College kids need more food handouts

[untermensche]

What college kids need is free tuition and a free room.

They can afford food without that burden.

A society that burdens students just out of school with huge debt is not a free society.

And that lack of freedom harms and stunts the society that imposes it.

Free tuition + free room = a lot of freeloaders. I saw enough of that back in college with kids going to school as a way of continuing parental support.

Your inhumanity rises again.

What it results in is people not in economic chains for years.

I'll trade freedom for a few freeloaders. Whatever the hell you think that is Archie Bunker.

 

[steve_bank]

If everybody gets a degree, then what?

 

[untermensche]

If everybody gets a degree, then what?

The question should be: If everybody is more educated, then what?

The idea is to educate people.

Not put a degree in their hands.

 

[steve_bank]

If everybody gets a degree, then what?

The question should be: If everybody is more educated, then what?

The idea is to educate people.

Not put a degree in their hands.

Specify what you mean by educate. Primary education began deteriorating in the 60s. In retrospect my high school education in the 60s was good. Math, science, languages, and literature.



The quality of education has been diminished by an increase in quantity. Higher education does not necessarily translate to better quality of life.

 

[untermensche]

If everybody gets a degree, then what?

The question should be: If everybody is more educated, then what?

The idea is to educate people.

Not put a degree in their hands.

Specify what you mean by educate. Primary education began deteriorating in the 60s. In retrospect my high school education in the 60s was good. Math, science, languages, and literature.

The quality of education has been diminished by an increase in quantity. Higher education does not necessarily translate to better quality of life.

That is a debate that begins when people stop seeing the degree as the goal.

What does it mean to be educated?

 

[Rhea]

Why wouldn't East Bumfuck Tech offer a 1980s edcuation at 1980s prices and take all those kids paying $65,000 to go to Sarah Lawrence away?

[pedant]
Sarah Lawrence is a liberal arts college and does not compete for the same students as Bumfuck Tech.
[/pedant]

 

[coloradoatheist]

Shouldn't you be complaining about the administrators and the football teams getting the money for the rise in tuition? Something does need to control college costs, but nobody in that field is really wanting to.

Rising tuition costs are mostly a direct result of slashed State budgets, not increased expenses, salaries, etc..
When the State cuts per-student funding in half (as has occurred in many States over the last 15 years), then there is no way for the University to operate without sizable increases in what the students themselves have to pay.

Except the inflation rate for college has been increasing well above inflation for a long time. The only time that states really started slashing higher education was during the recession. So if your hypothesis was correct, then we should have seen college tuition rise at the same rate as inflation until late 2000s, spike, and then level off.

 

[J842P]

If everybody gets a degree, then what?

Well, someone is going to have to maintain the robots that will be doing all the menial work around us...

 

[Toni]

Shouldn't you be complaining about the administrators and the football teams getting the money for the rise in tuition? Something does need to control college costs, but nobody in that field is really wanting to.

Rising tuition costs are mostly a direct result of slashed State budgets, not increased expenses, salaries, etc..
When the State cuts per-student funding in half (as has occurred in many States over the last 15 years), then there is no way for the University to operate without sizable increases in what the students themselves have to pay.

Except the inflation rate for college has been increasing well above inflation for a long time. The only time that states really started slashing higher education was during the recession. So if your hypothesis was correct, then we should have seen college tuition rise at the same rate as inflation until late 2000s, spike, and then level off.

You're incorrect. In my state, the state portion of tuition at all state universities has fallen steadily over the past 25+ years.

 

[Toni]

If everybody gets a degree, then what?

The question should be: If everybody is more educated, then what?

The idea is to educate people.

Not put a degree in their hands.

Specify what you mean by educate. Primary education began deteriorating in the 60s. In retrospect my high school education in the 60s was good. Math, science, languages, and literature.



The quality of education has been diminished by an increase in quantity. Higher education does not necessarily translate to better quality of life.

Yeah, I guess primary education has gone downhill since Brown v Board of Education started to be enforced...I'm guessing that's what you mean by primary education being diminished by increase in quantity.


I'm not sure what you think high schools teach today but they also teach math, science, languages, literature, history, art, music, physical education.

