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Should College Tuition Vary By Major, Based On the College's Costs For the Major? (qz.com)
Registered Coward v2 writes: Vault, in a blog post, discusses whether colleges should base tuition on the actual cost of providing the education rather than on a one-price-for-all-credits basis. Their argument is based on a Quartz article that shows engineering and science degrees cost schools a lot more than liberal arts degrees for a variety of reasons, including higher professor salaries and equipment/infrastructure costs. As a result, those majors are subsidized by the cheaper ones even though they also have the highest earnings in aggregate. The new paper on the topic estimates that it typically costs the universities more than $62,000 to educate an engineer (including professor salaries, facilities fees, and administrative costs), while an English or business major costs nearly half that. Quartz has a chart embedded in its report that shows the cost of education by major at the University of Florida. There's also another chart that shows the earnings of past graduates, up to age 45, minus the cost of each degree. According to the paper, even though it costs more for an engineering degree, it pays off.
Community college and state colleges should be free, like it is in civilized countries.
A brain is a terrible thing to waste... Mind? That's debatable.
If the university has any research, the overhead from funded research will help offset the cost of undergraduate education, as well as graduate.
Then, there's the costs of athletic programs, Don't forget that, and assign it to the right departments...
They already charge more for Engineering degrees. It's called "lab fees" rather than tuition. Another good one is "Engineering major surcharge" that I had to pay.
This is just one data point - the University of Florida system. It says nothing about how much education costs at other colleges/universities.
Logically, education cost should be highly correlated to class size. Does UoF have smaller engineering than English classes by chance? That would explain the difference. But at the university I went to, English classes were the small and labor-intensive ones.
When I finished my undergrad years ago I paid lab costs and other associated costs for the courses in my major that people who primarily took lecture-only courses did not have to pay.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Yes, but how much are they enabled by non-tuition revenue? Engineering departments can pull in massive public and private research funding compared to English departments. The overhead rate at my alma matter was ~50%, straight into University coffers, "to keep the lights on." Despite the high salaries of some accomplished professors, our department was pulling in millions annually for the school that went to all sorts of education expenses (building, IT, classrooms, and of course, most of the high-flying salaries). Our department received high dollar alumni gifts that I doubt flood all departments equally.
People in technical majors are going to be subsidizing liberal arts majors the rest of their lives, why not let them subsidize technical majors while they're in college?
The word "should" in the headline seems to imply a moral judgement. I don't see a moral case here - the different colleges are free to try different pricing schemes and see what the market bears. If the market isn't healthy enough to pick and choose winners, then lets concentrate on fixing the market.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
How much in lab fees does a typical liberal arts major pay for?
Dog is my co-pilot.
Long ago, college dorms were more like Army barracks. Now they are private apartments. Food was served in a cafeteria, and you ate what they had today. Now they are more like food courts, and require far more staff. Students expect this kind of service, and if a school doesn't upgrade, they lose students to schools that do. It's overhead that has risen the cost of education, not the cost of professors. The difference in equipment and classrooms between engineering and liberal arts is small compared to the school environment costs.
If you want to set a value of a particular degree compared to another, be prepared to establish standards of pricing for everything needed to provide that degree. If we don't have a comprehensive understanding of the cost of education, we get what we have in healthcare where no one knew what their treatment cost until they bought it.
. . . . since most students are paying for college via Student Loans, why not link the interest rate and terms on the loan, to the risk of it not being paid back ?? I suspect there would be far fewer students studying for jobs that simply don't exist.
i.e. Want to study South American Feminist Literature ? Rate on the loan is 21%, No unemployment deferments. Et cetera. Want to do purely academic studies ? Get a scholarship, or pay for it yourself. And on the flip side, very nice terms for areas where we have a shortage of trained personnel. This goes for trade schools as well: we really DO need more welders and machinists, but the classes are half-full. . .
There should be exactly one deciding factor dictating whether or not you can get a degree: Your brain.
Most European countries follow that idea. My university gets stormed with new students every September and their solution was quite simple: Radical testing. 3 semesters in about 10-20% of the students remain and most of them actually finish.
If you got a LOT of people wanting a degree and you're not dependent on them paying you, you can test brutally to eliminate anyone who isn't willing to put in time and effort above and beyond anyone else, and what you get in the end, holding a degree, IS the best you could possibly get. Everyone who isn't perished.
Who said that "free" cannot end up in ruthless competition that makes any cold blooded capitalist beg for mercy?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
(including professor salaries, facilities fees, administrative costs)
Maybe it's time to take a good, hard look at those. Especially the "administrative costs".
Professors don't work for free. Heat and air conditioning aren't free. Network admins and admissions staff don't work for free. There are three options:
A) Enslave professors, network admins, etc, to reduce costs.
B) Those who get the education pay for what they get.
C) Force everyone to pay for it, whether they go to school or not.
Currently we have a mix of (b) and (c) - people who go to school pay (back) some of the cost. People who can't amd don't go to school for whatever reason are forced to pay some of the cost also.
You are advocating (c), force everyone to pay for college, whether or not they attend. Those who actually benefit from getting a college education pay no more than the single dad with two young kids who can't go to university, because he's busy working and taking care of his kids. There is no "free". There's only "if you want it, buy it" and "I'm self-entitled and lazy, make raymorris get a *third* job and pay for my school."
is a feature, not a bug. We have too many CS graduates from mediocre schools as it is.
Still, though, I'm surprised we were weren't already subsidizing feminist basket weaving.
It seems kind of absurd, given that schools already give things away to the people who add value to the school. It is the STEM majors that add value to the school. So will they do away with scholarships, too? I doubt it.
Then the costs of providing tuition will impact the cost to students, though it won't be the only factor and is unlikely to be one of the major factors aside from providing a floor to the price in most cases.
If it is not a for profit college then the relative prices of courses should just be reflecting whatever the goal of that non-profit is.
