Student Debt

[Polish_Silver]

Re: Student Debt

Courtesy of the Government/Academic complex

Something is rotten in the Ivy Towers. What is it?

Excessive administration employment? Mismanagement?

We see large endowments at some institutions, excessive president salaries, and to many administrators.

Why has the cost a college degree gone up so much?

That's what I want to know. I have heard they spend a ton on athletic and cultural facilities, but can that really explain such a huge increase in cost?

[dcarrigg]

Re: Student Debt - Debt engulfs institutions of higher learning

Hispanics may be underrepresented, but nothing like WASPs as you point out. Thank God and the Census Bureau that the only criteria for being legally Hispanic is you check the box on the census form. My children can actually claim to be Hispanic because my wife is Sorta Rican, even though they could easily be assumed to hail from Norway.

WASP != all white folk in this country. I suppose it's my job as the resident Catholic schlub to point that out, although there are plenty of athiests, Jewish folk, Orthodox folk, Muslim folk, Hindu folk, and others who could attest.

I think the math on the admissions numbers was bunk too.

30% is the legacy rate. 5.8% is the overall acceptance rate. Legacies, foreign students, and athletes might be of any race and so you shouldn't add them together to come up with the number of spots. Hispanics may be either white or black, and therefore might be counted twice as well. About half of Harvard students are non-hispanic white citizens or US resident aliens (not non-resident alien foreign students). Even if half of them are legacies, the odds are about five times better than the math made them out to be. It's still slim chances. But there's no use overdramatizing it.

[Ghent12]

Re: Student Debt

That's what I want to know. I have heard they spend a ton on athletic and cultural facilities, but can that really explain such a huge increase in cost?

The athletic and cultural facilities, as well as the College of Superfluous Studies which is in many universities, are the ornate tokens the universities have collected. They are measures of largess, but not the cause of the increased tuition price.

The huge increase in the price of a college education is a function of supply and demand and all of the various relationships formed because of that friction. There's only one Harvard. There are only a few Ivy League schools. There are only several dozen state universities. According to http://www.statisticbrain.com/colleg...nt-statistics/, there are 4,140 total institutions of higher learning in the U.S. but over 17 million people enrolled among them, for an average of 4224 enrollees per institution. Put another way, there are millions and millions of people seeking seats at thousands of schools. It's no wonder prices are so high and can easily go higher. Parking spots are at a premium except during the Summer semester. Better enroll as soon as you are able, or your required classes will fill up. Good thing upperclassmen have their enrollment window open up sooner than freshmen and sophomores, or that four-year degree would often take longer than the allotted six years the students are expected to complete it in.

Unless and until "alternative" avenues for accreditation like the University of Phoenix Online gain and build their reputations as reliable sources of educated degree-holders, the situation strongly favors universities applying minimal effort to accommodate additional students and instead building ornate new facilities that are striking both in their appearance and their low useful-size-to-actual-volume ratio. While I attended the College of Engineering at one of my state's schools, I couldn't get over the newest engineering building which was five stories tall and nearly half of it was empty space in the form of an open four-story atrium. It was great to fly capstone projects in, but always seemed like a vast squandering of real estate. Why water down a university's reputation by focusing on education and substantially increasing your degree-holder output, when the alternative is to build really pretty buildings and statues and landscaping and do all the other things to truly impress a slowly-growing, highly-"charged" student body instead?

[sunpearl71]

Re: Student Debt - Debt engulfs institutions of higher learning

If you can instill in your children good social skills, a strong work ethic, a love for lifelong learning and the ability to be a self-starter, you can rest easy knowing that they will always be able to take care of themselves.

Very well put Shiny! Thanks.

[Polish_Silver]

Re: Student Debt

The athletic and cultural facilities, as well as the College of Superfluous Studies which is in many universities, are the ornate tokens the universities have collected. They are measures of largess, but not the cause of the increased tuition price.

