Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
The government mandates everyone be educated up to age 18/grade 12.
College is outside of the k-12 system, why do people feel entitled to it for cheap or free?
Once upon a time people didn't need high school. As Jethro put it, " a sixth grade education" would do fine. Heck my own dad never finished school yet did well for himself. But the world changed and high school became essential. And therefore funding for free education through that level wasdeemed essential to national competitiveness.
Now the world had changed again and the education system that got us through to 20th century is not competitive in the 21st. It is once again a national imperative to upgrade our education system. Today education should be free to everyone through at least the first two years of college or tech school.
This isn't about free "stuff" for individuals but a matter of national security. We can either compete with a world that is moving beyond how we used to think or we can get run over by it.
The government mandates everyone be educated up to age 18/grade 12.
College is outside of the k-12 system, why do people feel entitled to it for cheap or free?
It's interesting that no one raised questions like this back when education was relatively affordable in the US, and government grants were fairly plentiful for those in need. Now that a certain sector has treated itself to several rounds of tax cuts over a couple of decades, gutting the federal budget in the process, some of which affects state budgets, people are getting all huffy about the "American Dream", the belief that facilitating upward mobility is a tremendous benefit to society, conveying political and economic stability, and ultimately, greater prosperity for all. It sets up a positive feedback loop.
But heck, who needs the American Dream? To the trash heap with it! Sounds like some kind of socialist-Commie conspiracy, anyway. While we're at it, let's throw Social Security out with it. Just more socialism! More homelessness is what this country needs, and more burger-flippers, so we can import educated Brown People to do the jobs that require high technical skills.
Over in the College forum, there's a discussion on paying for education. This came up and it was suggested we bring this up as a separate topic. I agree with R4T that state legislatures seem to have abandoned higher ed, buy really don't know why. Please try to keep this apolitical so we can find a common interest in the problem and solution.
Its complicated. I think there are a number of reasons. However, your basic premise is correct. Most states have seriously slashed funding for colleges and universities when viewed in terms of inflation adjusted dollars. Here are some reasons why:
1. State's share of medicaid costs have risen at astronomical rates. It swallows any additional dollars in a state's budget. No one in America wants to tackle the problem of health care costs that rise at a rate greater than inflation every year. So, we all turn away and keep patching holes one at a time in the ****.
2. Taxpayers in many states feel overtaxed. A number of states have adopted limits on property taxes and income taxes. Its difficult to allocate money for higher education when its just not being raised.
3. College budgets have increased by far more than the cost of living. In order to fund education at the levels we did in the 1970's and 1980's, we'd have to increase taxes significantly.
4.Colleges are far more extravagant today than they were thirty or forty years ago. We see brand new dorms (handicapped accessible) that look more like luxury hotels than the primitive dorms with communal bathrooms I used to stay in in 1977 at the University of Utah. There are premium exercise and athletic facilities full of state of the art exercise equipment. There is a huge investment in personal computers. Colleges will argue til Kingdom Come that all these expenses are "necessary to attract the best students". However, its not really reasonable to expect the public to subsidize such lavish facilities. If I had my way, I'd strip universities back to the basics. Theyd have good instruction and libraries, but the frills would be cut way back.
That about sums it up. The colleges seem to be struggling to put themselves out of business by asking for astronomical tuition when the value of a degree may be declining.
Its complicated. I think there are a number of reasons. However, your basic premise is correct. Most states have seriously slashed funding for colleges and universities when viewed in terms of inflation adjusted dollars. Here are some reasons why:
1. State's share of medicaid costs have risen at astronomical rates. It swallows any additional dollars in a state's budget. No one in America wants to tackle the problem of health care costs that rise at a rate greater than inflation every year. So, we all turn away and keep patching holes one at a time in the ****.
2. Taxpayers in many states feel overtaxed. A number of states have adopted limits on property taxes and income taxes. Its difficult to allocate money for higher education when its just not being raised.