Do you REALLY think an education is "free"?
At what point does a person become responsible for themselves? 13 years of education isn't enough?
Not only should the costs be the same but the article nicely explains why: those getting science, engineering etc. degrees generally earn more and so will pay more tax. This extra tax should be more than enough to offset the cost of their education and is also a good way to justify why higher salaries should attract a higher rate of tax.
If they did this then there would be free college for anyone getting any type of social justice "studies" degree....
Oh, you did pay for it. And you'll be paying for it the rest of your life.
What's your tax rate again?
This might be a new idea in the U.S., but at one of Canada's premier colleges, this is already old hat. Go look at McGill University's "menu" of tuition fees. You'll see that they charge radically lower rates to the art student, English major, or nursing student compared to the computer scientist or pre-med. I hadn't thought of the costs of running these programs, but up in Montreal they almost certainly did. What seemed striking to me is how compassionate this policy is for the student. Is it coincidental that these Canadian tuition rates happen to be scaled to the earning potential of the graduate? So no more crazy high debt for your "B.A. in Barista." But for super in-demand and high-paid software engineers? Sure, they think you can afford to pay off those big loans. Oh, but wait... if you are a Quebec resident, your tuition will be so low that you won't need any big loans! 20/20 hindsight: if only we had moved to Canada, my wife and teenagers would have been way less stressed.
The first thing you have to establish is what is the basis you want to judge by: The good of society? The good of the students? The good of the faculty or the administration? The good of human knowledge as a whole? These all lead to fundamentally different ways of evaluating the question.
I should point out that not every institution of higher learning has the same purpose. A for-profit institution like University of Phoenix exists to turn its proprietors a buck. The very reason for an academic department to exist is to be a profit center, and if it can't pull its weight, either due insufficient pull (Classics) or excessive weight (engineering), it doesn't have a right to exist. At the opposite end of the spectrum are Jesuit colleges which exist to glorify God by cultivating each individual student's God-given talents.
I see no intrinsic need for all majors to cost the same. But the whether it's a good idea depends on your mission, your strategy for accomplishing it, and the resources at your disposal. It may well come down to what you can afford to do.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
If you're working in Sweden and aren't paying for the universities, the Tax Office would like to have a word with you.
At my university (in Canada) 20 years ago they charged different rates depending on the college offering the class. I just checked the current fees and they continue to do this. At the low end is Arts at $192 per credit unit, Computer Science is $219, Engineering is $227, Applied Music is $290, and interestingly Law is $420.
Sure. And lots of people think that C) is a perfectly reasonably option. You don't have to agree of course with any of their ideas of course, but they tend to think things like:
* A better educated population benefits society as a whole. So those who don't attend university benefit when other do - they get better doctors, better engineers designing and building their infrastructure and so on.
* The part of the role of government is the pooling and allocation of resources. Pooling some of everyone's money so that the best suited (indicated by better grades, etc) can be educated.* Part of that philosophy is more extensive welfare systems which serve to prevent the situation you describe from occurring in the first place. That single dad can finish his degree on welfare. Or since university is usually a straight out of high school thing and he chose to be a dad instead he can simply do his degree a little later when the kids are in school
- there's plenty of life after 30...
There are numerous other things of course.
The US applies this view to primary and secondary education. Some other countries include tertiary education.
It is a collective rather than individualistic view of the world. You likely don't share that and that is fine.Others do and don't usually prevent people from bailing out if they really don't like the deal - see the large number of "tax exiles" from places like the UK. Since unlike the US the rest of the world (I'm sure there's an exception or two) doesn't charge taxes to their citizens who have left the country thus allowing them to choose not to participate without burning down that bridge entirely.
You are advocating (c), force everyone to pay for college, whether or not they attend.
This sounds fair when you look at taxes. Those earning more pay more tax and usually at a higher rate too and generally a university degree leads to higher paid jobs. Even those who make lots of money without a degree e.g. Bill Gates etc. need to be able to hire people with degrees to do so so they still benefit from having those people available. Indeed all of society benefits from having nurses, teachers etc. with degrees even though these are not high paying jobs.
Indeed the UK which recently tripled university tuition costs to 9,000 pounds/year is now having trouble recruiting maths and physics teachers because people with those degrees are going into finance and industry where they can earn enough to pay off their loans. Society benefits when higher education is cheap and accessible becuse there are some jobs which pay poorly but for which you need a degree. You fund this by taxing those with higher incomes so the single dad with two young kids does not have to pay for this (unless he happens to have a really good job) and yet he still benefits because his kids will get taught by someone who knows the subject and if needs medical care there will be nurses to help provide it etc.
This is bound to happen. But it is merely a thin veneer argument covering the real intent, and that is to reach into the future to pocket the future earnings of students seeking an education. The education business considers the value-added life of their students to belong to them. I point out that there is a Macroparasitic (government, finance, business) infection abroad in the country today of such virulence that I'm afraid it will not be stoppable short of collapse and violence by the mass of people. The Macroparasite, aided by technology, is targeting any asset of the mass to transfer it to its own pocket. The result of this will be the complete devaluing of a STEM education, damaging this country. Why would anyone get an education if no benefit can be expected from doing so? Do they expect people to go through the effort and expense of getting an education for the good of society alone, gathering to themselves crushing, un-payable debt in the process?
E Proelio Veritas.
I don't have kids, but I pay taxes for other people's kids to go to grade school for free. I have paid those taxes all my life, and I get nothing for it myself. In fact, much of my property tax on my house goes to pay for local education. But I am perfectly happy with this because education should be free in a civilized society. It is too important to to make it something people have to go into debt for. If we were not spending around $600 billion a year on bombing the middle east and occupying the rest of the world with military bases, it would be very easy to make community college free for everyone.
A brain is a terrible thing to waste... Mind? That's debatable.
So the newspaper headline would be 'poor students excluded from STEM'? I don't see that going very far.