The huge increase in the price of a college education is a function of supply and demand and all of the various relationships formed because of that friction. There's only one Harvard. There are only a few Ivy League schools. There are only several dozen state universities. According to http://www.statisticbrain.com/colleg...nt-statistics/, there are 4,140 total institutions of higher learning in the U.S. but over 17 million people enrolled among them, for an average of 4224 enrollees per institution. Put another way, there are millions and millions of people seeking seats at thousands of schools. It's no wonder prices are so high and can easily go higher. Parking spots are at a premium except during the Summer semester. Better enroll as soon as you are able, or your required classes will fill up. Good thing upperclassmen have their enrollment window open up sooner than freshmen and sophomores, or that four-year degree would often take longer than the allotted six years the students are expected to complete it in.

Unless and until "alternative" avenues for accreditation like the University of Phoenix Online gain and build their reputations as reliable sources of educated degree-holders, the situation strongly favors universities applying minimal effort to accommodate additional students and instead building ornate new facilities that are striking both in their appearance and their low useful-size-to-actual-volume ratio. While I attended the College of Engineering at one of my state's schools, I couldn't get over the newest engineering building which was five stories tall and nearly half of it was empty space in the form of an open four-story atrium. It was great to fly capstone projects in, but always seemed like a vast squandering of real estate. Why water down a university's reputation by focusing on education and substantially increasing your degree-holder output, when the alternative is to build really pretty buildings and statues and landscaping and do all the other things to truly impress a slowly-growing, highly-"charged" student body instead?

You might be right about that. I have not seen numbers on this. To give some perspective, many colleges and departments were larger in the late 1960's than they were in the mid 1980's. The Vietnam war draft deferal swelled colleges tremendously, and according to many caused standards to be lower.

If you are right, the game will continue until new private or public sector institutions open, or until students just use you-tube and hire tutors to learn in alternative formats. I think that might be happening soon. A lot of people think the accredation and reputation thing is way over done.


Alternatively, US students might just decide to study in Canada or Mexico. Hm. Why not round up some english speaking mexican teachers and open a budget college south of the border. Sun, great food, cheap tuition, what's not to like?

[vt]

Re: Student Debt

Tech was a bubble.

Housing was a bubble.

Insane college tuitions are bubble waiting to burst. The degree does not add as much value anymore in many fields.

[wayiwalk]

Re: Student Debt

Agreed, add to that the challenge of getting a job after graduating. We're trying to hire a new engineer. I have half a dozen candidates with great resumes (yes, I know you need to meet the candidate, too) and they all have cumlative averages above 3.4, from good if not very good state and private schools.

I watch my son work really hard in the bioenginering curriculum he is in and managing just below a 3.2, and wonder, is that even going to be good enough to get in the door somewhere, and get a decent job?

I look at the present push by many of our elite/big business owners to open up the doors for getting more spots open for VISAs in this country, and it makes me think of the way that we moved manufacturing overseas in the prior two or three decades, where it was cheaper to manufacturer goods overseas, and see a parallel with well educated folks in the STEM fields, and wonder if we're not "importing" less expensive college grads that are "manufactured" overseas at lower cost.

Hey, it works for the 1%, it must be good for the country.

Yup. I'm feeling cynical this morning.

[LazyBoy]

Re: Student Debt - Debt engulfs institutions of higher learning

20% of the admitted students represented 81 different countries and are considered international students, U.S. dual citizens, or U.S. permanent residents.
...
19.9% Asian-American=402.57
...
20% International=404.6
...
Asians are over represented - Hispanic under represented

I'm really ignorant about how these things work. My 5 year old daughter is adopted from Kazakhstan. My wife and I joke that we'll play the Kazakh card when she goes to college -- because Kazakh is rare. But I guess that she'd just be classified "Asian-American", which isn't so rare. (And it's a stereotypically competitive subgroup.)

In this example (and at this time), Asian-American is "over represented". I could see a school having quotas for under represented minorities. Do we think Harvard has a quota for "extra" Asian-Americans? Or are those just the Americans who got in on merit?