3. College budgets have increased by far more than the cost of living. In order to fund education at the levels we did in the 1970's and 1980's, we'd have to increase taxes significantly.
4.Colleges are far more extravagant today than they were thirty or forty years ago. We see brand new dorms (handicapped accessible) that look more like luxury hotels than the primitive dorms with communal bathrooms I used to stay in in 1977 at the University of Utah. There are premium exercise and athletic facilities full of state of the art exercise equipment. There is a huge investment in personal computers. Colleges will argue til Kingdom Come that all these expenses are "necessary to attract the best students". However, its not really reasonable to expect the public to subsidize such lavish facilities. If I had my way, I'd strip universities back to the basics. Theyd have good instruction and libraries, but the frills would be cut way back.
That about sums it up. The colleges seem to be struggling to put themselves out of business by asking for astronomical tuition when the value of a degree may be declining.
Medicaid has ballooned only in the last 10-15 years, though. Cuts to higher education began way back in the 80's. By the time ballooning Medicaid became in issue, cuts to higher ed had been going on for at least 20 years. So now, there's no turning back, because of Medicaid costs, and increasing education costs, as you also point out, but I still winder why budgets begin chipping away at higher ed back when they did.
College budgets--probably true, especially 8in executive pay. Budgets have decreased insofar as less-skilled instructors are being used to replace many hours of instruction by tenure-track professors, though. Universities have always had gyms, and those gyms haven't changed at the universities I'm familiar with. They're not fancier now than they were 20+ years ago.
Not sure what you mean by a huge investment at the university level in personal computers. Dorms have changed, yes.
Property tax limits cutting into state budgets: how widespread is this? This is precisely what caused the beginning of the decline college funding in CA, but I thought that was an anomaly (it was unique, in its day). WA only passed a similar probity tax limit roughly 12-ish years ago, but budget cuts to higher ed started decades before that. How many other states have passed similar measures?
There are some good points here, but I'm looking at the abandonment of higher ed from a longer-term perspective. The points you raise indicate that higher ed is totally screwed now, and that even a partial restoration of funding would be hopeless, but it leaves unanswered the "why" of the erosion of funding going back to when the process began, sometime in the 80's.
I guess the short answer is that that was when pressures on state budgets from other areas began to force cutbacks in education. I'm just wondering what the source of those pressures was, in the 80's and 90's. Maybe things like inflation, teacher pay/raises, state pensions, as someone else pointed out...
Its complicated. I think there are a number of reasons. However, your basic premise is correct. Most states have seriously slashed funding for colleges and universities when viewed in terms of inflation adjusted dollars. Here are some reasons why:
1. State's share of medicaid costs have risen at astronomical rates. It swallows any additional dollars in a state's budget. No one in America wants to tackle the problem of health care costs that rise at a rate greater than inflation every year. So, we all turn away and keep patching holes one at a time in the ****.
2. Taxpayers in many states feel overtaxed. A number of states have adopted limits on property taxes and income taxes. Its difficult to allocate money for higher education when its just not being raised.
3. College budgets have increased by far more than the cost of living. In order to fund education at the levels we did in the 1970's and 1980's, we'd have to increase taxes significantly.
4.Colleges are far more extravagant today than they were thirty or forty years ago. We see brand new dorms (handicapped accessible) that look more like luxury hotels than the primitive dorms with communal bathrooms I used to stay in in 1977 at the University of Utah. There are premium exercise and athletic facilities full of state of the art exercise equipment. There is a huge investment in personal computers. Colleges will argue til Kingdom Come that all these expenses are "necessary to attract the best students". However, its not really reasonable to expect the public to subsidize such lavish facilities. If I had my way, I'd strip universities back to the basics. Theyd have good instruction and libraries, but the frills would be cut way back.
That about sums it up. The colleges seem to be struggling to put themselves out of business by asking for astronomical tuition when the value of a degree may be declining.