I would like to see your evidence that the quality of public education has declined since the 1960's--you know: when you were in school. I'm sure your excellent education gave you the requisite tools to locate, read, comprehend and share statistical analysis demonstrating this claim.

I agree that education seems to be wasted on at least one or two people. Maybe more.

 

[coloradoatheist]

Rising tuition costs are mostly a direct result of slashed State budgets, not increased expenses, salaries, etc..
When the State cuts per-student funding in half (as has occurred in many States over the last 15 years), then there is no way for the University to operate without sizable increases in what the students themselves have to pay.

Except the inflation rate for college has been increasing well above inflation for a long time. The only time that states really started slashing higher education was during the recession. So if your hypothesis was correct, then we should have seen college tuition rise at the same rate as inflation until late 2000s, spike, and then level off.

You're incorrect. In my state, the state portion of tuition at all state universities has fallen steadily over the past 25+ years.

What was spending in 1990 compared to today in your state?

 

[Toni]

Except the inflation rate for college has been increasing well above inflation for a long time. The only time that states really started slashing higher education was during the recession. So if your hypothesis was correct, then we should have seen college tuition rise at the same rate as inflation until late 2000s, spike, and then level off.

You're incorrect. In my state, the state portion of tuition at all state universities has fallen steadily over the past 25+ years.

What was spending in 1990 compared to today in your state?

I haven't found a very comprehensive source. I moved to my current state about 30 years ago. My husband teaches at a state university, so this was something I paid attention to, as well as the fact that this is where we raised our family. Every year for the past 25 years or so, there have been articles about the decreasing portion of the cost of education that the state covers. But since you asked specifically, I did a quick search. It's harder than I thought to find a comprehensive chart. I suspect the state isn't very proud of its record.

The chart I found showed that in 1989, the state covered about 40% of the cost of a university education. In 2017, it's about 15%.

 

[coloradoatheist]

You're incorrect. In my state, the state portion of tuition at all state universities has fallen steadily over the past 25+ years.

What was spending in 1990 compared to today in your state?

I haven't found a very comprehensive source. I moved to my current state about 30 years ago. My husband teaches at a state university, so this was something I paid attention to, as well as the fact that this is where we raised our family. Every year for the past 25 years or so, there have been articles about the decreasing portion of the cost of education that the state covers. But since you asked specifically, I did a quick search. It's harder than I thought to find a comprehensive chart. I suspect the state isn't very proud of its record.

The chart I found showed that in 1989, the state covered about 40% of the cost of a university education. In 2017, it's about 15%.

I did find the chart earlier for Colorado, but need to find it again. However he is a page about overall costs from 1971 to today. Dismal brought it up earlier. Private schools wouldn't be affected by that change in funding. So their tuition should stay in line with inflation, but it doesn't either.

https://college-education.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=005532

 

[Toni]

What was spending in 1990 compared to today in your state?

I haven't found a very comprehensive source. I moved to my current state about 30 years ago. My husband teaches at a state university, so this was something I paid attention to, as well as the fact that this is where we raised our family. Every year for the past 25 years or so, there have been articles about the decreasing portion of the cost of education that the state covers. But since you asked specifically, I did a quick search. It's harder than I thought to find a comprehensive chart. I suspect the state isn't very proud of its record.

The chart I found showed that in 1989, the state covered about 40% of the cost of a university education. In 2017, it's about 15%.

I did find the chart earlier for Colorado, but need to find it again. However he is a page about overall costs from 1971 to today. Dismal brought it up earlier. Private schools wouldn't be affected by that change in funding. So their tuition should stay in line with inflation, but it doesn't either.

https://college-education.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=005532

It's easier to find trends in overall costs.