Cut the filler and fluff classes to save time and cost. Mandatory classes range from a joke to an cash grab.
For most a Mandatory PE is pay way more then a 2 year mid to high end gym for just 1 class. Some still have the swim test that you have to pay for.
Well rounded is nice to have but not at to days costs and time. Do to classes filling up / not being offered all the time it can be hard to get done in 4 years.
More trades / tech schools are needed and they should not be locked in to the 4 year system.
Of course if you just just judge the cost of course it would seem that science and engineering would be more expensive, but the problem is that this is not looking at the entire picture. Many science and engineering professors do research which ends up being beneficial and profitable to the University, I don't think most liberal arts professors have that ability.
And an advanced degree in science and engineering tends to be worth more outside academia than an advanced degree in liberal arts, so paying those professors more makes the most sense.
http://articles.chicagotribune...
There are to many people who just go for the piece of paper and others who work in fields where it's an trade where 2-4 years pure class room is overkill.
I periodically look back at older Slashdot articles, happened to find this one today just shortly after I read today's: https://slashdot.org/story/07/07/29/1811255/higher-tuition-for-an-engineering-degree
Leaving aside the question of whether a university education ought to be free (that is, taxpayer-funded, rather than paid for by the student), the numbers leave a big question - if an 'expensive' degree like on in Engineering costs about $60K, why is the cost to attend a typical university closer to $60K PER YEAR? Even if one assumes that half the annual student cost is for room and board, that still suggests there's at least a 100% markup on the tuition. Sure looks like someone is being ripped off here ...
Mudge
In theory, theory and practice are the same.
In practice, they're not.
Do we really need more business majors floating around because it was cheaper?
What's wrong with business majors? A solid background in business can help your career in the long run.
I think College Sports, while not particularly on-topic for education and damaging to how colleges evaluate students, often end up bringing more money into Universities than they cost. If we're focused on saving money, they're not a good thing to imagine cutting.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
Force even MORE people out of STEM, you know since we have such a glut of STEM grads... and don't have tons of companies looking to fill positions that have people retiring at a faster rate than graduates are coming.
That STEM equipment that they complain costs so much? Yeah, that's the stuff used to produce research that the schools WANT from professors. You know, to get the name of the school out, and the reason professors HAVE to publish stuff alongside teaching classes. It's just an added bonus that it can be used to teach students as well.
To err is human; effective mayhem requires the root password!
The mandatory "PE" class at my University is 100% online.
I don't know how they think that even 1% of the students actually do the stuff they fill out on their "exercise logs". The "quizzes" are also taken direct from the powerpoint slides that you download for the class, no book textbook required ( still tell you that the $25 book they recommend is required for the class though). They might as well just hand out note cards with the quiz questions and answers on them... or better yet, sell the cards in the book store as the required textbook.
The class is a joke...
To err is human; effective mayhem requires the root password!
I don't know where you went to high school but we have 4 levels. Remedial, Normal, Honors and Accelerated. Accelerated was taking a class, generally with students your age, but the stuff you would be learning would be for a full grade up. Not every class had Accelerated for every subject as I recall but it was the path to taking AP exams.
Places with lower populations have trouble managing so many classes per grade though, there just aren't enough students to break them up.
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
I'm a returning student currently enrolled to earn my B.S. two decades after completing my A.S. My course plan for my degree has several electives that frankly don't matter to my field of study. Knowing that every science course I took had lab fees to cover the additional costs, I also wonder if some degrees should require more class time than others. The standard 120 credit hours seems like the real source of lower cost/lower paying fields subsidizing the STEM fields.
The biggest problem I can see is that Universities have become status symbols for the states and the employees of the University.
The focus isn't on providing a quality education to the students of that state, but on Bling. Bigger stadiums, prestigious facility, glimmering campuses, etc. Eighty percent of the students at a university do not benefit from these things one iota.
What use is it to your average student have Nobel Prize winner at your University? They likely only "teach" one or two classes and those will be at the Graduate level. Yet the university will spend hundreds of thousands funding that professor, his graduate students, and their projects.
Look at all the other facilities that your average student never sees, enters, or otherwise benefits from.
Universities have become small kingdoms with the top and highly paid jobs being defacto patronage jobs.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
That must be true. The EE's that I know are in IT, still paying off their student debts, and resentful towards people with less education but more certifications getting promoted above them. A bitter lot.
I mean, I searched that entire article for any mention of 'education', 'tuition', or even 'florida' and found nothing. Did someone post the wrong URL?
If, say Gender Studies, graduates are unemployed to the tune of 12.5%, why on earth should we subsidize the creation of more Gender Studies grads? If they *really* want to get a degree in Gender Studies let them pay for it themselves or at least be prepared to pay through the nose at 12.5% interest.
OTOH, if you want a degree in chemical engineering, your interest rate would be below 2%. If you graduate with a chem-e degree, you are not going to be unemployed in today's market.
If government provided hungry people with coupons for a "free" McDonalds combo meal up to $10, what will the cost of a combo mean almost immediately rise to?
it means what you think it means.
Inconceivable!
We should be encouraging STEM and medical degrees, not making them even more difficult to pursue.
The cost of tuition should be set by a free market engine, not a bunch of government bureaucrats.
You have obviously never bought a textbook that costs more than the actual class. Or sold back a $100 textbook for $5 because the publisher sabotaged the used book value by issuing annual editions with superficial changes. Or paid $85 for a TI graphing calculator because it was required for a mathematics textbook (I owned three different calculators in college). When it comes to textbooks, the free market engine has gone wild.
Education should be free - it's a country's investment in its citizens and its future.
However, if we are going to have people pay for their education, then the cost of that education should reflect both the costs of supplying that education and the loan amounts should be indexed to starting salaries for work requiring that education. Lower starting salaries should mean lower loan amounts available for a particular degree program.
