Gail Collins has a smart, sad column on “The Lows of Higher Education“:
… This year, Newsweek cheerfully welcomed the Class of 2016 by asking, “Is College a Lousy Investment?” And in The Times, Andrew Martin reported that the Department of Education is paying more than $1.4 billion per annum to folks whose job it is to collect on $76 billion in defaulted student loans. “If you wait long enough, you catch people when their guard’s down,” one debt collector told Martin after garnishing the savings of a disabled carpenter.
Look on the bright side, students. Perhaps when you graduate, some of you will be able to qualify for a good job in the booming accounts receivable management industry…
“People don’t believe much any more about the altruistic motives of colleges and universities,” sadly noted Pat Callan of the Higher Education Policy Institute.
Not without some reason. In his reporting, Martin uncovered a newsletter aimed at college admissions officers that advised them to avoid using “bad words” such as “cost” or “pay” in their admissions materials. Instead, it suggested: “And you get all this for …”
In Washington, Congress is holding hearings! The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee is considering a bill — co-sponsored by Democrat Al Franken and Republican Charles Grassley — that would require all schools to fill out the same form telling the student loan applicants useful facts like exactly how much per month they’ll be forking over when they start paying.
That would be the superminimum, right? How amazed are you that this isn’t happening already?
“Some of the packages don’t delineate what’s a grant, what’s a scholarship, what’s a loan,” said Franken. “And the information all comes in an award letter, so you’re thinking: Award!”
Yeah, it sounds a lot like the talk among the Very Serious People about the housing bubble just before the Great Crash, doesn’t it? Right down to the day-and-night split between the various commentors discussing the problems from inside the system, and those who argue that one or another Invisible Hand shoud not / could not be interfered with. Like these two adjacent “NYT Picks”:
I do not think that young people smart enough to go to college should need to be spoon-fed information about loans and the details and the need to pay the money back. If they do not understand finances and obligations at that time, they are not ready for college. Or adulthood, for that matter. Blaming the people who loan the money for the deeds of those receiving the money does not make sense.
When I went to college, I was already an “adult” (my parents weren’t helping me). That meant I had to navigate the loan maze alone. I sat down for five minutes with some guy so the school could say they did their due diligence. Right. What Sen. Franken said about the “award” letter happened to me. Even though I was smarter than the average bear, I trusted the school (which wanted only what was in my best interests, I thought) to make things clear. But my problem was that I wasn’t aware that I didn’t have to take the whole “award”–nowhere on the letter did it say I could, and the guy certainly didn’t mention it. I thought it was a check that I took to the bank, not something I could hand back to them and say, “I don’t want all this, just some.” I didn’t realize until a year in, after my more savvy friend told me, that I could just take the merit grant part (essentially a scholarship) and hand back the Sallie Mae part! Thank goodness I realized it–otherwise I would be paying back loans about three times as large.
Many college students have parents to help them suss these things out, but some young adults don’t. My parents never went to college and they weren’t really too happy about me going, so they were very uninvolved. Therefore, a financially inexperienced person like myself, despite my legally independent status, is left to depend on the information given to them by the university. She never thinks, “The school wants me in the dark.”
This can’t even be called a discussion — we have one group bringing up a myriad of problems and possibilities, and a second group flatly announcing, “Well, the only people who don’t like everything about the current situation are whiners and losers.” Hey, why should I worry my beautiful mind with this ‘bailing’ fooferaw, when the hole is in your end of the lifeboat?
Sly
If you wanna fuck someone with fine print, you better come up with some better foreplay than that.
Davis X. Machina
Higher education is where medicine was twenty years ago — everyone knows it’s broken, and even knows how to fix it.
‘Market-based’ solutions acceptable on theological grounds won’t work, and heterodox solutions can’t even be considered because blessed be the Market, the Righteous Judge.
We’ll soldier along for most of another generation and then pass a hybrid solution that doesn’t work optimally, but doesn’t offend the Market, blessed be It.
Villago Delenda Est
Fuck.the.banksters.
