Universities and Colleges Suck...How They Fell and Can They be Saved?

[robj144]

Originally Posted by valleyguy

I don't think it is political. College loans, and the ease of getting them, has eliminated the need for colleges to control costs, so they continue to increase costs and tuitions with no incentive to stop the increases, just pass it on to students. Make colleges responsible for the loans and collecting them, that's about all I can think of to put a stop to this.

It's more than that.

[Gmountain]

Originally Posted by rokdog49

You mean learn how to do all those things in a cloistered unrealistic misrepresentation of the real world only to find once outside things are considerably different.
.

Nope. It's learn how to do those things in an atmosphere and environment that encourages people to think differently and accept differences, to think critically and question pre conceived notions, to meet people you may not have met, and to be friends with them, as opposed to being in an environment where someone else- either your parents, or bosses, tell you what to think and what to believe.

[Bob Womack]

I fear that colleges and universities got themselves into a spiral of theirs and their customers' making:

I think it started with availability of Federal money for the universities. The next step was an acceptance of the funding philosophy adopted by large municipalities: "if you aren't growing you are dying." To encourage growth, the universities invested in physical facilities (the "edifice complex"). Many if not all institutions also did what most municipalities seem to have done and planned for greater than possible growth to fund their plans. When I was in a pretty upscale little college in 1975-79, the campus was based around a non-air-conditioned building built as a luxury hotel in 1927. It was heated with a boiling water radiator system that went "clunk-clunk-clunk" through the night. However, the students slept in military surplus metal racks, studied on student-built plywood desks, did their own laundry in a coin-op, and worked several volunteer hours every week providing the basic services necessary to operate the college in order to keep the cost of the school down. The food in the dining hall was lousy. I lost forty pounds during my first year. But as a result, it cost $4000 a year to send me to that school, including tuition and board. I've still got the curriculum/tuition pages from my freshman catalog (upon which the rest of my years fees were assessed) tucked in a file. I got a paying job as an electrician to help pay, rebuilding all the electrical systems from the 1920s. The school was tough. Compared to it, state school was skate duty. For years after I finished I used to wake up in the middle of the night in a panic thinking I had a paper due that I had forgotten. I considered my education a privilege.

However, as prices went up, demands and expectations from customers went up. At today's prices no-one would dream of dropping their kid off at the school I went to. The same school now charges $47k per year for tuition and the same housing. The buildings are all air conditioned and the dorms are luxurious. The laundry is now an included service. Kids talk about adding their "freshman 15" because of the good food. Frankly, I couldn't afford to send my kids there.

I live next to a similar private university and have since the '70s. I eat at their dining hall. In the '80s kids used to sit together and talk about how tough the school was. At exam time there would be kids in the bathrooms throwing up from the stress. A couple of them actually committed suicide. But as time went on and costs went up, the concept of a student simply failing began to fade from the equation. When a family is spending $40k-50k to educate their kid, it seems that there is always some sort of accommodation available.

I've noticed something else: When I was in school, most of the people who had a car at school had a junker. Other than the very few obviously rich kids, everyone else drove a ten-to-twenty-year-old rattle trap. Student cars were often rust buckets. It was the same at this local university in the eighties. But then something changed. These days you are far more likely to see students, all of whom seem to have cars, drive a lot of new BMW or Mercedes models. There's a demographic shift there.

And you know what is unsettling? The married students from the school show up at the local pharmacies in their BMWs with beautifully coiffed hair and manicured and polished nails and hand over prescriptions for their children who are on Medicare. They pay for their food with state "Women, Infants, and Children" program chits and cart it out to their BMW or Mercedes. I don't know anyone who would have considered doing such while in college.

My dad went to school on the G.I. bill after WWII and worked odd jobs. He had so little money that he'd go into the dining hall and order a serving of green beans and water. The head of the dining hall programs watch him come and go and loose weight. She snatched him up one day and put him to work in the scullery so that he could have at least one meal a day while on the clock.

But that's how we faced that kind of thing in another era. Suffering was just a part of the school experience, or so we thought. As Chief Inspector Clouseau said, blandly, "Not anymore."

Bob

[Kerbie]

Originally Posted by Haasome

Absolute and uniform expressions for an entire social sector are not very meaningful or useful.

Couldn't agree more. I spent over a decade getting three degrees, then teaching in higher education for about 6 years. I worked at schools with enrollments from a couple thousand to over 35,000 and I don't understand the use of such a broad brush of condemnation.

Originally Posted by Bob Womack

I think it started with availability of Federal money for the universities.

I find that interesting, Bob. Does that mean you disapprove of the GI bill? The original bill educated virtually half of our WWII vets... almost 8 million men. What a huge impact it had on all those young men and their wives and children. I consider myself lucky to have been one of those kids.