The indexing part is important - that's the feedback mechanism by which the market can signal what educational programs are required by society. Also, this would help reduce the risk of someone paying too much for a degree with little market value.
These policies would force colleges to reduce the cost of degree programs that have little market value.
None of this would prevent an individual from self-funding their education independent of the market, or prevent a college or university from using endowment money to subsidize less popular degree programs.
Wouldn't that result in pressure from low income folks to major in less lucrative degrees? Why is that good?
I am a little confused why the article focuses entirely on the high cost of engineering. It seems to me that someone should be pointing out the huge ROI for CS degrees. They cost way less than engineering and make more than every other degree except engineering. Why are we not pushing the idea that computers are still the way of the future and the best way out of poverty invented in the past 100 years?
A few random things...
Skipping grades is no substitute for providing properly matched education for a group of students. It's not the higher grade they are looking for it's the greater depth, the faster pace they can handle, at some schools all that the premature grade promotion means is that the student winds up skipping some content (in the grade they were promoted over) or runs out of high school math classes before 12th grade
For a grade school with fewer students, I have never understood why a math teacher could not split a class into two groups and informally just push one group a little harder, give them more challenging work. The idea is to give each student equal time and attention, with all the modern aids available in the classroom I don't see why that has to mean equal assignments for each student, even the textbooks I see have "challenge" questions in them, I'd like to see more of that.
On the subject of who pays for college, I see proposals each year that graduates should pay more if they earn more. That's fine to an extent and I'm sure they already do to an extent. But to push that so far that effectively only Engineers and Scientists are expected to pay to get everyone through their liberal arts degrees is an over-reach and will lead to that group calling the shots, a degree of control I'm sure the other faculties won't want to relinquish
I studied engineering and typically my classes had hundreds of students in them, even if there were more classroom hours and more expensive professors (I have no idea) that's a lot of students to dilute that cost in. I'd like to see a better breakdown of the figures before I declared that colleges had significantly higher costs to create an engineer than a fine artist, there are all sorts of ways to allocate overheads of one sort or another to one program or another to make a point.
As I'm not one of them, I think football players that received scholarships and subsequently made it big should pay for it all
Nullius in verba
He mentioned in On The Wealth of Nations that the price for an unskilled laborers education should be proportional to how much that person will make.
I went to a large, well funded state university and got a degree in chemistry back when dinosaurs roamed the earth (1997.) Even for undergrads, with the ancient lab equipment we had, I'm sure the actual costs to educate me were many times higher than a business or philosophy student, for example. Scientific instruments, even basic ones like gas chromatographs or IR spectroscopy machines are extremely expensive. Universities have to pay STEM professors more than English professors. In most cases, the humanities professors who are lucky enough to get tenure are happy enough to be working in their field; finding a stable job teaching English or Philosophy is not easy. Science professors need to bring in massive grants for their research, go to conferences all over the world, and operate a real running lab doing science. Even if you are using postdoc slaves, there's still a cost involved that's much higher than a humanities professor who basically needs an office, access to library collections and classroom space.
However, I don't think it's fair to charge more for expensive-to-grant degrees. Don't we want more technical people in the world these days? And on the other end, I think most people understand the need to balance science and humanities, and that most people benefit from an exposure to both. Even my cursory exposure to the non-science courses in my otherwise heavily science oriented degree made me a better individual. Also, from my experience the science students were much more serious about their work than business or English students...you really have to want to work to actually major in a hard science and it's very difficult to just skate through.
Funding public colleges seems to be to be the best investment possible, regardless of whether your degree cost the university $100,000 or $25,000 to give you. Even with the extraneous programs and expensive add-ons, college remains a time where 18 year old kids get the opportunity to grow up. I know it helped me, and yes I know that some people never grow up regardless of college attendance. But on balance, I'd rather have more people educated than fewer. Not to get political, but the presidential election we just had shows what happens when people don't objectively verify claims and let their emotions make their choices. Having more people that take the time to pick apart both sides' arguments and actually think about the choice they're making is a good thing. In addition, having more educated people may finally make companies stop complaining that they can't find any domestic workers.
The career potential and earnings could also be factored in to put a control on junk degrees. High school in the US is mostly useless since most have to relearn everything as a frosh in college so why not cut it down to two years and maybe make it an extension of grammar school.
since their unemployment will have a burden on society
keep in mind, Accelerated was not skipping a grade, it was learning a year ahead of your peers and it only applied to a single class. You could be in Accelerated math but a normal level english class.... This was particularly nice because it let you get ahead at the things you were good at while not punishing you for not being exceptional at everything.
You could try to divide up classes at schools that have fewer students but the fact of the matter is you are not going to serve either group as well as you can when you have enough students to really sort them out by ability. Different schools of different sizes do different things. Its not perfect but we don't live in a perfect world. Many rural areas use area high schools to get around this, combining the students from several towns to get enough to be able to split them up for advanced and remedial classes.
I agree with you on the college thing... it would be awful if someone who could be an excellent engineer studied something that they were not as skilled because they couldn't afford the engineering degree.
I disagree with you on Football scholarships mostly because schools that give those out end up making more money per athlete on the games (which are attended by a ton of people who all buy tickets and concessions and then there are the TV rights as well, even video game rights where the students appearances are used with no compensation to them, only the school). Those kids play hard for no money while the school makes a ton off of them. Its a good deal for the schools as it is.
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
Not only should the costs be the same but the article nicely explains why: those getting science, engineering etc. degrees generally earn more and so will pay more tax. This extra tax should be more than enough to offset the cost of their education and is also a good way to justify why higher salaries should attract a higher rate of tax.
Eighty Percent of students switch majors at least once in the United States. The more of an obstacle you create to that, the less likely you are to have people studying what they want to study. Also, the more expensive you make it to teach chemistry or computer science, the fewer kids will take a side class in chemistry or computer science.
