dagblog - Comments for "Why Obama Won't Make College Cheaper"

I meant that McGill and

Ronity — Fri, 20 Sep 2013 04:57:14 +0000

I meant that McGill and Cambridge are both reputable; not identical. (McGill has a better medical school, Cambridge a better rowing team....)

Hate to say things like this

Oxy Mora — Thu, 19 Sep 2013 21:40:48 +0000

In reply to With McGill, Cambridge and

Hate to say things like this but those were the good ole days. I worked for $1 an hour in a steel mill and saved enough money in the Summer to pay for all my expenses for the year except for tuition.

I listened to an interview of

Oxy Mora — Thu, 19 Sep 2013 21:36:36 +0000

In reply to Tuition at NM universities is

I listened to an interview of the CEO of Morgan Stanley and it's my recollection that they were recruiting entry level people with liberal arts degrees and that their acceptance rate on offers made was 90%.

Not strictly on topic but

A Guy Called LULU — Thu, 19 Sep 2013 21:19:14 +0000

In reply to Why Obama Won't Make College Cheaper

Not strictly on topic but about a union victory for faculty which involves, among other important issues, the union also report that it won average salary increases of nearly 12 percent over the two years of the agreement and minimum salaries for non-tenure track faculty. Someone will pay but the focus of the article is on other issues.

http://coreyrobin.com/2013/09/19/faculty-to-university-of-oregon-oh-no-w...

With McGill, Cambridge and

acanuck — Thu, 19 Sep 2013 20:49:09 +0000

In reply to I am pleased to read that

With McGill, Cambridge and Technion, we're talking about schools that rank among the world's top 20-30 in at least their primary fields. Cost aside, good luck getting in.

But I googled their tuition and fees, just to get a rough baseline. For undergraduates from outside the country, Technion starts around $8,000 a year; McGill and Cambridge are double that, with Cambridge rising to $50,000-plus for med school. Then there's the expense of living abroad. Yikes! And it's not like these universities aren't government-subsidized.

Back in the '60s (yes, I'm that old), I lucked out to live just a longish commute between my mother's home cooking and a world-class school -- which cost me about $500 a year. Plus I got to live in the '60s!

Tuition at NM universities is

Peter — Thu, 19 Sep 2013 14:56:27 +0000

In reply to I am pleased to read that

Tuition at NM universities is paid for with state lottery revenues so even though we have the same accelerating cost problems as others the students are subsidized. Tuition is only one part of the expense of getting an education so my son still has sizeable debt to pay even though he worked and received grants. Luckily for him and his parents he choose a degree in computer science and has a great position in Cambridge Mass. Liberal Arts degrees used to at least get graduates a good position in teaching but now that we are privatizing all levels of education their options are limited, would you like fries with that diploma?

I am pleased to read that

Oxy Mora — Thu, 19 Sep 2013 14:00:19 +0000

In reply to The wingeing here would do

I am pleased to read that McGill has reached parity with Cambridge. My Grandkids all applied to Cambridge but my American Express points were insufficient to fly them back and forth so they opted for various academic programs in our great state of Missouri and are now loaded down with liberal arts degrees and mountains of student debt which makes me feel guilty for splurging on a tooth implant. Thanks for posting.

The wingeing here would do

Ronity — Thu, 19 Sep 2013 13:47:07 +0000

In reply to Why Obama Won't Make College Cheaper

The wingeing here would do credit to a boatload of Poms. Tuition too expensive? Two solutions:

1- Find a cheaper, reputable foreign university. (Examples: McGill in Canada, Cambridge in England, Technion in Israel.) See what they do differently from US institutions, and copy it exactly.

2- If you or your children are applying to college, apply abroad. You will benefit in many ways. Besides saving on tuition, you may find living costs are lower. Plus, living abroad for a few years is an education in itself: you will return more rounded, with wider horizons. Your host country will benefit by the influx of foreign currency. Your university will benefit by helping to fill its multicultural quota of foreign students.

Once American colleges see their rolls (and income) dropping, they will be faced with a situation of change or die, and will have to stop prevaricating and procrastinating, and actually lower their fees or raise the quality of their product. This will benefit future American students. Everyone benefits in this system.

The above assumes that foreign education is as good as American. If you think US universities are better, then what are you complaining about? You pay more, you get more.

Maybe you'll get to this in

Michael Wolraich — Thu, 12 Sep 2013 21:07:00 +0000

In reply to Why Obama Won't Make College Cheaper

Maybe you'll get to this in part two, but I'd say that there is plenty of inefficiency in the college system. It's not driven by laziness and corruption but rather systematic market forces.

The steak analogy is an interesting one. In an economic boom, there's lots of money for upscale dining. Fancy steak dinners become a status symbol. Could the restaurateurs sell cheaper cuts? Of course. But the public is willing to pay, and there's cache to selling the most expensive, most (perceived) delicious steak to the high-rolling bankers.

Recession hits, money dries up, price of steak drops. Unnecessary costs leave the system.

Many American colleges are like high-end steakhouses. They compete to provide the nicest dorms, plushest libraries, fanciest faculty, most successful sports teams, etc. Do students need to live in a country club to get a great education? No. But as long as they're willing to pay, the college's keep pushing to the limits to out-fancy their competitors.

So if you could somehow force colleges to operate with less revenue, I think you see leaner but just as effective institutions. How you do that, I don't know.

Coincidentally, I ran across

Donal — Thu, 12 Sep 2013 12:39:05 +0000

In reply to Why Obama Won't Make College Cheaper

Coincidentally, I ran across this link in the comment section of another blog. It's kind of a, "the rent is too damned high!" rant, and the problems he cites are by no means limited to education, but some of it sounds like what you've observed before. I was curious about your take on it:

WHAT'S WRONG WITH HIGHER EDUCATION IN THE U.S. TODAY

1. THE FACULTY'S PREDICAMENT

a. In the past 30 yrs., a caste of administrators has usurped control of higher education. Using the ideology of free-market fundamentalism, a cadre of management professionals has garnered to itself the lion's share of revenues (from skyrocketing tuition costs, which these same admins initiated), and political influence (from contributions, corporate partnerships, and cronyism).

b. As a result, the profession is over 50% "part-time" faculty who teach twice as much as do their "full time" colleagues, for a fifth of the pay, with no benefits. That percentage is growing all the time.

c. A certain kind of distance learning program (but by no means all distance learning programs) has contributed to the outsourcing, downsizing, de-skilling, and degradation of the professoriate. These are based on the use of mandatory pre-recorded courseware content; over-regulated syllabi; and wages that are even further below the poverty-line than those you're paid for adjuncting live.

2. THE STUDENTS' PREDICAMENT

a. In "good" schools, as few as 10% of those who teach undergraduates are tenured faculty; since tenure is a vetting process, this seems disadvantageous to the clientele since they pay to be taught by persons who are unvetted in this regard, many of whom still lack the PhD and are quite new (sometimes, utterly new) to teaching. Tuition costs are astronomical at such institutions.

b. Wherever you go to college, online or live (but especially live), the cost is huge. Little of it goes to the people who do the actual teaching; it goes to pay enormous salaries to presidents and provosts and deans. Their job is to raise money and spend it on everything except paying faculty or lowering tuition. Construction projects, stock schemes, personal enrichment, sports arenas, endowment building, whatever. That's why tuition is so high.