[Bob Womack]

Originally Posted by Kerbie

I find that interesting, Bob. Does that mean you disapprove of the GI bill? The original bill educated virtually half of our WWII vets... almost 8 million men. What a huge impact it had on all those young men and their wives and children. I consider myself lucky to have been one of those kids.

No, I'm referring to grant money for building expansions, etc. The G.I. bill was more related to crossing the Rubicon than government funding. By that, I mean that all those vets were returning to the country from war and a lack of tasking to engage them might have wreaked havoc on the stability of the society. The G.I. Bill was to give them something meaningful to do to further their lives and to recompense them for the years they had differed their education.

Bob

[BrunoBlack]

Originally Posted by Kerbie

Couldn't agree more. I spent over a decade getting three degrees, then teaching in higher education for about 6 years. I worked at schools with enrollments from a couple thousand to over 35,000 and I don't understand the use of such a broad brush of condemnation.


I find that interesting, Bob. Does that mean you disapprove of the GI bill? The original bill educated virtually half of our WWII vets... almost 8 million men. What a huge impact it had on all those young men and their wives and children. I consider myself lucky to have been one of those kids.

This is a great point Kerbie. I believe it was the positive educational experience of that generation that got the ball rolling, wanting their offspring (the huge number of boomers) to have the benefits of higher education. So I can see how the numbers of college bound youth and federal spending continued. It seems like a logical outcome. Somewhere along the way, bankers recognized it as a keen opportunity too and somehow students loans became the only (I believe) non-forgivable debt. This is a complicated puzzle with no single “wolf” and no “silver bullet.” However, as we discuss shortcomings, we should not lose sight of the many great people and many fine institutions that are providing our society with tremendous benefits.

[RP]

As others have said, the cost/benefit ratio of many four-year college educations has spawned numerous alternatives. I think that high school grads will increasingly opt to spend their first two years attending a community college and live at home. Perhaps "traditional" four-year colleges will increasingly become specialty programs where students get the equivalent of a bachelors and masters degree in a specific discipline. I would love to see a form of mandatory two-year service in the United States (which could be military, environmental, educational, social service, etc.) which offers the equivalent of GI Bill educational funding at the end or even during the term of service...

[Kerbie]

Agreed, Paul. The bill educated a generation of young men and significantly improved the welfare of their families in the present and future. The success of that bill doesn't warrant any and all forms of future federal aid, but I think it makes blanket disapproval more questionable.

[islandguitar]

Originally Posted by Haasome

This is a great point Kerbie. I believe it was the positive educational experience of that generation that got the ball rolling, wanting their offspring (the huge number of boomers) to have the benefits of higher education. So I can see how the numbers of college bound youth and federal spending continued. It seems like a logical outcome. Somewhere along the way, bankers recognized it as a keen opportunity too and somehow students loans became the only (I believe) non-forgivable debt. This is a complicated puzzle with no single “wolf” and no “silver bullet.” However, as we discuss shortcomings, we should not lose sight of the many great people and many fine institutions that are providing our society with tremendous benefits.

Paul, not only are they non-forgivable, there are two types of the same student loan ....one for those who financially have the need for that loan as determined by forms submitted, and a second which is available regardless of income. The only difference is that the latter loan has interest (only) that is carried and paid while the student is in college, with principle and interest becoming due after graduation just like the former. These loans start at 3,500 per year and rise to 5,500 for the final two years, so you can rack up some serious dollars owed even though the percentage of the overall cost of attendance (let's say, $3,500 on $$47,000) is relatively low. So, even for students who "don't need it", they still stand a chance of being in over their heads after 4 years if they don't manage things well.

[imwjl]

Originally Posted by Kerbie

Couldn't agree more. I spent over a decade getting three degrees, then teaching in higher education for about 6 years. I worked at schools with enrollments from a couple thousand to over 35,000 and I don't understand the use of such a broad brush of condemnation.



I find that interesting, Bob. Does that mean you disapprove of the GI bill? The original bill educated virtually half of our WWII vets... almost 8 million men. What a huge impact it had on all those young men and their wives and children. I consider myself lucky to have been one of those kids.

GI bill was key for my off the boat family to go do SO much more than would have been possible without. There are modern versions of the story. A recent military conflict hero I know became an attorney via GI bill after a career hiccup and now he's a JAG for the Army doing seriously important stuff for the way warfare is done these days.

When people criticize all the federal money that goes to universities and even their buildings they often seem to miss how much of it is really the funding and welfare for private sector business. Think about stuff like GPS, the Internet, or how often a drug or a polymer or a metal treatment process - you name it - comes out of that research.

A dear friend (RIP) who was a researcher and scientist in engineering physics pointed out over and over how they got labeled wrong when their successful work ended up stuff we take for granted but the research that did not or not yet pan out lets them get disparaged.

On subsidization, not long ago there was a lot of criticism over investments in solar but around the same time government funded science also gave boosts to what we know as the Tesla car and battery company.

