[HN Gopher] Bloated college administration is making education u...
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Bloated college administration is making education unaffordable
Author : tomohawk
Score : 53 points
Date : 2022-11-06 19:41 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (quillette.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (quillette.com)
| md_ wrote:
| There are compelling alternative explanations for the rising cost
| of education (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol%27s_cost_dis
| ease#Educ...).
|
| If the underlying cause were primarily administrative overhead,
| that should be readily apparent in the (public) budget of any
| public university. I'm not going to go do Silvergate's research
| for him, but I'm surprised he doesn't cite such a readily
| available piece of compelling evidence, which at best suggests
| he's too lazy to track it down, and at worst that reality does
| not support his hypothesis.
| D13Fd wrote:
| I think the article misses the root cause here. Drastically
| increased availability of loan-based financial aid means far more
| more money in the system, which means the prices go up.
|
| The article nails the cause of more administrators--the schools
| have more money to spend and need to spend it--but completely
| misses the reason schools are able to charge so much more these
| days.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| Is that a winning campaign strategy?
| Overtonwindow wrote:
| Imo it is the bloated general education requirements, squeezing
| as much money from students as possible. It should only take 2
| years to earn a bachelor's. I believe if these classes were
| optional, they would not survive in the curriculum. University
| should not be in the business of propping up classes that no one
| wants, or professors who don't have classes to teach.
| bsder wrote:
| > It should only take 2 years to earn a bachelor's.
|
| In STEM? Certainly not.
|
| Calculus I/II/III(vector)/IV(linera algebra) Physics I/II Chem
| I/II
|
| That's two whole semesters _just getting the basics_. You 've
| only got 8 courses left.
|
| In EE, that gets you: Circuits I/II, Digital I, Data Structures
| I, Computer Arch I, Signals & Systems, Electrostatics,
| Electrodynamics,
|
| You're out of courses, and you haven't even gotten outside of
| the _minimal major basics_ --and no labs either.
| notacoward wrote:
| > It should only take 2 years to earn a bachelor's
|
| Only if you assume that the purpose of a bachelor's is to
| provide job training in one specific profession. Not so much if
| you believe in the value of a well-rounded education, for
| people who are likely to change careers multiple times, maybe
| also be civic leaders, etc.
|
| I'm not saying you're wrong, but the debate between these two
| visions has been going on for centuries and IMO it's not very
| useful to assume one answer (especially without recognizing the
| assumption as such).
| feet wrote:
| Good thing 2 year associates and vocational training is a
| thing. Is the OP complaining that bachelors are not those?
| umanwizard wrote:
| No. They're complaining that they're not a deep study of a
| particular academic field, like they are in most countries.
| ericmcer wrote:
| I thought elementary/middle/high school was for general
| purpose and moral education while college was for
| specialization. I guess you could argue that the amount of
| general purpose knowledge you need nowadays has increased but
| I agree with OP that ~50% of your college education being
| unrelated to your specialization seems unnecessary.
| birdyrooster wrote:
| It's the reason I could never finish my degree. Imagine
| getting motivated to do something you know is a waste of
| your time for your given goal. It was a total mismatch of
| what I needed versus what the institution provided. ADHD
| makes this torture to endure.
| umanwizard wrote:
| Somehow practically every country besides the US manages to
| give people a general education in secondary school, and
| reserves universities for deep study of one subject.
| Consequently, their bachelors degrees usually take less time.
|
| Do you think university graduates in France, for example, are
| less "well-rounded" than those in the US?
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| With their mandatory PE through college? How could they
| be?!
| SilverBirch wrote:
| This is... strange. The issue of a price would seem to me to be
| an issue of supply and demand. Yet, this article talks about a
| weirdly tangential topic. This article seems to put forward the
| idea that the administration of colleges has become bloated and
| this has led to higher fees. But that's simply not the causal
| chain. No one in any administration is thinking "better put that
| tuition up, and accept the loss in candidates to justify this new
| diversity officer".
|
| Demand is through the roof - there are 20 candidates for every 1
| place, and those candidates have almost unlimited access to
| loans. So the price is immaterial, if you get a place, you pay
| whatever they ask.
|
| So sure, there's going to be administrative bloat - because
| there's literally no limit to the purse strings. And this is
| exacerbated by university rankings which will literally list
| staff:student ratio as a metric. But none of this has anything to
| do with Quillette's racist agenda.
| elefanten wrote:
| Quite a claim you conclude with. Can you elaborate?
| krona wrote:
| > But none of this has anything to do with Quillette's racist
| agenda.
|
| So why bring it up?
| lumost wrote:
| The problem is the bid/ask spread. Ultimately everyone would
| prefer cheaper education with the exception of college
| administrators.
