Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[hack]

One advantage of funding in-state tuition only is that it should drive private costs down. In theory, at least. Michigan at $12K vs. Georgetown at $35K is one thing for an in-state student, but Michigan at $0 vs Georgetown at $35K is quite another. And there's room and board. In theory it should create high demand for the best in-state schools and increased demand for the 2nd tier in-state schools while forcing privates to cost-adjust. It'd also probably bankrupt some privates.

You could also cost control the in-state schools through funding. But all of this is going to require significantly more involvement from the Govt. When taxpayers start funding shit, they want accountability and it makes for easy political fodder. My mother, a retired HS English teacher, rails on about state testing standards, and probably rightly so (IMO). But the fact of the matter is that if you're going to fund schools with state dollars then the state is going to want some sort of metric to measure ROI. That is an absolute hard and fast rule of govt bureaucracy. Once the federal govt starts funding Higher Ed they will inevitably end up knuckle deep in that shit.

And, of course, there will be no cutoff -- the 3.0 gpa or whatever that is in place for Georgia will not be there.

You're probably using Georgetown just as an example, but, again, that's your pipeline to the foreign service. We really don't want a foreign service full of only the children of wealthy. On the domestic side, the DC schools are also where you go for your public-administration degrees if you can't get into an Ivy. Overall though, sure. Maybe the public universities need to be given the money to poach elite professors at those schools. ROI gets pretty fuzzy at that point. Not that it doesn't already. Public universities already engage in plenty of magical thinking they believe is data-driven, and already receive public money. Dunno. No obviously idea solutions here, but if picking from a list of flawed options, I'd rather the one in which tuition is free.

[Kapture1]

If that is your view, that is fine. My view is we don't need to subsidize a post modernist revolution in this country.

[AlabamAlum]

I just don't think the taxpayers should be on the hook for that 200,000 barista degree lol

Georgia doesn't limit the degree choice with the Hope Schollie. I think it has worked out fine. And it's lottery dollars more than tax dollars.

I think that the x factor here is the schools giving full and honest disclosure on being able to be gainfully employed in the chosen field upon graduation along with the parents giving their kid good counsel. Hand your child the sunday classifieds and tell them to find you 5 jobs listed for someone with a gender studies degree or whatever. When they can't, ask them how they plan to buy food food, pay rent, have a car, a phone, and internet. Most kids will see the light given appropriate guidance.

[froot loops]

The room and board is the killer expense of college. Some of the academic scholarships a school might give are dependent on living on campus. The tuition prices get the press but it isn't the whole story.

[AlabamAlum]

The room and board is the killer expense of college. Some of the academic scholarships a school might give are dependent on living on campus. The tuition prices get the press but it isn't the whole story.

Yep. And then they make you buy a meal plan, and the facilities fees, too, to go with tuition.

[UMStan White]

[iam416]

Georgetown was picked from a hat. Substitute in Xavier.

I wouldn't limit degree choice, either. But one very plausible scenario is that state universities will lose the ability to raise tuition and instead get block funded from the State/Feds. They'll have to make do with what they get. They'll also be judged on outcomes that include obvious metrics. One such metric won't be self-fulfillment or knowledge for knowledge's sake. Funding will be tied to outcomes. Universities will up their focus on "practical" degrees and take resources from nonsense. And in that way major choices will winnow.

Another alternative is that schools emerge that fast track traditional 4-yr degrees or state universities start offering such degrees. One can certainly argue that humanities-based general ed requirements aren't necessary to a chemical engineering degree. So, schools will start offering 3-yr tracks for various degrees -- engineering, computer science, accounting, etc. That will suck dollars from humanities departments which depend, in part, on the general requirement classes.

In any event, to be clear, I'm absolutely against "free" higher education. However, as far as the Democrat [Socialist] agenda of "free" stuff goes, it's probably the thing I find least objectionable. And it's interesting to think about how that particular model will affect higher education. Certainly more interesting than Mueller or Manafort.

[AlabamAlum]

I am not in favor of eliminating humanities from the core curriculum. The issue imo is the notion that every class or subgroup of classes needs a terminal degree and that is the cause of some of these soft, dead-end choices students make. Sure, offer women's studies classes, but manufacturing a terminal degree out of that is not necessary.

[froot loops]

The fact is a lot of corporate jobs depend on a degree, but not necessarily any type of degree. Even the STEM stuff contains a ton of superfluous courses that will not be of use. A lot of the soft skills you learn in a multidisciplinary program come in handy even in a STEM job. Being able to write well, communicate well is pretty big. Of course the most important thing is RTFM.

Once you get a couple of years under your belt, the degree is just a line on the resume but is an important line. It is a signaling measure for companies, but it's not going away. Show me a barista that is 200k in debt and I'd say give it a few years, probably just got out of school and finding a real job is a pain. I delivered pizzas for a few years after college because the economy was in the tank and nobody was hiring. I used to keep the stack of rejection letters, ha. Learning how to interview should be a college course, that's as important as RTFM. If you can't sell yourself, you'll starve for awhile.

[iam416]

Setting aside the value of specific degrees as we see it through our own eyes, it is my very strong opinion that *if* the federal government does it into the business of funding higher education they *will* want to measure results and I think the metrics are fairly obvious. If women's studies is a big launching degree to law school then a gainfully employed schyster then it will show up in the metrics. If not, then it won't. And how the federal government uses the metrics and results is just my speculation. But, I have little doubt that they will reach exactly that point.

I could be wrong. Could be one of those $70B public good programs that the govt doesn't care about.

[hack]

I am not in favor of eliminating humanities from the core curriculum. The issue imo is the notion that every class or subgroup of classes needs a terminal degree and that is the cause of some of these soft, dead-end choices students make. Sure, offer women's studies classes, but manufacturing a terminal degree out of that is not necessary.

Fully agree. And there are countries with free university in which kids pursue the humanities. Talent is right on paper about the chain reaction this would cause, I think. But it's not going to look the same in every place.

[iam416]

I am not in favor of eliminating humanities from the core curriculum.

And that's fine. For you. And your spawn. But others may not be so enthralled with the general ed curriculum and may not want to pay what is probably a full year's tuition for those classes.

Maybe employers will demand the general ed background; maybe we'll find out that engineers that don't take two semesters worth of humanities are just as proficient as those that do. Maybe we'll find out that history teachers that don't take two Math classes and two science classes teach history just as well as those that do.

I know which outcome I'd bet on.

[SeattleLionsFan]

Good discussion this morning gents! Thank you. I feel I better understand the issues and your POVs. Wonderful.

[froot loops]

Talent is probably right on wanting metrics of an individual that is going to a 4 year school, that is sensible. I don't think it's the whole story, it's probably half the story. That would the micro-economic approach. The argument for upping the overall education level of an area or the country is you get more innovation and you create a lot of businesses from the collaboration between local communities and the local universities. It is something you can see in the rear view mirror in explaining places like Silicon Valley, but that is long term vision and I'm not sure how you measure that.

[hack]

When we complain that millenials lack common sense, maybe it's possible that what we really should be doing is complaining about the death of exposure to those topics. I know at the Big Four there's a renewed emphasis on hiring rounded candidates out of school. They want to take kids who know how to think and train them on the job. But that's just one type of company. It's going to vary.