The real reason college tuition costs so much

[Spartanmack]

Yet another libtard myth blown completely out of the water - this time by none other than the ultra conservative media outlet, The New York Times...

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/05/opinion/sunday/the-real-reason-college-tuition-costs-so-much.html

 

[Gulo Blue]

Good article, and no surprise. It seems like administrators are killing it everywhere. The people that make the hiring and firing and salary decisions value their own skills and think you get what you pay for when it comes to people like themselves while they put pressure to cut costs on everyone else.

But how do you fix it?

 

[Spartanmack]

That's a good question. It may require a taxpayer revolt of some sort because as you point out, they're not going to fire themselves.

The same thing is happening at primary level. Public education administration at K-12 is growing ever bigger all the time and property taxes are getting out of control. A big part of it I think is that there is a complete disconnect between cost and value in education. This attitude that any education is good for you and therefore worth it at nearly any cost is absurd. Then again, it could just be that people don't see where their money is going and what they're getting for it so the foxes are raiding the hen house with impunity. It's probably a healthy portion of both.

 

[sggatecl]

Even more strikingly, an analysis by a professor at California Polytechnic University, Pomona, found that, while the total number of full-time faculty members in the C.S.U. system grew from 11,614 to 12,019 between 1975 and 2008, the total number of administrators grew from 3,800 to 12,183 — a 221 percent increase.

That's some mind blowing shit.

 

[Gulo Blue]

That's some mind blowing shit.

Yup. And it's criminal how much academic work is being done by people making about half of what they're worth in industry because they're working towards a degree or a tenure position. It makes sense to some degree, but not the degree to which it's been pushed.

 

[Michchamp]

I don't see how this is a "libtard myth." A number of liberal college professors from a variety of fields who have blogs that I read have been calling attention to administrative bloat in academia for at least a year if not longer.

It's a bi-partisan problem if anything; many - if not most - of these administrators are not academics. Some have considered it more of an effect of corporate America on academia... hiring MBAs, comminications people, marketers (lots of marketers), PR people, etc. to do functions previously universities didnt do much of.

One example we're all familiar with was the effect of Dave Brandon on the UM AD, dramatically increasing the number of full time employees by hiring tons of recently minted marketing MBAs and what not.

What the results are in practice, whether more work is getting done, and getting done better by all these new administrators is anybody's guess. I doubt it.

 

[Michchamp]

another reason college tuition and costs (and especially grad school tuition) have increased so much is an unholy alliance of private & semi-public lenders, government guarantees of student loan payments, and bankruptcy laws that make student loan debt undischargeable in bankruptcy.

it's created a vicious series of tuition and cost increases.

 

[Gulo Blue]

another reason college tuition and costs (and especially grad school tuition) have increased so much is an unholy alliance of private & semi-public lenders, government guarantees of student loan payments, and bankruptcy laws that make student loan debt undischargeable in bankruptcy.

it's created a vicious series of tuition and cost increases.

I think we see a bit of the same model as prescription drugs. If something is important enough, charge as much as possible, offer loans like crazy, and then be as generous as you need to be with grants or free meds or whatever for the people you've priced out of the market. I think the goal is to collect everyone's life productivity. You can't go without this pill or that education, it will cost you $1 Billion, but we'll offer you assistance equal to a billion minus your lifetime earnings (and write off that difference as some form of charity if we can.)

I'm exaggerating, but I think that's the direction it's going. Demand is minimally elastic with respect to price right up to the limit of what people can get their hands on.

 

[Michchamp]

I think we see a bit of the same model as prescription drugs. If something is important enough, charge as much as possible, offer loans like crazy, and then be as generous as you need to be with grants or free meds or whatever for the people you've priced out of the market. I think the goal is to collect everyone's life productivity. You can't go without this pill or that education, it will cost you $1 Billion, but we'll offer you assistance equal to a billion minus your lifetime earnings (and write off that difference as some form of charity if we can.)

I'm exaggerating, but I think that's the direction it's going. Demand is minimally elastic with respect to price right up to the limit of what people can get their hands on.

if it wasn't for this artificial canal of money flowing into university coffers, there wouldn't be money to hire all these administrators.

 

[TheVictors]

I don't see how this is a "libtard myth." A number of liberal college professors from a variety of fields who have blogs that I read have been calling attention to administrative bloat in academia for at least a year if not longer.

It's a bi-partisan problem if anything; many - if not most - of these administrators are not academics. Some have considered it more of an effect of corporate America on academia... hiring MBAs, comminications people, marketers (lots of marketers), PR people, etc. to do functions previously universities didnt do much of.

One example we're all familiar with was the effect of Dave Brandon on the UM AD, dramatically increasing the number of full time employees by hiring tons of recently minted marketing MBAs and what not.

What the results are in practice, whether more work is getting done, and getting done better by all these new administrators is anybody's guess. I doubt it.

There's also this ..trend of folks making money in the private sector wanting to then work in the more prestigious world of academia.

 

[Michchamp]

There's also this ..trend of folks making money in the private sector wanting to then work in the more prestigious world of academia.

I guess that goof pushed out by student protest at Missouri was one of those.

another trend is how poorly non-tenure track faculty are paid. some of these administrators (who are mostly NOT qualified to teach) make their bones by squeezing every drop they can out of adjuncts and grad students... the ones who are doing the bulk of the teaching.

actual well-paid tenured faculty are much fewer in number than they used to be.