There would be some advantages, though. It would make it easier to take a few early, basic courses where they take one professor and have 80+ students in the class. And it would make it easier for someone to get a minimal degree in something that doesn't cost the school much to run. But that's a small set of people you're helping, at the expense of STEM education and the ability to switch majors, etc...
The best solution is probably to have a few inexpensive-degree-only schools for people who absolutely know they want to major in Shakespeare, but still keep tuition flat across majors or relatively flat at most schools.
Real lawyers write in C++
Liberal arts grads get 1 math class in their entire 4 years of college and never even take stats or learn regression analysis so those people are just hopeless.
I must have done it wrong when I got my General Ed A.A. degree. I took a ton of business, lit and math courses (including intro calculus). Then again, I wasn't focused on a major because I didn't know what I wanted to do. That came a decade later when I went back to school to get my Computer Programming A.S. degree.
They generally retain none of it except the econometrics bits which they will need in their future jobs as spreadsheet monkeys at finance or consulting cos.
I work in IT support. My number one tool is the spreadsheet. The funny thing is I never learned how to use a spreadsheet at college. I had to teach myself how to become a spreadsheet monkey.
At a research universities, the overhead charged by the university on engineering research grants goes into a general fund that supports the other disciplines, directly or indirectly. The flow of cash is from engineering to the other programs, not vice versa. The university engineering school often also must pay the university liberal arts college based on enrollment of engineering undergrads in required courses taught in the liberal arts college (such as some basic math and science courses). The suggested tuition differential, if justified on the basis of costs to the various departments, would have to take into account these facts of university finance. It's not nearly as simple as suggested.
In general, it's not the schools running the food booths, and it's certainly not *costing* them anything (at least not around here). Instead, they rent space to Starbucks, McD's, etc etc. It's pretty much the same as a food court in a mall. Those merchants pay staff, do their own cleaning, buy their own supplies etc etc. If anything the Uni may be paying less as they don't need to keep a full cafeteria staff on-hand.
The only costs to the Uni would be in created the space in the first place, and general maintenance/cleaning.
At the worst I would expect this to break even, but in any cases I know of it's somewhat profitable.
Perhaps athletic scholarships should be outcome-based. The jocks who don't succeed and don't end up with megabucks to pay a bunch of money back to the college they 'attended' (ahem) should become indentured for life to the grounds crew.
This plan would drive more people into liberal arts degrees and away from STEM degrees, it's a bad plan.
"Grab them by the pussy" -- President of the United States of America
You get a better society, a society where your neighbours' kids have a better understanding of the world, a better future, better job prospects, less likelihood to rob you, and a long great etcetera.
As long as we are going to treat education as a commodity - and we are, since it's so tightly coupled with the more lucrative careers and degrees exist as a primary requirement for those positions - we need to bring that into focus at all levels.
The easiest way I can think of doing that is simply to require the college itself to co-sign the student loans, so they're on the hook if the student defaults or it's not paid off after a certain period of time - say 10-20 years.
This should have the following impact:
- The college will not accept students who select majors which do not have the potential for a valuable career, who must also take out sizable loans
- Colleges will adjust their own actual costs downwards, since they are in effect, potentially charging themselves.
- Colleges will be more invested in each individual student's academic success, both in quality and completion of education.
- Degrees will increase in value as the effective supply is restricted.
Now, for those who think that effectively removing non-payout educations is a bad idea, consider this: the students who follow those majors and accrue massive debt are indulging in a luxury. They are buying something they cannot afford which does not have a reasonable potential to afford them a chance to pay it back, much less provide a means to a livelihood. Remember, education is a commodity. This is no different than an 18 year old buying a 100,000 dollar car, on credit. It has no real potential for return on investment, even if you feel it's personally enriching.
Yes, if you're rich, you can afford a luxury like a fancy car or art history degree. Or seen from another angle, you can take riskier investments because you have a better safety net.
*record scratch*
Ok, stop, I know what you're thinking. That makes certain degrees only accessible to the elites, and that's unfair.
Well, you're wrong. It's fair. It's a LUXURY. It's not necessary. An education has a finite, specific value, an estimable potential, and it's tied strongly into the socio-economic environment. So many participants - students and faculty alike - fail to realize this very important part.
*music continues*
Of course, if someone were to break the education/commodity relationship, perhaps by making education free, we could reap the benefits to society that education in non-lucrative majors purport to provide - such as art and music - which do not financially enrich the individuals. However, that doesn't seem to be happening, and besides, there's no measurable way to claim that these individuals DO contribute their potential to society in any greater amount than those who are not similarly educated.
Because Business cant be taught. It has to be learnt by working as a businessman. Any mom and pop restaurant owner knows more about business than a business major.
**Life is too short to be serious**
When you consider the costs of text books, and lab fees.
Because Business cant be taught.
Someone should tell the business schools that.
It has to be learnt by working as a businessman.
Just like everything else in life.
Any mom and pop restaurant owner knows more about business than a business major.
I worked for business owner who ran the business the same way his father and grandfather ran the business. One day he learned that he could reduce his liabilities and taxes by incorporating his small business. If he had gone to school and learned about business, he could have incorporated the business earlier and saved himself a significant amount of money. Alas, that change came late in life and the business ended with the third generation as his son was a drug addict.
Making it "Free" to students only shifts the burden to all taxpayers.
Which kicks-in another consequence. No barrier to entry.
Remember back to your High School days? Now imagine instead of graduating after 12th Grade, next year you simply took the bus over to a new school building next door and attended 13th through 16th Grades with the same classmates and pretty much the same type of teachers.
That's where it would be headed. Since it's free and most employers would want it, most students would go. In order to handle that sort of demand, the local Community Colleges could never handle it (if taxpayers pay for it, then everyone will be allowed to go), the States would have to supply it just like they do K-12. (and only a matter of time before States start passing laws, with the help of the Union, making it mandatory like K-12.) Mostly, because that is what they know how to do. The teachers would be Union and the Union would make sure it happened this way. Also, the increased demand coupled with the low salaries (compared to current college professors as a tax payer funded system would pitch the tax payers vs. the teachers just like K-12) would make people think twice about being teacher in that system. Also, who would be the "Inner City" College Teacher? It is highly likely they would have the same problems as their 9-12th counterparts.