|
| The last 40 years has seen interest rates steadily fall,
| allowing students to pay the cost of education further in the
| future. This in turn allowed students to bid more for education
| that they otherwise would have paid less for.
|
| If interest rates and inflation reverse their long term course,
| then there is no reason to believe that students will be able
| to afford their previous rates.
| landemva wrote:
| > everyone would prefer cheaper education with the exception
| of college administrators.
|
| And the banksters who make the student loans which are
| difficult to discharge in bankruptcy. The price ramp started
| after the no bankruptcy provision was made law.
|
| https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/economy-
| budget/28362...
|
| Simply repeal this law which was a gift to the banksters in
| the 1990s.
| scott00 wrote:
| Supply and demand is not driving the price of Harvard. As you
| point out, there are many more people willing to pay the
| current price than are admitted. This indicates that the market
| price is much higher than the current price. In other words,
| supply and demand factors would allow Harvard to raise prices
| substantially if they chose to, and something other than supply
| and demand is determining where within the range of zero and
| the equilibrium price the price is set. I don't have a strong
| opinion as to whether administrative costs are the driving
| factor, but it's certainly much more plausible than supply and
| demand.
| rhaway84773 wrote:
| And yet education costs were exponentially lower until about
| 1-2 decades ago where they exploded. Despite demand being
| ridiculously high even in the past.
| [deleted]
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Reduced state funding is a significant component of rapidly
| rising higher ed costs in the US.
|
| https://www.cbpp.org/research/state-budget-and-tax/state-
| hig...
| [deleted]
| Arnt wrote:
| Exponentially lower. What does that mean? Three orders of
| magnitude?
| UncleEntity wrote:
| When I went to a California community college in the early
| 90s tuition was $6/unit capped at $60/semester.
|
| The same school is now $46/unit with no cap.
|
| Though, through the google, it looks like there's some sort
| of two years of free tuition program so it's probably a
| wash practically speaking.
| etempleton wrote:
| Double edged sword. What the author proposes can be found. Go to
| some small low endowment private or public school for less money.
| Oh wait, you say, I don't want to go there! The buildings aren't
| as nice, the dorms are cramped and drab, there aren't as many
| resources, the food sucks, the Wi-Fi is spotty, heck even the
| website sucks. Why is this? Because they don't have the human or
| financial resources to do so.
|
| You get what you pay for. Student and parent expectations have
| changed and so have college and universities. If you want what
| colleges used to be like 50 years ago go to a small private or
| public school that is just barely staying afloat, it will be more
| or less similar to the so called halcyon days of low cost, no
| frills college.
|
| The thing is--people don't want this as voted for by their choice
| in school. The biggest drops in enrollment are at community
| colleges, state schools, and small private schools. If people
| were price sensitive cheap schools would have people busting down
| the doors to get in. They don't. In fact, when a college lowers
| their tuition, they paradoxically often see a dip in enrollments.
|
| Why? Because human brains are broken. We connate price with
| prestige and prestige with quality.
|
| Colleges get punished if they lower the price, so what do they do
| instead? They increase the discount rate. Rarely do families pay
| the sticker price. Google any college tuition and you will see
| average price paid. It is typically anywhere from 50-75% of
| sticker price.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| I don't think Colorado State is a top-tier college - in a
| pretty quiet place - no big names - but when I visited it from
| the UK for a conference I could _not believe_ how nice and
| polished everything was. Beautiful buildings and spaces. I did
| some coding in a kind of forum with a large open fire and two-
| storey glass walls looking out over the snow. Very
| inspirational. I guess it costs though.
| aaomidi wrote:
| Then why is this only mainly a US problem?
| erdos4d wrote:
| Administration is one component but another is student
| life/amenities. Lots of schools borrow to keep up in the arms
| race for new swanky dorms, gyms, aquatic centers, climbing
| centers, you name it. Then they need dough, so they shake down
| their clients, the students. Oftentimes standards are viewed as
| less important than continuing the student loans that pay for the
| school's loans. Going back to simpler times when you got a little
| bullshit dorm room or shacked up in a greek house and made your
| own fun might be an answer here too. But I agree that admin bloat
| is real and most of these positions seem to be some mix of
| bullshit job or student entertainment coordinator.
| lob_it wrote:
| I've passed several articles years back when I used to read
| forbes about poor conditions for adjunct professors:
|
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/noodleeducation/2015/05/28/more...
|
| The evolution of education has already been diluted (die looted
| :p).
|
| I just saw a video on California's education system in the middle
| of the 20th century, compared to where it is today (actually
| thier ecomony). Not the finest of the bunch in the 21st century.
|
| https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/public-scho...