 

[Spartanmack]

I don't see how this is a "libtard myth." A number of liberal college professors from a variety of fields who have blogs that I read have been calling attention to administrative bloat in academia for at least a year if not longer.

It's a bi-partisan problem if anything; many - if not most - of these administrators are not academics. Some have considered it more of an effect of corporate America on academia... hiring MBAs, comminications people, marketers (lots of marketers), PR people, etc. to do functions previously universities didnt do much of.

One example we're all familiar with was the effect of Dave Brandon on the UM AD, dramatically increasing the number of full time employees by hiring tons of recently minted marketing MBAs and what not.

What the results are in practice, whether more work is getting done, and getting done better by all these new administrators is anybody's guess. I doubt it.

you're constantly blaming state governments (specifically Republicans) for cutting state funding to universities as the primary driver of runaway tuition. now presented with the facts that clearly shows its leftist administrators wasting more taxpayer money you're scrambling and calling it a bipartisan problem. are you really blaming corporate America for this? That's literally the most retarded spin I've heard. that's an even bigger stretch than blaming Republicans for cutting funding, which we know never actually happened.

 

[Spartanmack]

another reason college tuition and costs (and especially grad school tuition) have increased so much is an unholy alliance of private & semi-public lenders, government guarantees of student loan payments, and bankruptcy laws that make student loan debt undischargeable in bankruptcy.

it's created a vicious series of tuition and cost increases.

wow, you actually said something that's true and you did it without blaming conservatives. of course it's not an original thought - I've been saying it on here for years. but you left out a key factor that's enabling all of the lending - artificially low interest rates, fed facilitated nearly free money forever. without this horribly destructive policy, student loans would be properly priced to reflect the risk (at least the loans from private institutions) and we wouldn't have billions of dollars being pumped into the schools.

 

[Michchamp]

you're constantly blaming state governments (specifically Republicans) for cutting state funding to universities as the primary driver of runaway tuition. now...

please kill yourself.

 

[Spartanmack]

please kill yourself.

I'm having too much fun calling out your lies, disproving your bullshit and watching you contradict yourself, back peddle and pretend like you never said the stupid shit you say all the time. I've said it before and I'll say it again...you are one pathetic loser.

 

[Spartanmack]

A little of topic but a decent fit for this thread. Meet the woman idiots would like to be First Lady...

https://heatst.com/politics/breakin...hing-weight-of-debt-acquired-by-jane-sanders/

I'm sure it wasn't her fault - Wall St probably made her do it...

Please tell me more about how a guy who runs a multi billion dollar business is an incompetent failure but a dirty, smelly hippie who didn't get a job until he was 40 and whose biggest "accomplishment" is getting re-elected as a wholly unaccomplished bureaucrat from the people's republic of Vermont and his wife who is also a complete failure are First Family material...

 

[sggatecl]

A little of topic but a decent fit for this thread. Meet the woman idiots would like to be First Lady...

https://heatst.com/politics/breakin...hing-weight-of-debt-acquired-by-jane-sanders/

I'm sure it wasn't her fault - Wall St probably made her do it...

Please tell me more about how a guy who runs a multi billion dollar business is an incompetent failure but a dirty, smelly hippie who didn't get a job until he was 40 and whose biggest "accomplishment" is getting re-elected as a wholly unaccomplished bureaucrat from the people's republic of Vermont and his wife who is also a complete failure are First Family material...

Interesting read, but when has anyone voted based on the First Lady? I mean, aside from the people that are jerking it over Trump's trophy wife of course.

*edit* http://www.politico.com/story/2016/02/bernie-sanders-jane-vermont-burlington-college-219114

A more in depth read on the situation and others similar to it. Many cases of expanding before funding was actually obtained. Pretty irresponsible but what seems like standard practice.

 

[tinselwolverine]

I'm trying to get my student loans excused because I have a disability.

I suffer from Chronic Procrastination Disorder.

Tragically, it is not recognized by the AMA as legitimate debilitating disability.

I have been trying very hard to get around to bringing it to the forefront; but it has been very hard because… well you know…

 

[Spartanmack]

Interesting read, but when has anyone voted based on the First Lady? I mean, aside from the people that are jerking it over Trump's trophy wife of course.

*edit* http://www.politico.com/story/2016/02/bernie-sanders-jane-vermont-burlington-college-219114

A more in depth read on the situation and others similar to it. Many cases of expanding before funding was actually obtained. Pretty irresponsible but what seems like standard practice.

what candidate's wife hasn't been scrutinized or in Obama's case, fawned over? do you honestly believe TG is wouldn't be a much bigger story if it was a Republican candidate's wife?

also, I dont buy the "she's not the only one who did it" excuse. the fact that others have done it, successfully or not, doesn't excuse her failure or her potential fraud - one article said the sellers are suing her saying she represented to them that she had $2mm in commitments when working out financing with the sellers but never raised more then ~250j.

 

[Spartanmack]

I'm trying to get my student loans excused because I have a disability.

I suffer from Chronic Procrastination Disorder.

Tragically, it is not recognized by the AMA as legitimate debilitating disability.

I have been trying very hard to get around to bringing it to the forefront; but it has been very hard because? well you know?

you can work on it tomorrow.