There will still be "Private" colleges, just like there are Private Schools but they will be the "real" colleges that we know today. But their costs will remain unchanged and taxpayer dollars only used in States that have passed the "voucher" system.
There is a high probability that the end result of a "Free" college education for all will result in most people getting an 8 year High School education for free while the few students that can pay or get loans for a Private College will get a more advanced education with superior teachers and materials. So, only changes are forcing non-college students to take 4 more years of classes and making all taxpayers pay for it.
I'd paying for what you are actually getting or using as long as availbllity of loans are actually tied to the likelyhood you will be able to pay them back when you graduate with a degree and your chances of success in a given program.
âoeTolerance applies only to persons, but never to truth. Intolerance applies only to truth, but never to persons.
The real answer is Baumol's Cost Disease, and it's why all services get expensive faster than overall average inflation. It's also why products get expensive slower than overall inflation. $6 T-Shirts at Sears are cheaper, inflation adjusted, than they were when I was a kid in the 70s (6 bucks today was 2 bucks in 1981 and pennies before 1974). Meanwhile, have you hired a couple of musicians for a wedding lately? Freaking expensive. Education is a service, not a product, and there have only been the slightest productivity improvements. The National Science Foundation and the National Institutes for Health set the overhead rates, and they've barely changed since the early 90s. Incidentally, the number one driver of university costs has been faculty and staff health insurance - like every other labor-intensive business.
Professors don't work for free.
They say they do, somebody is getting the big-bucks and you can be sure it isn't the professors, the TAs, or the interns.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
That's why the sciences have "lab fees" of $35/semester.
But in reality, all disciplines should be charged the same. Charging different rates depending on department would create worse infighting between departments than already exists. Plus you can generally take any class outside of your major if you have the prerequisites, which is great.
http://github.com/gbook/nidb
The fact that this has always been there yet has not caught on despite being cheaper shows that the market for employees that lack a broad (dare I say liberal arts) education are not in demand. This surprises me but I support it because I want an educated citizenry.
Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon. -- Susan Ertz
As a teenager growing up in Europe, I had to compete for those limited spots. For many reasons, I was out-competed. The effort required to get into the top 'free' institutions was more than I was willing to put forth as I was a kid and wanted to do kid things not spend all day studying. Luckily I ended up in the USA where I got a decent education without the cutthroat competition. I became a very successful professional in a STEM field. I think the USA system costs a lot but gives opportunity to kids to become something without facing life-sucking competition at the age where they should be kids.
The other half of the story are revenues.
STEM professors bring in substantially more grants and prestige to the university. Undergrads and grad students are part of the package of taking advantage of those professors who rake in the grant money.
If the university actually considered the full financial picture, they might well charge more tuition to the English major because the English department is a greater burden per student in the major. But even that idea is foolishness, because a university cannot be a university without a properly staffed English department that serves the entire undergrad student body.
A university can learn useful lessons from the business world, but running a university exactly like a business is idiotic.
I get nothing for it myself
That is not really true. Government by mere existence protects property. People with more property use more of the government protection. I am not just talking about homes. The financial instruments you own, the retirement funds you have saved, etc are protected by government enforcing contract law and settling civil disputes. People don't write rubber checks a lot because, they are scared they will end up in jail. It makes all businesses efficient, that improves your stock market returns and improves your ability to earn.
People who earn a lot, people who own a lot, use lots of government services. They have a lot to lose, if the government falls. So they should pay lots of taxes, and do everything to improve faith in the government and make sure the government works well and works efficiently.
Denounce government corruption, inefficiency, apathy etc. But not the government itself. Fight the unreasonable levels of taxation. But don't start going around saying "all taxation is theft". Such talk is very counterproductive.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Pointless shit that allows you lots of time to think about being unemployed?
Liberal Arts?
Sociology?
Lesbian Dance Theory?
Charge money like money's going out of style.
STEM?
Law?
Business degrees?
You know, USEFUL jobs? Charge the bare minimum.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Well make the first 2 years at the same cost as HS and at the end of 2 years you get an degree. You should get both an AA/AS and an BA/BS for a 4 year school and all 2 year plans should give an AA/AS.
It ad's a true point from Some College to 4 year degree and makes it 100% across the board.
dual track education system can help as well downsizing college into more an badges based cert system where it's not big long years to get the next badge / next level.
Also moving people from college to trades / apprenticeship setting is better for people who learn that way and for skills that go better hands on / need less theory based learning.
The current 4-year system is preferred because it makes things easy for resume readers (people and machines) to know what your degree really means. A typical opening will receive hundreds of resumes; readers don't have time to figure out obscure education descriptions. If new custom types of degrees/certificates are invented, it will complicate resume reading.
"Oh look, Bob has a Snockular degree. That's nice, but what the hell is a Snockular degree?"
We'd have to come up with simple, common, and certified conventions if we want to replace or improve on the existing conventions.
I propose year-level-based system for a topic (major) and general education. The "general" level group would be for language, history, sociology, communications, art, etc.
General Levels:
1 = High-school or equivalent.
2 = equivalent to general ed. you'd get from an Associate degree.
3 = equivalent to 3 years of general ed. from a 4-year university.
4 = equivalent to the general ed. from a 4-year degree.
Topic (Major) Levels:
1 = A single training course or class.
2 = equivalent to major-related education you'd get from an Associate degree.
3 = equivalent to 3 years of major-related education from a current 4-year university.
4 = equivalent to the major-related education from a current 4-year degree.
(6 may be equiv. of a Master's degree, but I'm not sure we need 5 and 6 yet.)