Thank you for some good inputs. However I do not see where number 4 (luxuries) is coming from. Having just put one through and another starting, the dorms and amenities are no more luxurious than we had 40 years ago. Even the brand new ones are not luxury places unless one considers heat and air luxuries. Maybe some schools somewhere are but it's certainly not the norm. I'm not sure where this belief is coming from but doesn't match any campus we toured or where our kids went.
Thank you for some good inputs. However I do not see where number 4 (luxuries) is coming from. Having just put one through and another starting, the dorms and amenities are no more luxurious than we had 40 years ago. Even the brand new ones are not luxury places unless one considers heat and air luxuries. Maybe some schools somewhere are but it's certainly not the norm. I'm not sure where this belief is coming from but doesn't match any campus we toured or where our kids went.
On the one hand, I think that poster was exaggerating a little, citing "luxury hotels". OTOH, some of the newer dorms, or newly-refurbished dorms, are of a different design altogether, I can offer that much info. The new thing as of about 15 years ago, maybe more, is cluster arrangements: bedroom units (often single-occupancy) clustered around a common area, sometimes with a small kitchen. Almost like multi-bedroom apartments. Some universities have spent major money completely remodeling old dorms to this arrangement.
I've also read about old dorms in some of the more prestigious eastern schools, dorms that haven't ever been updated, that don't have A/C. So "air", if by that you meant A/C, was, indeed, considered a luxury back in somebody's day, long ago. I don't think that comes close to explaining the skyrocketing costs of education, though. some schools have spent money on all manner of frills, but many have stuck with the old gyms and swimming pools of generations past, so that doesn't explain it, either. I do think that runaway executive pay is a factor, though.
On the one hand, I think that poster was exaggerating a little, citing "luxury hotels". OTOH, some of the newer dorms, or newly-refurbished dorms, are of a different design altogether, I can offer that much info. The new thing as of about 15 years ago, maybe more, is cluster arrangements: bedroom units (often single-occupancy) clustered around a common area, sometimes with a small kitchen. Almost like multi-bedroom apartments. Some universities have spent major money completely remodeling old dorms to this arrangement.
I've also read about old dorms in some of the more prestigious eastern schools, dorms that haven't ever been updated, that don't have A/C. So "air", if by that you meant A/C, was, indeed, considered a luxury back in somebody's day, long ago. I don't think that comes close to explaining the skyrocketing costs of education, though. some schools have spent money on all manner of frills, but many have stuck with the old gyms and swimming pools of generations past, so that doesn't explain it, either. I do think that runaway executive pay is a factor, though.
Agree. My daughter was an RA and explained to me that the new bathroom style for the modern dorms was designed to support unisex room assignment. Basically while there is a core of bathrooms, each bathroom is individual with a door, toilet, tub, sink. That gives them more flexibility in room assignment unlike the dorms she was assigned that used communal baths so had to be single sex by floor. The new arrangement is actually more cost efficient because they gain flexibility with fewer baths.
On the one hand, I think that poster was exaggerating a little, citing "luxury hotels". OTOH, some of the newer dorms, or newly-refurbished dorms, are of a different design altogether, I can offer that much info. The new thing as of about 15 years ago, maybe more, is cluster arrangements: bedroom units (often single-occupancy) clustered around a common area, sometimes with a small kitchen. Almost like multi-bedroom apartments. Some universities have spent major money completely remodeling old dorms to this arrangement.
I've also read about old dorms in some of the more prestigious eastern schools, dorms that haven't ever been updated, that don't have A/C. So "air", if by that you meant A/C, was, indeed, considered a luxury back in somebody's day, long ago. I don't think that comes close to explaining the skyrocketing costs of education, though. some schools have spent money on all manner of frills, but many have stuck with the old gyms and swimming pools of generations past, so that doesn't explain it, either. I do think that runaway executive pay is a factor, though.