That is all.
red dog
There is no reason why many firms require a degree to do most jobs. It is just a way to screen candidates. This pie in the sky college degree is just not wise while a youngster “finds” himself. First, take an honest aptitude test and then go to a place to learn that skill.
Colleges should stop all remedial classes and flunk out, or not accept, those who cannot make it so they can find another career path without massive debt. Yes, I am a grumpy old fart.
PZ
Anyone see Ms. Collins’ NY Times colleague Sam Sifton engage in the biggest form of journalism hackery-
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/09/person-voter-fraud-not-really-matter-opinion
I firmly believe “he said, she said,” along with its sibling “both sides do it” are destroying journalism…
Publius39
You can always shop around or ask your parents for the money.
Chris
@Davis X. Machina:
Depressingly accurate.
I think this even summarizes the New Deal – rescue the market-God, but humanize it while leaving a few holes (health care and education) unfilled, and hope your grandchildren know what to do when the shit hits the fan.
In my darker moments I wonder if “capitalism with a human face,” which liberals have wagered for the last hundred years or so was possible, won’t ultimately turn out to be as much of a pipe dream as the communist version.
mdblanche
This reminds me of the “discussion” about every single other issue this country faces today.
MikeJ
@Chris: It might be possible if half the population weren’t actively fighting for capitalism with Cthulhu’s face.
Downpuppy
The basic problem is that universities are run by & for administrators. In a lot of places, including the University of California system, senior administrators now outnumber tenure track faculty.
The solution will of course be when faculty & students take back the institutions. In the meantime, we can just blog about it.
Waingro
Without fail, there will always be some asshole newspaper commenter declaring how awesome they are, how they saved so much money by working in a steel mill and living in a paper bag in the sewer while in college. I’m not sure they even have a larger point addressing public policy. The point always seems to be that people other than themselves deserve every ounce of suffering they receive.
Walker
@Downpuppy:
As someone who works in this space, I get the feeling that this really is a case where the system is at fault, without any single individual being at fault. Why does my school charge $43k a year in tuition? Because we have a 16% acceptance rate and we can, that is why.
Everything we spend that money on is just a byproduct of the fact that we feel we should offer services to justify that amount. So the system expands to use the resources available.
Edit: Let me also note that it has been established that if you do not charge what you can relative to your competitors, then your applicants think there is something wrong with you. Which is why there is so much discounting on the backend.
Ann Rynd
Years ago, if you were smart and poor you could skip college and lie about having a degree and most places didn’t check unless they were hiring docs or lawyers, people who needed licenses. In a big city there were lots of people in creative jobs who didn’t have degrees. It took nerve but once you were in, you were in. Can’t do that any more. Damn internet.
Downpuppy
@Walker: USC is charging about 10% more a semester than Harvard now.
No, adding another hundred Associate Deans making $200k (Middle class!) each does not improve education. I still remember in the early 1980s at UMass. They had a student activity fee, about $15 a semester, and the student governmet was bringing in a good live act every week. Then they hired a Dean of Student Activities. Suddenly, no budget for acts.
JoyfulA
Back in the Clinton surplus years, my thoughts were that, finally, we could make college tuition-free, like Europe and formerly the University of California and the City College of New York.
This millennium has been a downer, one bad part of which is money-grubbing “higher education” like Kaplan and Phoenix instead of free tuition for all.
JoyfulA
@Publius39: Or cash in a little of your stock.
thalarctos
@Sly: I was all set to write a longish comment about the philosophy of the free market and the need for transparency and symmetry of information–but Sly here put in one sentence what I would have wasted half a page on. Kudos to you, Sly.
Mr Stagger Lee
Sad how older generations of college educated types who run our schools who paid low tuition are now giving back to the younger people by screwing them with debt. I think younger people need to revolt on campus.
MaxxLange
@Ann Rynd: My Grandfather did that, after being expelled (expelled!) from Princeton for drinking and riding in a car on campus. He worked as an engineer and ended up in the Army. Then they discharged him medically, so he just rejoined under a false name. I guess the old man developed quite a taste for lying while at college!
