderful scholars.
How exactly do you know Universities run a lean ship? Where's the audit?
This is a very dangerous direction and is another tool that Obama can use to punish his political enemies as he has wielded throughout his time in office. A likely scenario is if a college publishes studies that establishes facts that conflict with political agendas, they could find their federal aid withheld like the IRS has been doing with conservative groups. The potential for abuse is too great and the consequences too disastrous. Obama needs to stop his campaign attack mode since taking office, start governing with all branches, and start staffing his cabinet with qualified candidates who listen to all sides and not political rewardees who contributed to his campaign.
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
The new ratings system, which the president wants implemented before the 2015 school year, would evaluate colleges on a series of measures, including average tuition and student loan debt, graduation rates, and the average earnings of graduates. Obama is also seeking legislation to link the new ratings system to the way federal financial aid is awarded, with students attending highly-rated schools receiving larger grants and more affordable student loans.
Sounds great, right? Except Satan is in the details. The whole purpose of this program is to bring colleges and universities even closer to the bosom of Uncle Sam, while the educated idiots think they are getting a great deal.
First step in their master plan was to raise tuition rates through the roof, which was easily achieved by spreading the "everyone MUST go to college meme", then giving away "free" government money to anyone and everyone who wants to go, to study 18th century Russian poetry or whatever bullshit fairy tale dream they want to pursue. This has been successful, as most ordinary people can no longer afford to go to college without this government "aid." Now the next stage of their plan is to make sure this government "aid" only goes to the "right" people. Those institutions which "toe the line" and do what the government tells them to do, and preach whatever lies that the government demands they preach, and are successful in raising their kids up to be good little obedient Nazis and willing corporate slaves, will be the ones which receive higher ratings and more money. On the other hand any educational institution which has the nerve to speak out against the government will find themselves with poor ratings, no money, and thus no students.
So OUR tax dollars go to support the government-friendly ass kissing institutions, and to help those kids who are picked and chosen by the elites to be accepted there, while little to none of it goes to those who teach kids to be independent, critical thinkers, to kids who are not part of the elite, or to those whose families are political enemies of the corrupt fascists in D.C. The rich get richer, and the poor get poorer....by design.
Yet another SCAM from the great Liar In Chief....and leagues of 20 year old useful idiots scream in ecstasy about how wonderful it all is and what a great visionary Obomber is. They begged for slavery, and slavery is exactly what they will get. Good for them.
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.
Sure....while putting YOUR burden on someone else's shoulders.
Go find another country to pimp your bullshit....comrade.
Linked is the average tuition rise over the last five years for all 50 states. In most cases, the rise is 20-30%. In the extreme upper end, the rise is nearly 80% (I'm looking at you Arizona...). http://www.cbpp.org/images/cms/3-19-13sfp-f3.jpg This clearly outpaces cost of living growth over the last five years.
The next link is the growth in administrative costs for one example, the University of California system, which has massively ballooned over the last several decades. http://californiareview.net/2011/08/24/graph-of-uc-administrative-growth/ This is not an isolated phenomenon. While professor salaries and direct education expenses have stayed relatively flat over the last few decades (or tracked inflation in some cases), the number of, and salaries provided to, administrative positions have dramatically increased across the board at most institutions (public or private).
For further example, look at total compensation for the top university executives across the US from 2011-2012. We are compensating many university execs in excess of $500,000 a year (some over $2 mil). http://old.post-gazette.com/images5/20130513presidential_pay691.png At many state schools, with limited external funding, and tuition rise limited by law, we're still paying execs $3-400,000. What value do these people add that is worth $300,000 - $2 million?
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 while that stupid actor was elected and re-elected by people who thought a tough talking actor with no experience at all in any government office should reside in Sacramento for 8 years.
That's a sign of government subsidy withdrawal. It sucks going through it, but that doesn't mean is shouldn't happen. To do nothing now will only make it hurt even more later.
In debates about Christianity, there are two groups: those looking for answers, and those looking to just ask questions.
2005 is quite out of date now, so I would take those numbers with some caution. The 2010/2011 numbers are a bit different.
Since you either didn't read or misparsed the rest of my post, let me quote myself:
There are a LOT of families that can afford that without dipping into savings and without blinking an eye. The last figures I saw are that around 20% of all American families make 100k or more a year. The most expensive colleges are still really expensive, but there is a HUGE diversity of colleges in the US from junior colleges and community colleges, to small liberals arts, to big state publics, to privates research institutions, etc.
To summarize:
1) There are a lot of families that can pay out 60k a year without blinking. This is true, and the number is certainly in the millions.
2) Over 20% of Americans make more than 100k a year. As far as I can tell from the 2010/11 data, this looks true to me.
3) You'll note I never said that a family making 100k a year could easily pay 60k a year (those are two discrete statements). Most families making 100k+ can easily afford some level of college.
Though I would add, as a minor nit, that in many, many parts of the country, $2000 take home cash a month is enough to live on and be comfortable.
To some degree, the horrifying student loan figures that are frequently bandied about are like the "average credit card balance" figures. After all, 1/3 of all students who go to college end with no debt at all! Only 10% end with 40k of debt, and fewer than 1% of all students end with 100k of debt. Source.
I'm not going to argue that college isn't expensive nor that 100k debt isn't absolutely crushing. I will argue, however, about the causes and reasons, and to a lesser degree the magnitude. To repeat:
Given the tremendous wealth in the US and the availability of cheap, easy to get government money, why NOT raise tuition? With very few exceptions (see Antioch), colleges and universities hardly ever go out of business or have trouble filling seats.
We should start teaching at least the basic fundamentals of algebra by first or second grade. Those of us who grew up learning programming at a young age know that this is doable.
Your sentiment is in the right place, but your suggestion is really bad. There is a lot of evidence suggestion that math isn't really great for younger kids. The ability of a first grader to work with abstract concepts limits their capacity to really comprehend what is going on. I have read articles by educators that suggest that math be pushed back several years until about 3rd grade. If you hit a young kid with a lot of boring abstract problems they will become bored and frustrated very quickly, and young kids don't have a long attention span.
Ultimately, the best systems would be one where kids proceed at their own pace.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!