Some things are understandable: the cost of health care has skyrocketed. Universities are labor intensive. Students want/expect more amenities than 30 years ago or longer. The last thing is kind of....silly. I remember going off to school with jeans, underwear, shirts and a couple of pairs of shoes (well worn). When cold weather hit, I added my jacket. I also took some favorite books, my very downscale 'stereo' and the few albums I had as well as a dictionary and thesaurus, and a laundry basket and detergent, plus shampoo and conditioner. And bedding and towels. Almost forgot that. I think we got it all to my room in one trip. When my oldest went to college, we loaded up the back of the van with 'essentials.' I thought it was ridiculous but when we moved him in, we saw many vans lined up, pulling small trailers full of stuff. More than I took to my first apartment, never mind dorm room. My kid, as it turned out, was more than reasonable. Of course it is very understandable that today students take lap tops, cell phones and other customary technology. I have noticed a trend that universities which are building or renovating dorms often configure suites, with a couple of bedrooms/baths plus a small sitting room, and kitchenette. I think that's a good idea and I'm sure it's more expensive than cramming them in like sardines in a dorm/bed room. Plus increases the chances the students will learn adult life skills. Professors get paid better, as a group, although adjuncts do not and probably have lost ground economically. There is an explosion in administration as well as 'amenities' and how major athletic teams are taken care of in terms of facilties, etc, is amazing, even at small schools. And not cheap.

 

[lpetrich]

Back in the 90s I took a night class in CS from a Vietnamese professor. His undergrad was done in Vietnam in the war. He would chuckle and say American students have it too easy.

So everybody's standard of living must be forced down to what he had to endure, right?

The Myth of Working Your Way Through College - Svati Kirsten Narula - The Atlantic

A lot of Internet ink has been spilled over how lazy and entitled Millennials are, but when it comes to paying for a college education, work ethic isn't the limiting factor. The economic cards are stacked such that today’s average college student, without support from financial aid and family resources, would need to complete 48 hours of minimum-wage work a week to pay for his courses—a feat that would require superhuman endurance, or maybe a time machine.

The numbers for Michigan State University:

In 1979, when the minimum wage was $2.90, a hard-working student with a minimum-wage job could earn enough in one day (8.44 hours) to pay for one academic credit hour. If a standard course load for one semester consisted of maybe 12 credit hours, the semester's tuition could be covered by just over two weeks of full-time minimum wage work—or a month of part-time work. A summer spent scooping ice cream or flipping burgers could pay for an MSU education.

The cost of an MSU credit hour has multiplied since 1979. So has the federal minimum wage. But today, it takes 60 hours of minimum-wage work to pay off a single credit hour, which was priced at $428.75 for the fall semester.

An increase by a factor of 7. So those who smugly brag about how they worked their way through college are all wrong about today. They might have been able to, some decades ago, but most present-day students can't.

It's not just MSU.

He added a linear regression analysis to extrapolate the stats for 1979-2013, and found that the average student in 1979 could work 182 hours (a part-time summer job) to pay for a year's tuition. In 2013, it took 991 hours (a full-time job for half the year) to accomplish the same.

And this is only considering the cost of tuition, which is hardly an accurate representation of what students actually spend for college. According to the College Board, average room and board fees at public universities today exceed tuition costs by a little more than 100 percent. (For the current academic year, average tuition at 4-year public schools is $8,893, but with room and board, the total average cost comes to $18,391.)

That makes it a year of full-time work to pay for a year of college.

 

[ronburgundy]

Shouldn't you be complaining about the administrators and the football teams getting the money for the rise in tuition? Something does need to control college costs, but nobody in that field is really wanting to.

Rising tuition costs are mostly a direct result of slashed State budgets, not increased expenses, salaries, etc..
When the State cuts per-student funding in half (as has occurred in many States over the last 15 years), then there is no way for the University to operate without sizable increases in what the students themselves have to pay.

Except the inflation rate for college has been increasing well above inflation for a long time. The only time that states really started slashing higher education was during the recession. So if your hypothesis was correct, then we should have seen college tuition rise at the same rate as inflation until late 2000s, spike, and then level off.

Per pupil public college funding by the States has been getting slashed in most states for the past 15 years and still remains well below both 2008 level and pre-2001 levels.
All but 4 States were still giving less per-pupil, inflation-adjusted dollars in 2016 than they were in 2008, and 26 states the reduction was between 20% and 55%.

And as the graph linked below shows, the cuts did not start in 2008, but rather in 2002 following a high in 2001 that was actually only about the same as 1987 funding. IOW, there has been no notable increase in funding for the last 30 years, but have been several period of major cuts. The small increase in funding from 2006 to 2008 was about 1/3 the size of the funding cuts schools had just suffered in the prior 4 years, and a fraction of what they suffered since.

