Who'd Go To University Today? (spiked-online.com)

Are students being short-changed by their $60,000 degree courses? And does a university education in 2018 represent good value for money? A slew of recent government and think-tank reports aim to tackle these questions. And the answers they give are not encouraging. From a report: The Public Accounts Committee announced this month that the value of the UK's student-loan system is falling. Last year, the government sold a tranche of the student-loan book at a major loss. The portfolio had a face value of $4.4 billion, but was sold for just $2.1 billion: a return of 48p in the pound, according to the public-spending watchdog. Clearly, the current method of funding higher education represents a bad deal for the taxpayer.

But do universities offer good value for students? Not when you consider the fact less than half the money that students pay in tuition fees is actually spent on teaching, according to a report by the Higher Education Policy Institute. The rest of the money from tuition fees goes into other services and parts of the administration. These include admissions procedures, marketing, vice-chancellor pay and programmes to boost access for poorer students, as well as therapeutic services like mental-health provision and exam-stress counselling.

Universities today have far too much bureaucracy, fat-cat VC's salaries are far too high, and a great deal of what administrators spend money on is a hindrance to education. University bureaucracy is often at the forefront of coddling students, encouraging them to see exams and hard work as threats to their mental health. It is troubling to see that students are not only plunging themselves into debt at such a young age, but also that much of that debt does not go towards their actual education.

Comments

Another bubble

[zippo01]

I truly think we are starting to see the edge of an education bubble. For many years, high school pushed college so hard people got worthless degrees that did nothing to prepare them for the job market. This devalued the mostly none stem degree. Think about it. I can get a degree in communications and come out with 60k in debt and make 40k a year. Or go into a trade and make 80k with little to ne debt. Second, when politicians say make school more affordable they just mean make it easier to get loans.

But they will get free healthcare

[Anonymous Coward]

Who cares if your universities have problems when you're getting free healthcare??? U.S. sucks! Go Europe!!

But in all seriousness - I think that if universities were required to clearly and cleaning break their "fees" into components as to what they fund, it would really open some eyes. A yearly invoice might look like this:

Tuition (funds professors and classroom activities: $XXX
Student Extras (funds clubs facilities that all students can use): $XXX
Privileged Student Extra (funds clubs and facilities that only SOME students can use): $XXX
Outreach (general recruiting and student support): $XXX
Specialty Outreach (recruiting and support for only SOME types of students): $XXX
Athletic Teams (anything funding the school's athletic teams - not all students can play): $XXX
Building & Grounds Maintenance: $XXX
Utilities and Related Operational Costs: $XXX
Administration (people not doing maintenance or teaching): $XXX

When people start to see their own dollar figures going to some of this shit, maybe they will care about it.

Then again, may not.

Value for money

[sjbe]

Are students being short-changed by their $60,000 degree courses?

Sometimes yes. Sometimes no. I think a better question is whether we are doing a good job directing people into schooling options appropriate for both the needs of the individual and society. For some reason we tend to look down on trade schools and anything else besides a 4+ year degree despite the fact that many jobs really don't require such education. Not everyone needs a 4 year college degree but we funnel a lot of people into college who probably don't need to be there.

And does a university education in 2018 represent good value for money?

It certainly can. The lifetime earning increase from a college degree very often substantially outweighs the cost of tuition. Not to mention that there are quite a few jobs you simple cannot get without having earned a college degree. I'm an engineer (among other things) and good luck getting a job as an engineer without a college degree. It's possible but really, really hard at most companies.

But do universities offer good value for students? Not when you consider the fact less than half the money that students pay in tuition fees is actually spent on teaching. The rest of the money from tuition fees goes into other services and parts of the administration.

That's kind of a dumb argument. Educating a large student body inherently comes with a lot of overhead. Let me use an analogy closer to the heart of many people here. Only about 10-25% of the cost of developing a piece of software is the actual engineering and code writing. The overwhelming majority of the cost to the company is in sales and administration. This isn't a good or bad thing, it's just how the numbers fall out. When you have a student body of 50,000 students, you need a lot of administrative staff to manage that. There is a lot more to teaching students than just doing a few lectures. That's not to say all schools manage their money effectively but the notion that administration isn't going to be pretty substantial at a large university is absurd.

Not to mention, teaching is only part of what universities do and arguably not even really their main purpose. They also are in many cases research institutions which has little to nothing directly to do with educating students but still carries very real costs. Part of student tuition often goes to pay for part of this even though the students may see little to no direct benefit from it.

Reading comprehension failure

[Anonymous Coward]

You missed at least half the story. Less than half of spending goes towards teaching. It is a huge pot of money without accountability and is getting "stolen" by administration. "Free" education just makes this problem worse.

Many degrees are not getting students jobs anywhere near what the degree costs. Again "Free" education doesn't solve this, it makes it worse.

