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His movies aren't as bad as you think. I was born while he was president and I found his movies to be fairly good.
Be thankful you weren't a student in California during those years.
Nothing like being declared an enemy of the people by the governor of your state.
(Unless it's watching an excellent university system be torn apart. Or perhaps watching students thisclose to their degree drop out of school because they could no longer afford the increases he imposed. And some of those men getting sent to Vietnam because they could no longer afford college with his fee increases and thus lost their student deferments.)
Yeah, Reagan made great movies. Students in the UC system LOVED to talk about them. )
Right. A good example are states that were heavily dependent on property tax revenue.
Then they raise sales taxes to make up the difference. That is what happened during the Great Depression - property values dropped so states began implementing sales taxes.
As you have posted this same thread in two different forums, I will give the same response in both of them:
The California state university system was free until the Reagan governorship. One of the top lines in Reagan's personal agenda was to abolish free higher education in California, and a $600 fee was imposed starting in 1971.
In Louisiana, as part of Huey Long's promise, university students in the 1950s paid only a $35 per semester fee to enroll at state colleges and universities.
All campuses of the City University of New York were free to students with a B average until the 1970s, I think. It could have been earlier.
Considering how little appreciation so many students have for education and the low effort they use in studying and on the contrary spend much time making trouble for the teachers, one would wonder whether any education should be free. I think there might be more learning going on if parents had to foot the entire bill for their children's education. That way we could demand that the unruly students be thrown out of class in order to let the other children learn. That used to happen before 1964 and the Kennedy era started.
Now we don't want to hurt anybody's feelings and nobody is getting a chance to learn IN the classroom. Many parents I know have decided to home school rather than have their children's time wasted in uncontrolled classrooms.
This is just pap. Regurgitated pap.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NCN
The first step to lower college costs should be to lower the salaries of the teaching staff. Last time I checked on it, college teachers were some of the highest paid people in America.
That is absolutely, unequivocally false. There are very few full professors around who make six figures. Most of the faculty are instructors or assistant professors. Also keep in mind that most of these people sacrificed their 20s making less than $20K a year as graduate assistants. On average they are paid much less than their equally educated counterparts in other industries.
"[Academic year] salaries for full-time faculty averaged $73,207. By rank, the average was $98,974 for professors, $69,911 for associate professors, $58,662 for assistant professors, $42,609 for instructors, and $48,289 for lecturers. Faculty in 4-year institutions earn higher salaries, on average, than do those in 2-year schools. In 2006–07, faculty salaries averaged $84,249 in private independent institutions, $71,362 in public institutions, and $66,118 in religiously affiliated private colleges and universities.[20]"
It can't be even if it is "free". It's as simple as that.
Should it be less expensive?
You bet!
And should the costs to the taxpayers be decreased?
Yes! Most people don't actually go to college, so why should they be paying taxes that others can? Why should a truck driver be subsidizing a MD? If tuition was affordable, tax money wouldn't be even needed.
How can it be less expensive?
There are a number of ways to decrease costs so it can be more affordable. The hard reality is that the federal government needs to get out of the college regulation and loan racket. Yes, its a racket and it is abused by both non and for profit schools. The compliance costs for colleges and universities (in order to be able to offer federal student loans), both public and private are enormous. Millions of dollars at most schools, there are very few studies showing those costs unfortunately. Most schools seem to have very little concern about this very serious problem. If the federal government doesn't get out of higher ed, all attempts to control costs will fail.
Only a handful of colleges have gotten off the federal student loan train, and they are much more able to control costs because they don't allow themselves to be regulated by the feds. Regulations only increase as time goes on, and schools will continue to pass on those costs. Also, another danger of schools taking tax money is the surrendering of their independence by allowing the government in. It will be harder to say no to future regulations that have nothing to do with tuition, if most of the money is funneled via tax dollars. Remember that the government has no money, its our money, so we should be making the choices, not some faceless bureaucrat at the DOE.
Since most take federal student loans, so few bother shopping price anymore. That has given schools the ability to increase tuition with little to no risk. Until people shop price like they do with almost everything else, tuition will increase. So increased awareness of cost has to be done by parents and students.
Most colleges and universities have been added administrators at a dizzying rate in the last decade or two. Even my alma mater, a small private college had added far too many in the last decade. The cost is high because most make six figure incomes. There is little value to the current students however as teaching staff has not increased in size or quality in decades.
Colleges would be able to reduce cost by not having the federal regulation compliance costs and also by dumping these unneeded administrators that have grown like barnacles. They didn't have these people before and the school functioned, and so they will again. The reality is that schools themselves have to be committed to controlling real costs, and so far they haven't. The attitude will have to change, or there will be plenty of schools closing their doors when the bubble bursts.
They also have embrace new technology for teaching (like online programs). The days of the cushy tenured professor are largely over. Most classes will be taught by non-tenured instructors. Well, that's already happening, but colleges will have to pass on the savings, which they don't now. On the subject of the low pay, well, that's the market, there are plenty of people who want to teach college level classes, so the pay is going to be low. Sorry, but that is the reality, until the supply decreases, the pay isn't going to increase. Maybe what needs to happen is professionals in most fields teach a class or two. It would be great for student to be taught by people with real world experience, something you don't get from someone who's profession is teaching. Building programs and other campus expenses will have to be funded by donors. But most schools have plenty of alumni and supporters, so yeah, they will be asked more.