A resume could then say something like: "Education: Software Programming & Engineering: level 3, general level: 2"
Other than clarifying the level 3's, it's not really much different from the existing system. But it allows a wider mix.
A typical trade school would probably give a level-3 of topic education, but one wouldn't need the general levels, although "1" may be expected or required. That would be a lot cheaper than the education for a 4 general and 4 topic level.
Employers can decide how much value they attribute to general education. I agree general ed. is good, but it's expensive.
Table-ized A.I.
If these EEs were as smart as they like to believe, they'd have done some checking first:
The EE's I know graduated 20+ years ago. Ironically, I stopped taking electronic courses in college about the same time. That's when it became obvious that consumer electronics went from being repairable to disposable.
Not quite true, only about 20 university sports programs pay for themselves. The remaining 200 programs are subsidized by general revenue. In general, the smaller the school, the larger the subsidy. http://www.usatoday.com/story/... (poorly paywalled)
More trades / tech schools are needed and they should not be locked in to the 4 year system.
There isn't a shortage of trade and tech schools. There's a shortage of jobs with realistic education expectations. Oh you're "only" an electrician? We only employ electrician / instrument dual technicians who also have a business degree. There's also a shortage of expectations. We're told at school to be anything in life we need to go to university and get a good job. No one is told about trades, that they pay well, that they are cheaper than a university degree, and that many of those degrees you can do are completely worthless.
I disagree with you on Football scholarships mostly because schools that give those out end up making more money per athlete on the games (which are attended by a ton of people who all buy tickets and concessions and then there are the TV rights as well, even video game rights where the students appearances are used with no compensation to them, only the school). Those kids play hard for no money while the school makes a ton off of them. Its a good deal for the schools as it is.
Just want to clear out this part. I think you misunderstood GP. I believe GP said the Football scholarships give opportunity to those who receive to later on make big money in professional league. Though, I think only very small percentage of those who could make to NFL would make big money. Also, even smaller percentage actually make fames...
Also, I think students who got Football scholarships actually have somewhat equally return even though they do not get paid in monetary. They already have their audition to the whole nation. If they are really good, then they would stand out and subsequently being drafted into NFL. If they aren't, then they would already know that they should look for other career to pursue. It is quite a good deal to have a chance to be an intern (playing football) while being in school.
Well some trades works was good but there less jobs now days. Like construction being an ditch digger used to be good paying now days you need to know how to run the backhoe and there are less jobs / hours in that.
Back in the 90's you got like $15/hr just to do the stop / slow sign in a work zone and that was good pay for the time.
That's a nice sounding little statement from an emotional perspective, but is unlikely to be true. Someone who is paying for their education is likely to work harder, so as not to waste their money, which will lead to them becoming better educated. And someone who has no desire for more learning after high school is unlikely to spend their money on college. On the other hand, make it "free" and then all those same people who may not be interested in learning will start going, because who doesn't want a four year party free from parents and working a real job? Just because more people show up, doesn't mean "society is better educated" (and given the insanity going on right now at places like Mizzou and Yale, where students are calling for repealing the first ammendment, having safe spaces, etc, I'd argue society is becoming less educated at college, but that's a topic for another day).
Unless you are a communist like Marx or Lenin, that is not the role of government. Government's role is to keep us free and preserve our rights, including our core rights of life, liberty and property. Taking people's property away by force to redistribute it and spend it how the government deems "best" is most assuredly not a valid role of government, especially under the US constitution.
Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it.
1. nobody has killed you and taken your stuff
2. your savings [denominated in dollars] isn't subject to rampant inflation
3. your job exists because of a large, diverse, functional economy
4. no other country has invaded ours and destroyed our economy
If you think #1-#4 are easy, then please point me to the other country which manages all of these at lower taxes.
People there watch way too much soccer. There are fistfights in stadiums and public drunkeness. It's a distraction for their workforce. I don't personally enjoy soccer, and America seems to get along without it [for the most part], therefore I can't understand why different countries (with different cultural and historic factors) need it.
Also, why so much tea? get rid of that, too.
How much money in research grants do English professors bring into the university?
You seem to have a strange assumption that "free" means everyone gets to go. But that isn't the case, instead of allocating places based on ability to pay they are allocated based upon results in previous education (high school usually) - that doesn't change the number. And yes all things else the same the student with straight As in high school is more likely to do well at college than the student with straight Cs whose parents are richer.
You don't want more people showing up. You just want to pick the people that do attend based upon performance and not wealth.
SJW idiocy is irrelevant.
I clearly prefixed who would consider those the role of the government. And that you are free to disagree. But you jump to the extreme instantly and dismiss alternative views with "communist" rather than considering for a moment that maybe the made up by people concept of government might be thought of differently when made up by different people?
Numerous governments that exist in the world today and are not communist consider the pooling and allocation of resources to be a role of the government. The US constitution is irrelevant, given that other countries is specifically ("like is it in ..." comparing other places with the US) what is being discussed and it means as much to them as theirs do to the US.
The US clearly considers the pooling and allocation of resources to be a role of the government, since that is what the military is. The pooling of resources in order to allocate communal defense rather than having each individual do whatever they think is needed for the military defense of the nation.
The US is famously more individualist than most other countries. But that shouldn't stop you from at least being able to comprehend how and why other people might see things differently without instantly labeling them with bogyman (well in the US) terms like communist. You don't have to agree with people to understand them.
Fair. And if they don't pay for themselves, I'd be cool with them going away.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
Yeah, the high cost of paying for college is a problem, you are right. If we can, I would like to help with that.
That wasn't the topic though: the topic was whether someone should have to work a part-time job in college. My answer is: yes, that is absolutely fine, stop being lazy.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Having paid for everything as I went and gotten an AA from a junior college, BS from a 4 year, as well as MS and PhD and then teaching for 4 years as well as working in the private sector for 17 years, the entire college system is out of balance.