Cacti
Nothing like starting out your working life with $60,000 of non-dischargeable debt.
Publius39
@JoyfulA: If only we would link college tuition rates to gold, we would never have to worry about rising college costs.
Cacti
@Mr Stagger Lee:
And are always ready with a lecture about attitude and work ethic.
mai naem
Speaking of Al Franken, isn’t his reelection this year? How’s he doing? Or am I wrong is it in 2014?
Edit – I looked it up, It’s 2014. Wonder if Naum’s going to run against him again.
Publius39
@Mr Stagger Lee: Just another example of the “fuck you, got mine” mentality that has permeated some of the minds of the baby-boomers who benefitted from the system. Selfish fucks.
Mr Stagger Lee
What about some of these schools with the big endowments, maybe it is time for some investigations.
Just Some Fuckhead
Oddly, I just finished building a spreadsheet for my college-bound senior that ranked Virginia colleges by twelve metrics that included price. Looks like Mary Washington in Fredericksburg is the winner.
Publius39
@mai naem: 2014. He was voted in the same year as Obama, but I wish they pro-rated his term because of the bullshit that Coleman tried to pull in the courts.
Nellie in NZ
All my life, I’ve been labeled “baby-boomer” “hedonistic” and now a “selfish fuck.” How about you don’t broadbrush another generation and I don’t broadbrush you? That’s sloopy reaction.
We’re in this together. I had kids late – one still in university – and we’re outraged at the situation but the powerlessness you feel is shared. When there is little social security, then our money goes to help the generation above us, rather than to our kids to help them evade debt. The situation is unconscionable, I agree. What to do? You turn around and help the next people through the door, not slam the door shut or pull the ladder up after you. Your debt affects us all, not because I want a society with more people able to consume more, but I want a society with more people not enslaved by debt that constricts their freedom to live and to create and take risks. Same reason I want national health care. I watch young people here in New Zealand take entreprenurial risks that back home people dare not – they need the health care benefits that come from being a wage slave.
GregB
OT.
Al Jazeera reporting that protests in the Middle East are subsiding.
In response Karl Rove’s American Crossroads PAC is planning on paying for ads advertising the film throughout the Middle East.
I added that last sentence.
JustAnotherBob
We can make most of an undergraduate degree almost free.
Who gets much of anything from sitting in a lecture hall with 100+ other students and a prof who may or may not be having a good day?
Put it on line. The best text, the best video lectures from the very best presenters, very rich media.
Set up on line discussion sections and tutorial help. Pay more advanced students to monitor, tutor and grade papers. Do video linked – “Here’s your paper back” moments.
Set up tightly controlled test facilities all around the country, within easy reach of almost every wanta be student.
Set up some labs away from the campus for those who don’t live close by. Move the lab instructors around rather than the students.
Create some deep immersion one or two week experiences for students to get some face to face time with profs and grad students.
Turn the on-campus stuff to select upper level undergrad and graduate student training centers.
You can make it so that people can hold down jobs and live at home, avoid commuting expenses. Free up classroom space for upper level ed.
cathyx
For profit higher education institutions have an extremely high bad student loan ratio:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/09/08/business/bad-student-debt-stubbornly-high-as-collection-efforts-surge.html?ref=business
muddy
@GregB:
It’s supposed to go without saying.
Maude
If the disabled carpenter has SSD, he has an offset. They take every dime over $750.
Thank you Bill Clinton.
Spell fail edit
Narcissus
When I keep hearing that yet another of our societal institutions is dysfunctional and on the brink of collapse it’s hard not to come to the conclusion that they all are. So I guess the conservative project of the last forty years is bearing some serious fruit.
Downpuppy
@efgoldman: Rubbish. It’s only 93 miles to Gillette.
Also too, you get to be associated with Akron, Kent & Ball State.