A professor I know in the space science department does data visualization and he's pointed out how same time they get criticized on the whole as welfare brats their work is absolutely vital for modern ag and transportation logistics.

That guy and my departed dear friend repeat and repeated the academic grants get long-range and difficult challenges done where the startup and serve or satisfy stockholders way of work and thought would not allow it at any great scale.

A circle of pharma scientist friends from a business near me point out the same about academia. One says no way would their stockholders allow the years and often goes nowhere work behind what they bring to market.

I can find a lot wrong with academia but must give it a lot of credit too.

My biggest hope is we still get reasonably affordable ways for kids to have what formal education did to my family. My wife and I did not win the birth or any other sort of lottery but two degrees from a good school have been a ticket to a life we'd never have otherwise.

I think a lot of criticism comes from people being jealous or holding some success envy. In a way I kind of think too bad. My wife and I did not win the birth lottery. We both grew up on the wrong side of our towns. We worked hard to do college and pay for it via miserable jobs. We forced open minds and being open to change. Maybe we'd be angry people if we didn't do it. I don't know. For all the nonsense, our degrees have also been tickets to a much better seating area.

[Dirk Hofman]

Originally Posted by Kerbie

Agreed, Paul. The bill educated a generation of young men and significantly improved the welfare of their families in the present and future. The success of that bill doesn't warrant any and all forms of future federal aid, but I think it makes blanket disapproval more questionable.

Blanket disapproval (or approval) is always questionable, it often smacks of ideology rather than solutions.

The GI bill allowed my parents to purchase the home I grew up in. A nice benefit for my dad risking his life flying jets in the early years of the Vietnam conflict. Not all of his friends made it back to take advantage.

It was a time when we saw the wisdom of investing in our children's education and our future, not exploiting them for the short-term profit of a few.

It would seem wisdom is an easy thing for a country to lose.

[Bob Womack]

My example of the G.I. bill wasn't a criticism but to point to what went along with it - the period in my father's life where he sacrificed for his education. I'm not seeing a lot of that anymore.


Bob

[Davis Webb]

One of my contentions is that there has been a shift from teaching how to think and be a good citizen, learning philosophy, art, history, literature, politics, basic science, law and psychology toward a career-focused path.

I am not certain that people who know nothing of the above mentioned subjects should even be allowed to vote, much less command our businesses and institutions.

Without a fundamental knowledge of history, it is hard to make sense of the present. Without philosophy one cannot critique ideas without passion. Without art and literature, one is reduced to memes and what mass media presents. Without science, law and psychology we cannot make sense of justice, illness, crime or punishment.

My fear is that we are educating people now to do a job, not to live the life of the mind. The result would be a dumbing down of America and Canada (the only systems I have experienced), so that we have a gullible population who can hate as easily as they love.

[Larpy]

A note on the cost of higher ed these days.

I think the claim that universities and colleges no longer have pressure on them to control costs needs some examination. What I see at the (private) university where I teach and the land-grant (public) university in our state suggests the opposite: schools have never felt more pressured to control costs.

What drives rising tuition is more complicated than you might think. Now I have no interest in defending it, but it's not exactly the profit-bearing windfall it looks like. I'll explain how it works at my private university, since I know it best.

When students are admitted, they are offered a financial package that typically offers them a "scholarship" that reduces or discounts the cost of tuition for the four (or five) years they are a student. The overall average of all of these discounts is called the "discount rate." 25 years ago, my school's discount rate was around 42%. That means, all told, the institution discounted 42% off the "sticker price" of tuition. Fast forward to 2018 and we're approaching a 60% discount rate. That means the the average student at my school pays $10K for tuition rather than the $25K "sticker price" posted on our website. I once asked our Admissions office how many of our students actually pay the full price of tuition and the answer was around 1%.

I don't think what our school does is unusual.

It leads to a vicious cycle. To attract more students, the school increases its discount rate and then raises tuition to compensate. What outsiders see is tuition increases that look out of control. What a professor like me sees is, at best, a financial status quo.

A few years ago, I compared the increase of my salary in my 25 years at my school to the government's cost of living adjustments. My salary has not quite kept pace with COLA. It's a percentage point or two below.

[srick]

Originally Posted by Davis Webb

One of my contentions is that there has been a shift from teaching how to think and be a good citizen, learning philosophy, art, history, literature, politics, basic science, law and psychology toward a career-focused path.

And accompanying this, a failure to think critically and assess sources.

But, I am happy to say that in the under 30 population, I see many astute people. They are dismayed at how the older generation can sit in front of a television all day, watch a continuous stream of whatever - and accept it as truth merely because it has been published (on the air, or on social media).

Many of them have been trained to assess the veracity of sources and to not accept something as fact just because.

The next 25 years will be awfully interesting, to say the least. The upcoming generation is far more worldly and connected - I believe that this will bode well. Fingers are crossed. And of course, higher learning will need to adapt to the new paradigm.