From 1987 to 2002, the average funding was $8,100 per student and never dropped below $7,332. Since 2002 it has never been close to that average and has been below that prior low point for all but 4 years of the last 15.

http://www.sheeo.org/sites/default/files/publications/All%20States%20Wavechart%202012%20REV20130322.pdf

 

[coloradoatheist]

And as I said later Ron, it explains some of the growth in tuition, about 40% of it, but the other 60% above and beyond normal inflation isn't.

But cutting the spending on taxes on it, does mean savings for the taxpayer so there is a tradeoff on that part.

 

[ronburgundy]

Well then, the costs at the non state schools must not be going up.

Wow, you really have no grasp of basic economics. All public colleges get $ from the State, so the "non-state" schools are private institutions who don't merely raise tuition when they must, but also when they can. Necessarily rising tuition at public institutions allow private ones to also raise their tuition without harming their size and quality of their applicant pool.

What a basic understanding of economics would predict is that private would react to the neccessary public tuition increase, by increasing their own tuition but not to a great an extent because they were already offering a highly priced luxury version of the product and they need to maintain high numbers of applicants in order to maintain high rejection rates that defines the "prestige" of going there.
That is exactly what has happened. Tuition at public institutions is 300% higher today than 30 years ago, but only about 200% higher at private institutions.

LOL @ "basic understanding of economics". There are 1000s of schools competing for students now. If price was how they were competing why would tuition be up 200%?

Why wouldn't East Bumfuck Tech offer a 1980s edcuation at 1980s prices and take all those kids paying $65,000 to go to Sarah Lawrence away?

For the same reason that every person doesn't own an economy car rather than a luxury car, and the same reason that countless varieties of a product exist at different price points. Yet, not a single rational person would claim, as you do, that price is not a factor in almost every decision, even when people choose the more expensive product.

Suppose a disease specifically kills of the apple crop, resulting in a doubling of apple juice prices. Your theory says that this will zero impact on the price charged for any other kind of juice. That is a perfect analogy for the illogic of your argument.

Unlike your infantile theory, consumer choices are not the product of considering a single factor, but rather of many factors, or which price is almost always one. But the other factors comprise the subjective value of each option. When choosing between options, people weight the estimated differential in subjective value against the differential in price.

People chose more expensive private schools because they feel the added subjective value is worth the added cost. There are people who could be and do get accepted to these private colleges but chose to attend public college due to the price differential.
If public tuition rises, then the added cost of private college (the price differential) is reduced. As accurately predicted by anyone who has taken intro economics, this will reduce demand from public college and increase demand for private colleges.
But since most of the more expensive private schools are already at capacity and their "prestige" depends on being exclusive, they don't want more students. This allows the private schools to increase their price, thus returning the relative price differential to what it was and without losing the quality and quantity of applicants and enrolled students.





Yet more brazen ignorance. Private schools are not competing directly with shitty schools that have no credibility and no historical prestige that is a massive advantage in the job market. They are a luxury item that enough people are willing to pay a premium for.

 

[Axulus]

The "free college for all" crowd ignores the evidence in favor of their ideogical agenda:

Despite increasing financial pressures on higher education systems throughout the world, many governments remain resolutely opposed to the introduction of tuition fees, and some countries and states where tuition fees have been long established are now reconsidering free higher education. This paper examines the consequences of charging tuition fees on university quality, enrollments, and equity. To do so, we study the English higher education system which has, in just two decades, moved from a free college system to one in which tuition fees are among the highest in the world. Our findings suggest that England’s shift has resulted in increased funding per head, rising enrollments, and a narrowing of the participation gap between advantaged and disadvantaged students. In contrast to other systems with high tuition fees, the English system is distinct in that its income-contingent loan system keeps university free at the point of entry, and provides students with comparatively generous assistance for living expenses. We conclude that tuition fees, at least in the English case supported their goals of increasing quality, quantity, and equity in higher education.

http://www.nber.org/papers/w23888#fromrss

In other words, tuition fees implememted i the right way is far superior to "free college for all."

- - - Updated - - -

So everybody's standard of living must be forced down to what he had to endure, right?