Cacti
@Narcissus:
And of course, the other hallmark of an empire in decline…
They want to keep lavishing buckets of money on the military.
hilts
OT
Glenn Reynolds has finally lost his fucking mind:
“When taking office, the President does not swear to create jobs. He does not swear to “grow the economy.” He does not swear to institute “fairness.” The only oath the President takes is this one:
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
By sending — literally — brownshirted enforcers to engage in — literally — a midnight knock at the door of a man for the non-crime of embarrassing the President of the United States and his administration, President Obama violated that oath. You can try to pretty this up (It’s just about possible probation violations! Sure.), or make excuses or draw distinctions, but that’s what’s happened. It is a betrayal of his duties as President, and a disgrace.
He won’t resign, of course. First, the President has the appreciation of free speech that one would expect from a Chicago Machine politician, which is to say, none. Second, he’s not getting any pressure. Indeed, the very press that went crazy over Ari Fleischer’s misrepresented remarks seems far less interested in the actions of an administration that I repeat, literally sent brown-shirted enforcers to launch a midnight knock on a filmmaker’s door.”
NonyNony
@JustAnotherBob:
I’m sorry for you if most of your undergraduate experience was like that.
I went to a medium-sized state university for my undergrad and I had exactly one (1) course that fit that description. It was an English composition class.
I now teach at a large-sized state university (very large, since I’ve given away before that I live in central Ohio you can probably guess what that might be). My department has exactly one (1) course that fits that description. It’s a service course for non-majors that other departments have demanded. For our majors, there isn’t a single course with more than 40 students in a room.
If you are going to a university where they are shoving you into multiple courses with 100+ students in a lecture hall being talked at by a grouchy professor and “handled” by TAs who are trying to do as little teaching as possible because they have dissertations to write, your university is essentially stealing your money. You should at most have a handful of courses like that your freshman year – once you’re taking courses in your major you should never see classes like that again.
And BTW – online courses solve none of these problems. You now get thrown into a pool with a thousand or so other students, you get little to no good feedback on the busy work that they make you submit that is set up to be automatically reviewed without any human interaction, and exams tend to be a joke. Online courses are great for people who either have enough motivation to learn the material on their own anyway or aren’t really concerned about “learning” anything but just want a transcript that says that they have a degree. For anyone who actually needs help to learn material, most online courses are worth diddly and squat. If you’re lucky.
? Martin
@efgoldman:
It’s getting a hearing.
The problem with the plan, of course, is that the University has no mechanism to enforce payment. Even at the state level, the same problem would apply. But the idea is being spread pretty wide.
Cacti
@hilts:
They literally had brown shirts?
Literally?
Did they drop out of black helicopters also, too?
gene108
@JustAnotherBob:
I’ve had on-line courses. You cannot recreate the “excuse me teacher, I have a question” moment students need to understand a lecture.
Also, there’s something about socializing with your fellow students that helps students learn, such as getting to know your classmates well enough to do homework together or study for tests together.
On-line classes are O.K. but they lack whatever we take for granted with an in person delivery format.
Mary G
Not to mention the textbook racket.
Cacti
@NonyNony:
Academia cannot fail. It can only be failed.
Baud
@hilts:
The Eleventeenth Amendment gives every American a constitutional right to 8 hours of sound sleep.
Impeach Obama!
JoeShabadoo
This wouldn’t be a problem (at least not a problem for student borrowers) if they let these things go away with bankruptcy like every other kind of debt. Instead some asshole saw the inevitable coming and made it impossible.
JoeShabadoo
This wouldn’t be a problem (at least not a problem for student borrowers) if they let these things go away with bankruptcy like every other kind of debt. Instead some asshole saw the inevitable coming and made it impossible.
Hungry Joe
When I attended UC Berkeley in the late 60s/early 70s, the fees (they wouldn’t use the word “tuition”) came to around $1500-$2000/year in 2012 dollars. Now it’s almost ten times that. Gov. Reagan had demonized the University by then, but most people were still proud of the fact that California kids could go to one of the top universities in the world, or to one of the other outstanding UC campuses, for damn near nothing … on every Californian’s dime. Now that mindset is gone, gone, gone, and I don’t see it coming back.
gene108
@Mary G:
Amazon and the internet, in general, are a great relief, when buying text books. You can get new ones cheaper than at the school bookstore and used ones can be gotten for a smaller amount, than when I first went to college 20 years ago.