Its almost as if you fixed these issues, the problem of if its "free" or not becomes moot. Price goes down by half, and you get something worthwhile. If you can get a STEM degree that pays $100k a year for $30k, are you going to throw a fit because you had to pay for it and it wasn't provided by the government?

Clearly my ***

[plague911]

"Clearly, the current method of funding higher education represents a bad deal for the taxpayer. " Governments of all kinds receive a MASSIVE ROI on education. By having you know, an educated workforce the government expands its tax base probably an order of magnitude over what it would have otherwise, dramatically increasing its revenues. The quote represents nothing but a short sighted conservative hyperbole. It amounts to "OMG I CANT IMAGINE ANY BENEFIT OTHER THAN A DIRECT INSTANTATIOUS PROFIT, I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT DELAYED GRATIFICATION IS"

Root Cause

[Puls4r]

The root cause of current higher-education problem is government backed student loans. Why is that? Well it's fairly simple. Student loans can not be discharged by bankruptcy. In addition companies that offer student loans have little to no risk - because student loans in the US are fully backed by the government.

As a result, there is no incentive to means-check people prior to giving them a loan. In point of fact, there is very little means-checking. In addition, because of the government backing of the loan there does not need to be a correlation between what a particular degree is likely to actually pay, and how much the education might cost.

For instance, an electrical engineer could go to a university on all student loans. As long as that person gets reasonable grades, they will have decent earning potential. Another student could go to the same university and get a degree in basket weaving. It will cost them about the same. But the earning potential afterwards is nil. They are unlikely to pay back the loan.

This has led to universities charging insane amounts of money for degrees that are near worthless. We can't and shouldn't protect people from getting worthless degrees. That's their problem. We SHOULD, however, remove the liability from the taxpayer for those worthless degrees. That decoupling would result in far more stringent means-testing. It would also mean that loan companies would no longer give students loans for worthless degrees.

A college degree would be worth more. Trade-schools would likely make a return. People would be naturally funneled toward degrees that are in demand. We would be better off all the way around. Keep in mind, this is very similar to what happened to the housing market. As long as loan companies could gives loans and hide the risk they will do so. In the housing bubble's case it was through the clumping together of mortgages to hide the risk. In this case it's the government hiding the risk.

Oh, and those "fat cat bureaucrats" aren't real

[rsilvergun]

any more than fancy dorms are the cause of rising tuition.

Per the article I linked above tuition is going up because we slashed federal and state subsidies. I'm so tired of this lie being repeated...

Re:Much of it is because students want that stuff

[obenchainr]

"Students are demanding housing that graduates couldn't even afford in the past." My university has three students living in rooms that were built for one. This is true for most of the state college system (which also happens to be one of the best in the nation and the world). But let's not let facts get in the way of a good "cardboard box in the middle of the road" rant.

Re:Much of it is because students want that stuff

[lkcl]

All this drives up the cost, and for some reason students are willing to pay.

... you mean, they're willing to go massively into debt without realising the consequences on the rest of their life...

Re: Much of it is because students want that stuff

[physicsphairy]

^This is exactly what we have discussed at faculty meetings about recruitment. As for why students are willing to pay, because they aren't the ones financing it -- it's banks, scholarships, and their parents. There is some good news about the high fees, which is that partly they are there to subsidize poorer students (a campus of only wealthy students is uninteresting and makes for poor recruiting) and it's not expected that an average would actually pay them. Of course, some people (e.g. with wealthy parents who have no intent of offering financial assistance) neither have the funds nor qualify for assistance.

My recommendation is this: go to a community college for the first couple years, then transfer to a small public school. While there are great teachers out there, for the most part Calculus I is taught the same way from the same book no matter where you go, and that's true for almost all core classes. So go to community college to get that education at a tenth the cost (or probably free) and then transfer to finish a four year program. A small school will give you the most options for getting help from your pofessors, buffering your credentials with TA and research opportunities etc. and be cheaper (esp. if you don't play sports and it doesn't have sponsored sports teams).

If you stick around for grad school, then that's where you should look at bigger schools. At that level you'll have a small group that you're working with and direct mentorship anyway no matter where you go. If you're STEM you will probably earn a stipend instead of incurring more debt even at the expensive schools, and when you're doing research is when you actually care about having multimillion dollar NMR machines on campus.

They still are

[rsilvergun]

except for the rich kid's dorms. I just put my kid through the dorms (moved her to an apartment after yr 1 because it was cheaper and nicer). Yes, there are "nice" dorms. They're crazy expensive and only for the rich kids. They're a profit center for the schools, and my kid got nowhere near them.

I've already put this link in the thread but it deserves repeating. Once again, Fancy dorms are _not_ the problem. Cutting state and federal funding so we could cut taxes on the rich is. And the rich don't care because you're expendable. They don't need you or your kids to be educated. They've got H1-Bs for that.