Also colleges will have to be the organization, loaning money to students. They will have to raise the money to have money to loan. That means they need to be more picky about who they take on as students, as they really cannot have too many who cannot repay their loans. But if they can decrease costs, maybe tuition can be hundreds of dollars instead of thousands.
We also have to look at other good paths for people too. There are plenty of people who college is a bad idea, or its a bad idea to go as a traditional college age, they need to wait until they are older (like when they are 30, 40 or even 50). Trade schools, tech programs should be seen as equal as a college education (frankly, most plumbers out earn teachers). We need more choices because we are all different and have different needs. We also have to take on more responsibility as well.
That is absolutely, unequivocally false. There are very few full professors around who make six figures. Most of the faculty are instructors or assistant professors. Also keep in mind that most of these people sacrificed their 20s making less than $20K a year as graduate assistants. On average they are paid much less than their equally educated counterparts in other industries.
"[Academic year] salaries for full-time faculty averaged $73,207. By rank, the average was $98,974 for professors, $69,911 for associate professors, $58,662 for assistant professors, $42,609 for instructors, and $48,289 for lecturers. Faculty in 4-year institutions earn higher salaries, on average, than do those in 2-year schools. In 2006–07, faculty salaries averaged $84,249 in private independent institutions, $71,362 in public institutions, and $66,118 in religiously affiliated private colleges and universities.[20]"
People confuse researchers with teachers as some universities. Most of the people making over six figures are researchers with millions in grants and do very little teaching.
It can't be even if it is "free". It's as simple as that.
Should it be less expensive?
You bet!
And should the costs to the taxpayers be decreased?
Yes! Most people don't actually go to college, so why should they be paying taxes that others can? Why should a truck driver be subsidizing a MD? If tuition was affordable, tax money wouldn't be even needed.
How can it be less expensive?
There are a number of ways to decrease costs so it can be more affordable. The hard reality is that the federal government needs to get out of the college regulation and loan racket. Yes, its a racket and it is abused by both non and for profit schools. The compliance costs for colleges and universities (in order to be able to offer federal student loans), both public and private are enormous. Millions of dollars at most schools, there are very few studies showing those costs unfortunately. Most schools seem to have very little concern about this very serious problem. If the federal government doesn't get out of higher ed, all attempts to control costs will fail.
Only a handful of colleges have gotten off the federal student loan train, and they are much more able to control costs because they don't allow themselves to be regulated by the feds. Regulations only increase as time goes on, and schools will continue to pass on those costs. Also, another danger of schools taking tax money is the surrendering of their independence by allowing the government in. It will be harder to say no to future regulations that have nothing to do with tuition, if most of the money is funneled via tax dollars. Remember that the government has no money, its our money, so we should be making the choices, not some faceless bureaucrat at the DOE.
Since most take federal student loans, so few bother shopping price anymore. That has given schools the ability to increase tuition with little to no risk. Until people shop price like they do with almost everything else, tuition will increase. So increased awareness of cost has to be done by parents and students.
Most colleges and universities have been added administrators at a dizzying rate in the last decade or two. Even my alma mater, a small private college had added far too many in the last decade. The cost is high because most make six figure incomes. There is little value to the current students however as teaching staff has not increased in size or quality in decades.
Colleges would be able to reduce cost by not having the federal regulation compliance costs and also by dumping these unneeded administrators that have grown like barnacles. They didn't have these people before and the school functioned, and so they will again. The reality is that schools themselves have to be committed to controlling real costs, and so far they haven't. The attitude will have to change, or there will be plenty of schools closing their doors when the bubble bursts.
They also have embrace new technology for teaching (like online programs). The days of the cushy tenured professor are largely over. Most classes will be taught by non-tenured instructors. Well, that's already happening, but colleges will have to pass on the savings, which they don't now. On the subject of the low pay, well, that's the market, there are plenty of people who want to teach college level classes, so the pay is going to be low. Sorry, but that is the reality, until the supply decreases, the pay isn't going to increase. Maybe what needs to happen is professionals in most fields teach a class or two. It would be great for student to be taught by people with real world experience, something you don't get from someone who's profession is teaching. Building programs and other campus expenses will have to be funded by donors. But most schools have plenty of alumni and supporters, so yeah, they will be asked more.
Also colleges will have to be the organization, loaning money to students. They will have to raise the money to have money to loan. That means they need to be more picky about who they take on as students, as they really cannot have too many who cannot repay their loans. But if they can decrease costs, maybe tuition can be hundreds of dollars instead of thousands.
We also have to look at other good paths for people too. There are plenty of people who college is a bad idea, or its a bad idea to go as a traditional college age, they need to wait until they are older (like when they are 30, 40 or even 50). Trade schools, tech programs should be seen as equal as a college education (frankly, most plumbers out earn teachers). We need more choices because we are all different and have different needs. We also have to take on more responsibility as well.
There are not a ton of highly qualified professors/researchers out. Universities place a huge importance on where someone went to school. Top 50 schools aren't churning out a ton of PHD's.
You make some good points but what is left out is the HUGE demand for quality schools. There are school was are turning away the majority of students that apply. In a normal business prices would quadruple if that happened. Costs have risen a lot at many places but they could be much higher still with the huge demand.
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