- JCs have become a second chance at high school for many students (I did it because I had to pay for everything myself, but saw the mentality first hand).
- 4 year state schools are filled with students who are distracted by constant partying and/or perfecting the art of the hookup.
- Post graduate education is essentially indentured servitude of degree holding adults who could be making $60k/year in the private sector teaching themselves and teaching undergrads because their professor hates teaching and wants to spend all of their time doing research.
We need to revamp our high schools similar to the way that Japan runs them, where if you screw off and get shit grades in junior high or high school, you get kicked out and have to go to vocational school to learn a trade (which can often be just as lucrative as a 4 year degree, but requires less brains). You don't get to go to college unless you get a diploma or a GED and maybe some minimum score on the SATs. This reduces the overcrowding at the university level, as well as the party mentality currently found there.
To reduce college costs, all student housing and meals should be run privately by lowest bidder every 3 years and pricing should be tied to market surveys for the city in which the university exists. i.e. if the average local 1 bedroom apartment costs $500/month and you have 3 roommates, you should only pay $125/month for housing. If the local sit down restaurant charges $4 for a Caesar salad, the college can't charge $9, especially for an inferior product (this happens and its ridiculous).
First and foremost we must force our colleges to refocus from BS PC agenda majors/GE requirements to the core goal of college: providing the tools for students to get jobs. GE requirements should be eliminated completely and each department every 3 years must be forced to show justification that they are creating professionals for actual job market needs and getting a 75% or higher placement rate in those fields, otherwise they no longer get any tax payer funding. Actual tuition should be 50% paid for by the state through taxes if you maintain a 3.0 or higher in a degree field that is profitable (when you apply for your college, you have to present a plan and a market study on the job market you are targeting when you graduate, how much you will make in 1-5-10 years and how much debt you will cary and when it will be paid off). The other 50% should be loans/grants out of pocket etc. However, since the tax payer is footing the bill for your degree, if your GPA drops below 3.0, you go on probation, and if you drop below 2.0, you get expelled and have to go to vocational school or get a job. Today, we have far too many people educated beyond their intelligence who can't understand why they can't get a job with their English/liberal arts/poli sci/Chicano studies/underwater basket weaving degree and are being crushed under mountains of student loan debt that they should never have taken on to begin with. Unless you are independently wealthy, you should be doing a cost benefit analysis to see if your degree is worth anything near what you are paying for it.
Sate run colleges should be focused on teaching and eliminate the practice of tenure. Professors who consistently score low in the quality of their students reviews and/or subsequent performance should go on probation and if not improved, termination. They should have a separate branch that is dedicated to research. If a professor can pull in enough grant money to cover his salary, (s)he can move over to the research branch and the college can hire a new professor to teach. Thus the professors who are teaching must be focused on teaching, and the professors focused on research can focus on their research. Students and graduates who want to work on research must be paid prevailing wage for their qualifications and they can get credits for working on the project.
If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like
Engineering, medical and so on bring in donations and partnerships. Very few people have any interest in funding liberal arts buildings and programs.
It probably won't affect the choice of degree.
If a high starting salary warrants a higher loan amount - then colleges will raise the price of that course of study (why leave money on the table?). A lower starting salary would result in a lower loan amount - this would force colleges to lower the cost of those degree programs - or lose enrollment numbers in those degree programs.
I doubt a policy like this would push an English major to study medicine.
What this will do is prevent colleges from charging the same amounts for English and medical courses of study.
If we were not spending around $600 billion a year on bombing the middle east and occupying the rest of the world with military bases
That money is intended to secure our oil supply, secure trade corridors, and prevent terrorism at the source. The economic effect of those goals is vast. Now you can argue that the money is not being spent effectively...
I would think you would have to consider how much money the grads of the more expensive programs contribute to the endowments, spend on football tickets, and pay in taxes later. I bet an engineer will pay a lot more back to the state in taxes than an art teacher.
But it increases risk to the student to pursue the more lucrative degree. I knew a guy who started medical school, then family health problems sprang up and next thing you know he's a regional manager at a McDonald's because that was the most lucrative job he could get quickly. That's not terribly common, but the onus of paying back loans is on the student, not the school, so the risk/reward effect there would need to be considered.
So, you prefer money instead of brain power as the deciding factor who gets a degree. Well, to each their own, I guess. Back in the Soviet Union the deciding factor was how good a Marxist-Leninist you were.
In the end, I have a hunch that I'd prefer the doctor that is the brightest instead of the one that has the richest parents or can recite Lenin while preparing for his malpractice suit.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Statistical bullshit. Big money sports (football, basketball) make money, but the other programs (swimming, soccer, field hockey) suck in down.
Someone will have to pay for the pools, if the football program stops.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Modern government roles needs to be redefined.
In today's society, most needs differ than those in 1776.
Sure, we still need freedom of speech, yet as it was intended. Back in 1776, blatant lies were relatively rare. Today, lying is the norm - especially for politicians.
So, in line with this thought, it seems our government "by the people" needs to be "FOR the people" - people of contemporary times.
Provide protection and freedom.
Today, we need protection and freedom - from terrorism - like from shootings and bombs and biochemical threats.
And that means health care for those victims.
And that also means education to provide abilities to handle threats and health care.
Beyond that small scenario, it still makes sense to have peoples as smart as possible, as health as possible.
Seems like a right to me. A right that I can choose to take or not.
Self-importance and self-indulgence is the root of ALL evil.
In order to answer this we need to know which meaning of "should" is intended.
Is this a prediction, made according to theory or experience? Apparently not.
Is this a moral imperative, as in "you should do what you agreed to do"? Apparently not.
Is it in a sentence with an implied clause -- "in order to" -- about something to be attained or avoided? Apparently.
Leaving that up to the reader to fill in makes for a more free-ranging discussion, I suppose.
If you want an actual answer, you should not leave that part out.
There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.