She'll have dual citizenship and passports until at least 18. Maybe she could be "International". If we were applying to colleges this year, what boxes should we tick?

[Polish_Silver]

no engineer shortage

The idea that we need to allow in more workers with science, technology, engineering, and math (“STEM”) background is an article of faith among American business and political elite. (STEM: science, technology, engineering, math)

But in a new report, my Center for Immigration Studies colleague Karen Zeigler and I analyze the latest government data and find what other researchers have found: The country has well more than twice as many workers with STEM degrees as there are STEM jobs. Also consistent with other research, we find only modest levels of wage growth for such workers for more than a decade. Both employment and wage data indicate that such workers are not in short supply.

In an article entitled “The Science and Engineering Shortage Is a Myth” for the March issue of The Atlantic, demographer Michael Teitelbaum of Harvard Law School summarizes the literature on STEM. “No one has been able to find any evidence indicating current widespread labor market shortages or hiring difficulties in science and engineering occupations that require bachelor’s degrees or higher,” he points out. Teitelbaum is one of the nation’s leading experts on STEM employment, former vice president of the Sloan Foundation (a philanthropic institution essentially devoted to STEM education), and author of Falling Behind? Boom, Bust, and the Global Race for Scientific Talent, just published by Princeton University Press.

I think the Atlantic article is right. I saw similar articles 20 years ago. An accurate statement of the situation is "American employers want to keep down wages by bringing in less expensive Chinese engineers."


The counter punch is : would rather compete against chinese engineers in your own country and company, or have your company competing against those some people working in China?

Personally, I'd rather compete with them at a distance.

I've nothing against them personally, but I don't believe there's any good reason for bringing foreign engineers into the country. How about bringing in foreign born CEO's for a change?

It's also the case that many of the science and engineering majors and not proficient enough to get hard core science or engineering jobs. I was not proficient enough to stay in physics, so I "fell back" to electronics.

[flintlock]

Re: Student Debt

Yes, Supply and demand is a factor in the higher costs of education, but withdraw the govt guaranteed loans and the social engineering going on and you'd see a huge drop in attendance. Like so many other screwed up parts of our economy, govt involvement twists the usual economic laws into something unrecognizable. Fact is, the amount actually paid at many schools is being dumped on a smaller segment of students to pay, while others get various forms of "Assistance" and "scholarships", often just for being from the correct race, economic(poor), or other chosen group. Who the heck pays full price these days? When you see these stories about six figure student loans you usually have either someone who was not good enough to earn a scholarship, or not a particular minority, or whose parents made too much for them to qualify for the generous aid available. You can also throw in the professional students, those attempting to delay adulthood by attending school as long as possible, and those who think you can buy your way into a job. I know this is an oversimplification, but this subject has so many parallels with the housing crisis it ain't funny. EZ credit, social engineering, egalitarianism.

Too many colleges where its just a jack off. Average ACT scores in the teens! Then you look at the average level of assistance at these schools, it's through the roof. Fact is a good HS could probably deliver a better employee. Outside of technical jobs, I'm not sure we need more college graduates. Does a "well rounded" employee who has studied philosophy and calculus really make a better Dilbert to fill our cubicles? Now if they taught work ethic, attitude, and ethics, I might be convinced otherwise.

[BK]

Re: Student Debt - can you make money on Peak Education bubble

Yahoo Finance has been pumping ACC - a REIT that provides dorms - and its currently close to a 52 week high.

Can you make money buying Puts - in December 2013 it was approximately $32 - puts with a $40 price - can be purchased for a strike of $3.40 - the obvious risk is this craziness can go on a lot longer than any of us can imagine.

[Ghent12]

Re: Student Debt

Yes, Supply and demand is a factor in the higher costs of education, but withdraw the govt guaranteed loans and the social engineering going on and you'd see a huge drop in attendance. Like so many other screwed up parts of our economy, govt involvement twists the usual economic laws into something unrecognizable.