Ms. D. Ranged in AZ (IrishGirl)
@red dog: Nah, I used to teach college students and I wanted to fail people that my university insisted I keep in. See, I taught computer programming and criminal justice courses (long story how I taught in both fields), some online classes near the end, and the youngsters in the online classes, well, some of them, couldn’t read or write English for shit. And I graded them on that (because they had to write REAL position and research papers), only to be told by those students that “this wasn’t an English course” and then they scored me lower than average. Next semester the university wasn’t keen on hiring me back to teach online courses. What could I do? My standards were higher than my university’s….Needless to say I did not keep on teaching online classes.
Either college is TRUE “higher” education or let’s not do it at all. I’m not a snob. I just think if you’re going to pay $10-40 thousand a year plus interest for something, it better fucking pay off! And there needs to be other schools in between high school and college, that focus on a particular trade. That’s what they do or did in some European countries and it worked just fine.
Cacti
@Ms. D. Ranged in AZ (IrishGirl):
You can learn trades at most community colleges for a fairly reasonable price.
What we need to get away from is trying to steer every student toward a university education, whether it’s what they want, or a good fit for them personally.
Ms. D. Ranged in AZ (IrishGirl)
@gene108: I wholeheartedly agree, as I used to teach online and f2f classes. However, even in person, I found that group work actually helped the weaker students get through school. It never failed that the weakest student in a group would end up getting carried by the stronger students. Unfortunately, most for-profit universities push group work (cough, U of Phoenix, cough, DeVry, cough). I saw many students make it through my courses who would not have on their on merits because of the group work that the university forced me to include.
And on another point you allude to, I disagree with you.
This reminds me of those who say that college allows kids to mature into adults AND demonstrate that a person can delay gratification to achieve a goal–and that is what makes them more attractive to employers.
That would only be true for those students who were paying their own way and did’t spend their college career getting low B’s and high C’s while drinking their weight in beer at frat parties on a weekly basis. The ones who did pay their own way, usually by working while going to school, they were mature to begin with.
JustAnotherBob
@gene108:
Does that mean that we have already optimized the online education experience and that it can not improve?
Can we create the value of socialization is a different form? Does not a site like this create a socializing experience even though we don’t even know who each other are and never see each other?
We have a problem. University degrees are too damned expensive. Perhaps we should look for solutions and not be quick to dismiss suggestions?
JustAnotherBob
@Ms. D. Ranged in AZ (IrishGirl): I used to have my grad assistants run remedial English comp and basic math tutoring sessions.
Back to my idea of the early/basic stuff on line. Use inexpensive on line classes to catch up those who want to catch up and build a solid base of knowledge and then bring students into the “regular” classroom.
JustAnotherBob
@gene108: We’re moving to e-books.
Just think. A non-profit could pay for a really good intro physics/whatever text, keep it updated. Pay people in the discipline for improvements.
Furnish it for free. Or for a very modest ‘cover expenses’ price.
Our classical literature is already free. All one needs is a $70 e-reader.
JustAnotherBob
@gene108:
You absolutely can. Pause the feed. Click on the ‘ask a question’ tab.
Have the question function staffed by advanced students and work out high quality answers for the questions raised.
In a matter of a few years there will be supplemental materials that deal with every problem students have understanding the main lecture.
Students can pause – go to another page and learn what they were missing and then return to the main lecture, backing it up if necessary and watching it over and over if desired.
? Martin
@JustAnotherBob:
Ok, that really needs to be qualified. Education is one of the appreciating assets that it makes perfect sense to borrow against. Average salary with a high school degree in this country is $25K. Average with a BA/BS degree is $40K. That’s last year – shitty economy and all. The college salary has slid about 20% (in adjusted dollars from 15 years ago, but the HS salary has slid 35%. So, to start, the purchasing power from a degree has declined, while the inflationary cost of the degree has gone up. People are understandably upset about this, but this is a basic income inequality situation and unrelated to education.