Yeah I do too. Colleges today contains dozens of positions for administrative staff that didn't exist in the past. Many of these jobs pay $100,000 a year or more. I really question the need for all this as these positions tend to proliferate like weeds through a bureaucracy. Health insurance and pension costs for employees area also a big ticket item.
I can go down to alma mater and see half a dozen new buildings under construction. Many times, this is justified by claiming that a large part of this is paid for through donations and pledges. Yet, the operations cost of the new buildings would come out of general revenue. I used to get the alumni newsletter emailed to me. One day they were boasting about a $50 million dollar new building and under the "comments" section I asked why they didn't worry instead about the way tuition hikes were driving away good students. Lo and behold, about fifteen people came out of nowhere and praised my comments adding their own two cents. It was about that time they started holding board of regents meetings in private whenever tuition hikes were discussed. I wish I had something positive to say about my alma mater, but the whole business about sky high tuition hikes infuriates me.
I have no interest in sports, but university administrators say that alumni sports fans are what bring in the donations. Dorms need to be updated, in order to be competitive. The tiny 2- or 3-person cells of bygone eras are long out of date. The new dorms aren't "high tech"; they provide a bit more privacy than before, while also encouraging small-group interaction. In the same vein, hospitals are remodeling from 2-3 person rooms to single rooms.
Physical plant and building budgets are completely separate from instructional budgets, btw. The building budgets have a high percentage of funding from donations. Instructional budgets used to get most of their support from state government, with a smaller percentage coming from tuition. That has changed radically. and that's the part that's the main topic of the thread. When people complain about the heavy reliance on adjunct instructors and grad students in lieu of tenure-track professors, those developments are the result of state budget cuts to the universities.
Sports is a net gain for only a very few select universities. The rest lose money on sports - tons of money.
They do not need $200 million palaces for the kids to stay in. What do the kids mostly do after the first two years? they go off campus and live in 1980s apartments. The cheapest they can find. Somehow the universities charge kids $6K a year for a dorm (where an old apartment can be had for about $4K) and yet they still have to subsidize the dorms. Yet the construction of them is cheap and unsafe. The money is all spent on flash and glamour. (Most places).
Some universities have started contracting out dorms to companies that build them and the collect the rent form them for a number of years (usually 30). These are cheaply built lightweight truss wood structures (deathtraps in a fire). Any of my kids who stayed in newer dorms, I have told them stay ont he first or second floor and make certain you have a way to get through the window in seconds (that may mean a hammer on the windowsill). Like many houses these buildings are all about flash and not at all about quality. While this is tolerable for two story homes, in a four story dorm packed with kids it is crazy.
There is not defending the amounts Universities spend. It is insane and they have priced themselves out of reality. Yet they are cutting back ont heir most important resource - professors. Instead the buy flashy buildings and lots and lots of administration people. You can try all day to defend their insane expenditures. They are indefensible.
Actually donations pay only a portion of the costs for most buildings. A few universities have uber rich alumni who want a library, theater, or hospital wing named after them. Usually their donation coupled with others, pays for about half to two thirds the cost. However usually the donation does not cover maintenance, repair, upgrades, etc. Donations do not pay for dorms, layer upon lay upon layer of administration, landscaping, etc.
Adjuncts are not the result of state budget cuts, they are the result of huge bloated administrations, excessive spending on flashy buildings. Constantly tearing down perfectly good but boring structures to replace them with temporarily flashy "modern" facilities. This cannot be sustained plain and simple. Society is starting to catch on to the fact that a University education is no longer worthwhile financially for many to most students. Burdening our kids with tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt to pay for these facilities is jut plain crazy.
Already state universities are focusing on out of state students (who pay more) in order to help feed the bloated budgets. The solution is not for State governments to dump more moeny into Universities, the solution is for universities to become fiscally responsible. They better wake up or they will soon get a bucket of cold water.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