The Myth of Working Your Way Through College - Svati Kirsten Narula - The Atlantic

The numbers for Michigan State University:

In 1979, when the minimum wage was $2.90, a hard-working student with a minimum-wage job could earn enough in one day (8.44 hours) to pay for one academic credit hour. If a standard course load for one semester consisted of maybe 12 credit hours, the semester's tuition could be covered by just over two weeks of full-time minimum wage work—or a month of part-time work. A summer spent scooping ice cream or flipping burgers could pay for an MSU education.

The cost of an MSU credit hour has multiplied since 1979. So has the federal minimum wage. But today, it takes 60 hours of minimum-wage work to pay off a single credit hour, which was priced at $428.75 for the fall semester.

An increase by a factor of 7. So those who smugly brag about how they worked their way through college are all wrong about today. They might have been able to, some decades ago, but most present-day students can't.

It's not just MSU.

He added a linear regression analysis to extrapolate the stats for 1979-2013, and found that the average student in 1979 could work 182 hours (a part-time summer job) to pay for a year's tuition. In 2013, it took 991 hours (a full-time job for half the year) to accomplish the same.

And this is only considering the cost of tuition, which is hardly an accurate representation of what students actually spend for college. According to the College Board, average room and board fees at public universities today exceed tuition costs by a little more than 100 percent. (For the current academic year, average tuition at 4-year public schools is $8,893, but with room and board, the total average cost comes to $18,391.)

That makes it a year of full-time work to pay for a year of college.

And what is wrong with working part time and taking on a small amount of debt, plus financial aid for students if parents who were too poor to save a dime for their children's college? It's a complete strawman to suggest people are advocating working to pay 100% of college while in college.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

The "free college for all" crowd ignores the evidence in favor of their ideogical agenda:

http://www.nber.org/papers/w23888#fromrss

In other words, tuition fees implememted i the right way is far superior to "free college for all."

So somewhere between free and $20,000 a year?

So everybody's standard of living must be forced down to what he had to endure, right?

The Myth of Working Your Way Through College - Svati Kirsten Narula - The Atlantic

The numbers for Michigan State University:

In 1979, when the minimum wage was $2.90, a hard-working student with a minimum-wage job could earn enough in one day (8.44 hours) to pay for one academic credit hour. If a standard course load for one semester consisted of maybe 12 credit hours, the semester's tuition could be covered by just over two weeks of full-time minimum wage work—or a month of part-time work. A summer spent scooping ice cream or flipping burgers could pay for an MSU education.

The cost of an MSU credit hour has multiplied since 1979. So has the federal minimum wage. But today, it takes 60 hours of minimum-wage work to pay off a single credit hour, which was priced at $428.75 for the fall semester.

An increase by a factor of 7. So those who smugly brag about how they worked their way through college are all wrong about today. They might have been able to, some decades ago, but most present-day students can't.

It's not just MSU.

He added a linear regression analysis to extrapolate the stats for 1979-2013, and found that the average student in 1979 could work 182 hours (a part-time summer job) to pay for a year's tuition. In 2013, it took 991 hours (a full-time job for half the year) to accomplish the same.

And this is only considering the cost of tuition, which is hardly an accurate representation of what students actually spend for college. According to the College Board, average room and board fees at public universities today exceed tuition costs by a little more than 100 percent. (For the current academic year, average tuition at 4-year public schools is $8,893, but with room and board, the total average cost comes to $18,391.)

That makes it a year of full-time work to pay for a year of college.

And what is wrong with working part time and taking on a small amount of debt, plus financial aid for students if parents who were too poor to save a dime for their children's college? It's a complete strawman to suggest people are advocating working to pay 100% of college while in college.

Well, that is good because it is impossible to work full-time and pay off college. There is nothing wrong with working part time to help pay off college... like the books part. The problem is when idiots suggest that working part-time can help pay off any reasonable portion of the tuition bill. My structural design teacher paid off his college bill working each summer. It took me working several years, a few decades after he went.

I didn't get my Masters because it was going to be cost prohibitive. Literally, I needed to eat and a place to stay, so instead of getting a Masters Degree in engineering, I went into the real world, got an engineering job and kind of regret not having the opportunity to have gone that extra step, simply because of money. So fuck off with this "part-time" shit.