So let’s go from what we have. That college degree will net you $15K per year. It will cost you about $10K per year at a public university, plus R&B. Make it $25K. The 4 years will deny you $100K of income that you could have taken right out of HS.
So, at the point you graduate, you’ve got $100K in opportunity cost plus $80K in the cost of education. $200K for an extra $15K per year in earnings. That’s probably 15 years to break even factoring in interest. That’s not awesome, but it’s still a good deal considering half of that is due to lost income rather than loans. If you applied the whole $15K to your loans, you’d be paid off in 8 years. That’s really not bad.
Now, things get better and worse as we dig deeper. The $25K HS degree is even worse because their unemployment rate is 3x that of people with a BS degree. Right now unemployment of people with a degree is under 6%. That’s good. It’s the HS graduates that are feeling all of the pain. OTOH, not every degree earner is likely to hit that $40K – at least not for a while. Your choice of major plays a big part in that. If you go into a STEM program, you’re more likely to hit that or do better. You have to accept that if you want that french lit degree, it’s going to be a bit rockier – that $40K might take a while. And that assumes no scholarships, grants, help from parents, and so on.
I would like to see all universities publish job placement rates and salaries for their graduates – as well as rates for getting into grad school, etc. That should be widely disclosed. That should help people at least feel better prepared for the cost of college. It should also help colleges accommodate demand better and steer students more responsibly. The reality is that the highest salary degrees are also the most expensive to run – and colleges have a habit of steering the bulk of their students to the cheap programs – with the low salaries.
gvg
I’ve worked in the Financial Aid Office at the University of Florida for 16 years now and I think this article was absurd. I understand it’s very different at other schools in other states and I’m close to saying for profit schools should be banned however the rest of it sounds just wrong.
Our award letters clearly state what are grants, loans, scholarships or work, they state you don’t have to take all of it. We do assume you want the grants and scholarships unless you tell us otherwise but people do and we remove them (rare). You have to actively accept every loan and there are orientations with questions, entrance and exit interviews for loans. It’s easy to reduce them to lesser amounts. Its pretty easy to repay early if you decide you didn’t need all the money after all. this is all required by the feds, has been for years and seems like common sense from a school point of view. If our default rate from our alumni go up too high there are penalties and extra audits. We have a very low default rate per national average.
Florida as a state has kept our tuition costs much lower than the national trend. In state probably pays around $2400 a semester. Out of state mush higher of course…the rest of the nation went way up compared to us stating at least in the 80’a. I don’t know why we were able to keep it so much lower, actually I don’t understand why it cost every one else so much. I know we lagged somewhat behind on salaries but not that much. I was shocked the first time I ran into a Michigan out of state student, when I saw what he paid to us more than 10 years ago I was sorry for him but he told me we were still cheaper than in state in Michigan. I looked it up and that was true. I looked at the rest of the country comparing school reputation with cost….Florida and Texas stood out. the states right next to us with near identical costs of living were much more costly. New York and New Jersey had dramatically different college costs but were very alike in reputation nationally then. there isn’t alot of sense to the prices.
If you have children who will be college age and you are considering jobs in different states do your research. The costs are not even across the country and some states have schools that are really good and don’t cost the earth.
I can’t tell you why but I bet it’s not simple and easily solved.
If you really do get an award letter that is hard to tell loans from grants…probably want to go elsewhere.
Dismissing kids who are financially clueless is also a kind of class prejudice. the ones who are clueless that way usually come from disadvantaged backgrounds who somehow made it in anyway. It may be as simple as parents didn’t go to college so they didn’t learn certain things you learned at 5 years old overhearing mommy talk to friends or as extreme as a child raised in the foster care system. The reasons are varied. Just make sure the info is pushed anyway, lots of different ways.
JustAnotherBob
Well, make the college degree really cheap and make the class schedule 100% flexible. Then people can start earning money as soon as the get out of high school and also gain a college degree.
I did that by working summers and nights. It would have been much nicer to be able to work a better quality 12-month day job and doing my college work around the job.