A purist would correct the record as follows: Supply and Demand are not merely factors in the price of tuition, they are the only driving external factors in any price. Government involvement merely serves to artificially inflate Demand without a complimentary increase in Supply, thereby driving the clearing price point higher for all tuition generally.

A purist would be correct. If the government or any group of policy-makers wanted to drive down the price of tuition, they would commit to actions which boost Supply and reduce Demand including, but not limited to, reducing involvement in the student loan market and easing accreditation requirements.

[jk]

Re: Student Debt

many threads in the past have pointed out that education, housing and healthcare were not goods that could be easily imported. [h1 visas to the contrary] thus, those were the pieces of the economy that inflated while the rest of the economy, and its workforce, was arbitraged against overseas manufacturing and remotely delivered services [back office, call centers, and so on]

it's interesting to me that the idea of "liberal education" - education for critical faculties, i suppose - has totally fallen by the wayside. now education tends to be viewed as strictly vocational - right up through the post-doc level. i guess that's a function of a squeezed economy as well as the democratization of higher education - when it was only the elites going to college, they didn't need to prepare themselves for jobs. they would benefit from their connections and supporters.

so is liberal education just an elite luxury? i'm tempted to think about the philosophers of greece and rome, but of course they had slaves to do their dirty work. kind of like many of america's founding fathers.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Student Debt - Debt engulfs institutions of higher learning

I'm really ignorant about how these things work. My 5 year old daughter is adopted from Kazakhstan. My wife and I joke that we'll play the Kazakh card when she goes to college -- because Kazakh is rare. But I guess that she'd just be classified "Asian-American", which isn't so rare. (And it's a stereotypically competitive subgroup.)

In this example (and at this time), Asian-American is "over represented". I could see a school having quotas for under represented minorities. Do we think Harvard has a quota for "extra" Asian-Americans? Or are those just the Americans who got in on merit?

She'll have dual citizenship and passports until at least 18. Maybe she could be "International". If we were applying to colleges this year, what boxes should we tick?

You're better off selecting white than asian. It's still a big gamble. If she's valedictorian and has good outside activities, then roll the dice. It's definitely worth it. Incorporate something with $200 and put her on the board (chairman or vice-chairman) or in an officer position (COO of a non-profit is believable even on short change). That's worth it too compared to the application fees, especially if you have 1 year + to go before applying.

Stack the resumé. But it can't be lies. Start a non-profit and raise $10k. It's easy enough if you go neighbor to neighbor. Make her an important part. She'll look golden. The sports aptitude you can't control. She has to be on top of her class in grades anyways. It's little nonsense you can game that can make the difference. And even if she ends up in state school, my advice is still golden. The COO of a for-profit or non-profit even at a very low revenue level learns what a 501(c)3 is, learns how to raise money and/or sell at a small level, and has a huge "years experience" leg up on her competition.

Don't leave this stuff up to chance. For way cheaper than the price of college, you can give her 4 years of executive experience. Make it up as you go, but make it real. Who knows? You may stumble into a career for her on accident along the way.

LazyBoy: PM me your state and what you're thinking. I'll help you set it up before September for free. You still need the 529 fund. But we'll help get her into "no-lose" position. She'll have to do the rest. But fortune of happenstance will not hurt her so much as it does millions of kids every day. I'm a true believer in taking the "Groton Advantage" away by tricks as often as we can. Let her be on her own merit. And if you have to construct a chunk of the merit, don't feel bad. We're too old with too much at stake to be too proud to stack the deck.

[lektrode]

Re: Student Debt - Debt engulfs institutions of higher learning

.... true believer in taking the "Groton Advantage" away by tricks as often as we can. Let her be on her own merit. And if you have to construct a chunk of the merit, don't feel bad. We're too old with too much at stake to be too proud to stack the deck.

wow dc... this one post is certainly an education (in how to beat em at their own deck-stacking game)
and +1 on not being too proud
the ivy bunch has been stacking against The Rest of US for so long that it might indeed be already too late