|
| Economic evolution happens :)
| rocket_surgeron wrote:
| Given that this is quillette one would think they would be
| hesitant to question the wise and steady hand of the free market.
|
| Surely the rationally-acting rational actors at all of these
| institutions are acting rationally in accordance with
| rationality?
|
| After all, we live in a time when any "entrepreneur" can affix
| his name to a suburban sprawl wasteland strip mall storefront,
| open a University, and get accredited by at least SOMEONE and
| drive all of the wasteful and bloated (and liberal sissy-
| manchild-- their words not mine) institutions out of business,
| using the holy and righteous motive of PROFIT to deliver a
| better, cheaper, more rationally rational product to all of the
| young impressionable minds out there, right?
| umanwizard wrote:
| University education in the US is very far from a free market.
|
| They're kinda the worst of both worlds: massively subsidized by
| the state and federal governments, with very little government
| oversight.
| HKH2 wrote:
| I didn't realize that guaranteed loans and government subsidies
| are part of the free market.
| gaoshan wrote:
| States cut funding to public schools, costs rise to accommodate
| those cuts which spills over into every part of the education
| market. At the same time schools increase spending on non-
| academic upgrades to appeal to prospective students bringing
| higher costs (and more administrators). I think that may account
| for the bulk of the increases.
| kxyvr wrote:
| To add to this, Pew has an article that talks about a variety
| of topics including funding of higher education:
|
| https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/issue-bri...
|
| If you look at Figure 4, within the last 10 years, and for the
| first time ever, the amount of federal money flowing into state
| universities exceeded state money. There are all sorts of
| consequences for this. Mostly, I mention this to echo that
| state contributions to higher education have gone down
| consistently and the editorial's assertion that the high cost
| of a university education can be reduced to a bloated
| administration is a simplified argument of a complex issue that
| is likely made in bad faith.
| tomohawk wrote:
| Can you provide any evidence of these cuts?
|
| > In 2018, the United States spent $14,400 per full-time-
| equivalent (FTE) student on elementary and secondary education,
| which was 34 percent higher than the average of Organization
| for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) member
| countries of $10,800 (in constant 2020 U.S. dollars). At the
| postsecondary level, the United States spent $35,100 per FTE
| student, which was double the average of OECD countries
| ($17,600).
|
| https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cmd
|
| How much spending is enough?
| Nihilartikel wrote:
| A data point of USA exceptionality is that a significant
| portion of such money that pays employees must necessarily be
| allocated to the parasitic healthcare complex.
| lob_it wrote:
| The irony of educators not being able to do math was.....
| Elementary.. It starts in kindergarten.
|
| https://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/underfunded-teacher...
|
| Just grabbed a random link for the above, but underfunded
| retirement accounts and underfunded pensions explain math in 2022
| quite well.
|
| Any inferior integer is good enough /s
|
| A few links that date back to 1993 (pulled at random):
|
| https://www.investors.com/etfs-and-funds/sectors/sp500-ge-no...
|
| https://www.deseret.com/1993/12/12/19081151/list-of-underfun...
|
| https://nrtwc.org/underfunded-union-pensions/
|
| Many industries are "beyond a crisis", its not a permacrisis :p
|
| The public employee pensions are their own mess too
| dave333 wrote:
| Education should be recast as a sort of MMORPG instead of a
| physical campus. Would be 100th or 1000th the cost and achieve
| 80% of the results. Kahn Academy and the like are a start.
| HKH2 wrote:
| Lectures could be, but tutorials are nowhere near as good
| online.
| dave333 wrote:
| Tutorials don't really need paid tutors if peer to peer Q+A
| like a discussion forum is available. Another concept that
| could improve things is team education - you get marked on
| your own achievements but also partially on how your whole
| team does - so you have incentive to help others along.
| HKH2 wrote:
| Yeah I don't think tutors do all that much if everyone is
| motivated. What I meant was that conversations in person
| are often more productive, especially when you're trying to
| get motivated.
| dave333 wrote:
| In a game world motivation can be generated by access to
| the next room, level, whatever. Or, if you finish your
| fractions drill problems, you can play XYZ for an hour.
| HKH2 wrote:
| I'm talking about being motivated enough to be willing to
| ask questions that may make you look stupid etc.
|
| I don't think the system you're proposing would work for
| open-ended subjects.
| cuteboy19 wrote:
| Rather the issue is that there is a lot of garbage tutorials
| out there. It takes a lot of effort the find out the correct
| tutorials
| dave333 wrote:
| Rating and continuous improvement can obviously fix this.
| HKH2 wrote:
| I meant talking face to face is way better than Zoom. If
| you can find a group willing to talk in person about
| whatever it is you want to study, it should work.
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