quote:

Originally posted by ibanda:
I may not remember this story exactly but, one of our former members JALLEN told a story from I think 1950s. He played trumpet in a band at a New Year's Eve party, made about $300 and that paid tuition for a semester at University of Texas.

It was that way into the early 80s up here. My first quarter at Montana State was $275 for tuition/fees, and I would argue that the education was far better than what they get nowadays.

If you ever want to go down a dark dark hole, look into the history of two things a) state/federal accountability and b) standardized achievement test.

On accountability it has its roots in the 1983 "A Nation at Risk" which essentially concluded that the average High Schooler could not read and comprehend literature and could not due math that involved multiple steps.

The first real attempt to organize it all was Clintons Goals 2000. but really what was happening was states would just 'lower' their norms so they could meet them. i.e. look at Mississippi during the time (iirc 90% percentile in state expectations, bottom 10% on the SAT). I used to have a video of Senator Obama discussing this and the need for reform. AND that brings us to "no child left behind" which really means, we stopped caring about any student above the norm and focus entirely on those below the norm. (but I digress).

Anyway, here we are.

Yes, there is entirely too much administrative overhead at most universities. Some easy targets are DEI etc. but really, there is a gross amount of waste. but this is nearly at all levels, just do an examination of how much it costs to educate a child then find out how much of that actually goes to the classroom and teacher. It is pennies on the dollar. This is similar to the bloat at the Red Cross. The vast majority of each dollar does not go where people think it does.

I would not have a degree, nor be a professor if not for the student loan situation. My dad would never have been able for me to afford it and I worked 30 hours a week on top of the grants and loans. (this was in the early 90's) So I will not speak of removing that system.

I believe it is the "everybody has to go to college" that is at the root of it. And admission standards.

One last thing. In the 90's there were just a few online accredited universities. Now there are over 400. Most medium sized colleges are staying solvent ONLY through the growth of their online program. The vast majority of the students get and receive student loans as well. Just something to think about.

There were very few amenities when I attended college. No air conditioning in the dorm with steam heat from a radiator. The room was tiny. Bunk beds pushed into a dormer window,two large wooden desks with chairs and two large metal footlockers from the 1930s. Oh a tiny sink. Bathrooms down the hall. You had to bring your own curtains for the tiny window. The university provided laundry service with everything heavily starched. Had to have sewn tags on your belongs so you got them back. You always got socks from some other guy. One rotary phone shared with twenty other guys.

quote:

Originally posted by chellim1:

quote:

Originally posted by trapper189:
There are thousands of universities and colleges in the USA. Nobody is forcing anyone to pick one school over another. That seems fairly free market to me.

The two areas of our economy with the highest levels of funding participation by government are education and health care.
They are also the two areas where inflation greatly exceeds the rest of the economy.

Focusing on just colleges and universities, the students are being given the money through Pell Grants and loans. The students get the money regardless of the school they choose. My point is this:

“The problem is government.
Once you take government out of the equation, the experimentation will begin.
Some schools will succeed, some will fail.
Dollars and students will flow to the successful. The unsuccessful will change or close.“

still happens with the grants and loans given directly to students and won’t change by eliminating those programs. I was surprised to learn the 2 year school went to closed last summer. In fact a number of UW campuses were closed. Not enough students to make them work. Eliminating these programs will lower education costs.

I agree, the government shouldn’t be in the education business. At no point should the taxpayers be on the hook for student loans.

People started throwing sports into this discussion and my first thought was “there are thousands of schools that don’t have these “big money sports” or any sports. Kids are free to choose those schools. There’s even a couple of schools that don’t take federal money the kids are free to choose.

^^^ Yes, there is competitive pressure between schools currently. But without the federal money so freely available, the competition would be stiff between schools. That would force schools to become more competitive, to improve... or close.
Of course, you'd have leftists whining about all the schools closing.

I think your system would be better than what we have now, but I think it's more complicated than it needs to be.

I believe if we just got the Government out of the student loan process completely it would straighten itself out. Stop federally guaranteeing the loans, and let the colleges underwrite the risk for the loans they give out. If the risk was on the colleges rather than subsidized by the taxpayer, they would very quickly stop loaning out tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars toward degrees that they know have little chance of ever paying it back.

I remember sitting in one of my classes my Freshman year, the professor told us very plainly that only 10% of us would end up employed in our field. That's not saying the field isn't useful, but it doesn't seem like a degree with that kind of chance for employment should be subsidized by the taxpayer.

quote:

Originally posted by chellim1:
But without the federal money so freely available, the competition would be stiff between schools. That would force schools to become more competitive, to improve... or close.
Of course, you'd have leftists whining about all the schools closing.

OK, I’m starting to catch on. Kids with low grades, poor test scores, and no money won’t be able to afford the schools that would admit them and those schools would close. Schools like UoM, UF, UCLA, UT, etc. would be unaffected.

quote:

Kids with low grades, poor test scores, and no money won’t be able to afford the schools that would admit them and those schools would close.

Maybe more of those kids should go to a trade school? We've got to get over this idea that everyone should go to college... and that the government should pay for or finance it.

Trade schools cost money, but I’m all for kids going to trade school. One my son’s friends goes to welding school which is just fantastic. The local high school is building an airplane hanger on their campus and will training kids to be A&Ps.

By kids with no money, I’m not saying poor, but rather kids that didn’t take the initiative, get jobs in high school, and save something.

It'd be nice if everyone had a great high school guidance counselor, but that's another couple of stories.

quote:

Originally posted by trapper189:

quote:

Originally posted by chellim1:
But without the federal money so freely available, the competition would be stiff between schools. That would force schools to become more competitive, to improve... or close.
Of course, you'd have leftists whining about all the schools closing.