Heck, if all you can find is a 25 hour shift at McDonald’s and mowing yards then at least you can accept schedule changes if you’re attending classes on your own schedule.
James E. Powell
@Cacti:
What we need to get away from is trying to steer every student toward a university education, whether it’s what they want, or a good fit for them personally.
I am a high school teacher. In the world in which I work, your statement is heresy. Sure, everyone knows that the new Five Year Plan is a not going to work, but we all know that we must praise it, loudly and often.
When talking to people outside of Education World, I found it is easy to get people to agree to your statement so long as they are sure you are not talking about their children.
JustAnotherBob
@Cacti:
I heard someone purpose that every university student should receive some sort of “practical” education early in their academic career. Perhaps only one class in house painting or restaurant management.
Some people might choose to move toward a more applied education and even the ones who went on to do research at the Ph.D. level would have a bit better idea how things work outside the ivory towers.
A fallback skill would not be a dumb thing to own.
? Martin
@JustAnotherBob:
That’s what community colleges do. And 100% flexible – how do we do that exactly? If you want that flexibility at a major university you need to:
1) offer more courses, which increases the cost per student
2) offer courses at more diverse hours which also increases the cost per student. Instructors have families too.
3) do online/distance learning, which doesn’t work in every situation.
But offering traditional courses on the student’s schedule is logistically impossible. The only scenario where it works is where you have canned curricula for students – like an MBA or law degree. Everyone is taking the same general structure of courses so you don’t need to make the pieces fit together in different ways for different students. You can get optimal capacity planning around your classrooms. But it’s sort of the opposite of 100% flexible – they work well around full-time workers where you run the program evenings and weekends.
? Martin
@JustAnotherBob: For some disciplines like engineering, that practical skill would be beneficial even for the guys going on to a PhD. But that should be done before high school is finished.
JustAnotherBob
@? Martin: Put as many classes as possible online. Furnish e-book texts for free.
Right now if we were to decide that all biology students should take a class in a newly emerged sub-field then every college and university would have to create that course, hire staff, set aside classroom space. Increase their costs and cause them to raise fees.
On-line the course has to be written only once. There are no classroom spaces to find. Undergrad and grad students can earn money by doing the required hands-on work.
No. Online learning does not work for every situation. I have not said that it does. But if you made half of all college units online and free then the cost of a college education would drop by almost 50%.
But online can be done very inexpensively and the quality can be significantly higher than the average version taught by individual profs because the absolutely best of the best can be the teacher for all and many more resources can be poured into a class that will serve thousands per year rather than several dozen.
JustAnotherBob
@? Martin: For people getting a BA in art history, learning how to paint a house might mean the difference between eating and not…. ;o)
Pen
The cost wouldn’t do one cent. No, they’d just do what my local state college is doing and replace ALL their buildings within the next 5 years, when the old ones are not only still perfectly fine but completely up to code and under capacity.
Unvisited costs never drop as far as I can tell. They just get really creative about finding new things to spend their money on while continuing to tack new fees onto the tuition they keep jacking up every year.
dude
Some real-life cost/earning numbers: In 1993, I worked 20 hrs a week during the school year and 40 hrs a week in the summer. At 5 bucks an hour, I would work approx. 1300 hours for a gross of about $6500. Our flagship state university’s tuition and fees was about a grand per term, so that would be the equivalent to 6.5 school terms. Todays numbers at 9 bucks an hour and $3000 per term produces an earning equivalent of about 3.9 terms. This disregards the fact that I doubt a 15/16 yr old get a job with those consistent hours. So this is more likely a best case scenario where the kid uses family connections. In 1993, getting a job like this at 16 wasn’t too difficult with no help whatsoever.
JustAnotherBob
Similar to my experience in the 1960s. Back then I could get a summer job on a construction site and as a janitor during the school year. Now there are long lines of people wanting those jobs.
I haven’t done the math to compare wages to costs, but I could pay as I went which is almost impossible today. I came away with a BA and a pile of graduate degrees with no debt. And none of my funding past the first two years of undergrad came from my family and nothing was a grant/scholarship. It was all earned.