OK, I’m starting to catch on. Kids with low grades, poor test scores, and no money won’t be able to afford the schools that would admit them and those schools would close. Schools like UoM, UF, UCLA, UT, etc. would be unaffected.

There are hundreds of small liberal arts colleges with high acceptance rates on the brink of failure. Some provide excellent educations. Some not so much. They enroll kids and offer generous aid to get kids in the door. They can write off half or more of their inflated tuition as scholarships. Come the end of sophomore or junior year they take away some of that generous aid. The kids are invested now. They have friends and lives on campus. They’re halfway or more to graduating. Leaving might set them back a year because not all of their classes will transfer. They’re now stuck between losing the lives they’ve built on campus and their forward progress towards degrees or taking out tens of thousands of dollars in private loans offered by the school on top of the fed loans they already signed.

The school takes it away or the student loses it? On the other hand, it's wrong either way if the school makes the offer strongly suspecting the student won't be able to keep the terms of the offer.

That could be the situation one of my daughter's friends is in. I hope not. The girl did OK in high school and picked a private university she can't afford without the offer the school made rather than a public university she could afford.

quote:

Originally posted by trapper189:
The school takes it away or the student loses it? On the other hand, it's wrong either way if the school makes the offer strongly suspecting the student won't be able to keep the terms of the offer.

That could be the situation one of my daughter's friends is in. I hope not. The girl did OK in high school and picked a private university she can't afford without the offer the school made rather than a public university she could afford.

There are scholarships contingent on grades. There are grants tied to nothing. A kid can lose a merit based scholarship by not maintaining a 3.0 or whatever the terms are. Those terms are spelled out in the reward. The other case is the school withdrawing funding because they can. They can claim whatever caused it to go away but it can simply be a case of them wanting to devote the write down to an incoming freshman to entice their attendance rather than a continuing student who they can make pay closer to full freight through private loans.

quote:

Originally posted by trapper189:
Kids with low grades, poor test scores, and no money won’t be able to afford the schools that would admit them and those schools would close.

The world needs ditch diggers, too.

I agree with chellim. Not every kid can go to (and succeed in) college, or trade school for that matter. But, even those as you describe can go to (and succeed in) college. With the proper motivation, most people can raise their grades, improve their test scores, and find the finances (work, scholarships, GI Bill, grants, and loans) to get through college. Problem is, many/most kids nowadays don't have the motivation or work ethic to put in what is necessary.

Beg to disagree. As George Carlin said the average IQ is 100 and half of the people are dumber than that. If your IQ is 100 you will have a difficult time completing your coursework. No amount of studying is going to change that.

quote:

Originally posted by reloader-1:
Hey umm I know this is a forum, but there’s an actual proposal in the first post.

Do any of you want to perhaps read it and let me know what you think?

Sounds like indentured servitude.

How about if you get a 3.0 or better in high school the state agrees to pay 80% of your tuition to an in state school. If you get 3.70 or better it’s 95%. You have to maintain the grade point average while in college and you only get 120 hours paid for.

This is a the state of Georgia’s system. Paid for by the lottery. I pay less than $1,000 in tuition and lab fees a semester. And of course room and board.

My Daughter had some college credits accumulated in high school so she started with credits towards he degree so she can apply some of the 120 hours to a graduate school credits.

The systems not broken the states are.

The proposal suggested by the OP is doomed to failure. Too much money and powerful people do not want change. Having worked in a University I can attest to the fact that academics absolutely detest change.

quote:

There are no loans now, in the proposal. Colleges are now underwriting the tuition for students, with the 20% yearly salary repayment....

Why in the world would they ever want to do that? To make a lot less money?

Even if they did go along with it... Med students maybe. They're not going to keep the lights on getting 20% of what an Art History major makes in their first 4 years.
What if I graduate law school then go sell coffee at Starbucks for the next four years just to screw ya?

quote:

reloader-1

Good thoughts and observations.
I think

- the Academia reward system (based on papers published and citations)

- the uncontrolled growth of the administrative state within universities

- the competition of affordability between the US citizen vs foreigners

- the significant cost and effort for students to study/pass non-core subjects

- the university demand for staying in dermaturiums for a portion of education

- the acceptance criteria based on race, social outreach achievements, etc


all of this is broken.

As students and parents, though, we have found that our politicians do not lead or even represent our needs in the above.

I think the existing system cannot be organically 'upgraded' (again, because our legislators are not able to understand, lead, address this).

My view is that this system has to be broken before it is rebuilt. So we should celebrate employers who do not ask for what university a person attended and what degree they received.
(Unless additional certifications such MD, etc require the specific courses).

quote:

Originally posted by reloader-1:
Hey umm I know this is a forum, but there’s an actual proposal in the first post.

Do any of you want to perhaps read it and let me know what you think?

A bit of a summary:

Your proposal is based on the premise that tuition is too expensive and thus loans are required to pay for a college education.

My post on page 1 below the one quoted above refutes that in the case of Florida and GAgator’s post on this page, page 4, above does the same for but for Georgia. It seems to be a state level problem.

There are a couple of posts by folks who successfully used loans to fund their educations.

If tuition costs and loans are not the problem, then your proposal cannot address the problem.


The problem seems to be that for a variety of reasons people are putting the taxpayers on the hook for government guaranteed loans they have no chance of paying off. The solution is get rid of government guaranteed loans. No need to make it more complicated than that.

quote:

Originally posted by Gustofer:
The world needs ditch diggers, too.

You need a Geology degree for that?

There’s a downturn in oil and gas and guy with a bachelors degree in Geology applies at McDonalds. The assistant manager is impressed and tells guy she needs to talk to the manager and leaves. When she comes back, she tells the guy she’s sorry but all of the other employees with Geology degrees have their masters.