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Originally Posted by kwhitegocubs
For the first 100,000 people who do that, maybe. But all the "skilled trades" talk doesn't come close to filling the gap towards full employment, and once those skilled trades are full, the wages in those industries will quickly fall (since barriers to entry are lower than college).
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The full employment issue is a different issue entirely, and very important, and deserves its own thread as it would derail the current topic. At the same time, Women's Studies doesn't do anything about employment either.
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Originally Posted by kwhitegocubs
...I don't disagree that tuition goes up because we subsidize it without also controlling costs on the back-end.
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Good. We agree on something.
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Originally Posted by kwhitegocubs
... The solution IS obvious, but it's not to let the market price out all but a tiny handful of the middle and lower classes; the solution is to model our university systems on other wealthy nations that have rigid cost-controlled systems with similar enrollment, higher graduation rates, lower costs, and fewer debts.
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In the real world, governmental entities that attempt to implement "...rigid cost-controlled systems..." rapidly fall prey to influence that subverts these goals.
George Stigler won the Nobel Prize in Economics 22 years ago for showing, among other things, that governmental regulation is an "economic good," just like wheat & corn & guns & butter, in that they all respond to the laws of supply & demand. Moreover, Stigler showed that governmental regulation mostly is created FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE INDUSTRY being regulated.
(Short digression to illustrate this point: The classic example of regulation supposedly to benefit the nation at large but that was actually crafted to benefit the industry: the ban on cigarette advertising on television.
Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia . The common misperception is that the ban, enacted some 40+ years ago, was for the benefit of the public, as youngsters were particularly subject to influence of TV advertising and, well, cigarettes are bad for you. Wrong. What actually happened was that Big Tobacco realized that TV advertising is extremely expensive, and not particularly effective at growing the overall size of the pie of smokers. TV advertising is effective at shifting the slice of the pie. So Big Tobacco realized it was game-theoretic: each brand engaged in expensive advertising to maintain their slice-of-the-pie but it didn't collectively help the industry grow revenues. So, behind the scenes, Big Tobacco lobbied HARD to ban cigarette advertising on TV. Look at earnings of Big Tobacco before & after the TV advertising ban, and you'll see a big jump. Big Tobacco won. A similar fight is happening today regarding "Big Money" influencing political elections; you'll find behind the scenes in the corridors of Congress lobbyists from TV Networks, independent TV & radio stations, newspapers, rental car companies, cell-phone companies & technology companies walking the halls to prevent Congress from enacting some form of restriction that would hurt their bottom line.)
Digression off.
In a hypothetical world where Universities & Colleges in the USA are subject to strict cost controls, we can forecast what will happen, as we've seen this movie before. Governmental entities that regulate higher ed will require more and more data & reporting. They will implement unfunded mandates with which institutions of higher ed must comply. We'll see an expansion in the administrative ranks of universities - they will swell with bureaucrats & paper pushers who exist to feed information back to the government, but who don't actually contribute to the mission of educating students. The objective of strict cost control will be subverted.
In a hypothetical world where Universities & Colleges in the USA are subject to strict cost controls, we'll see countless set-asides for special interests who lobby for them, and politicians will only be too happy to comply, because lobbying means campaign contributions. Individual departments at universities will lobby congress to increase funding for their departments -- we'll see special carve-outs & set-asides for "diverse" groups such as bag-pipe music majors, because afterall, increasing the funding for such diverse groups somehow benefits everyone. The objective of strict cost control will be subverted.
In a hypothetical world where Universities & Colleges in the USA are subject to strict cost controls, we'll see countless efforts to regulate the content of instruction - a "common core" for higher ed analogous to what we see happening in public K-12 systems.
In a hypothetical world where Universities & Colleges in the USA are subject to strict cost controls, we'll see political groups lobbying the regulators for their point of view: history courses taught using "fair and balanced" material, "progressive" material, etc. Science courses regulated to include "creation science" or "climate change" in the curriculum.
In a hypothetical world where Universities & Colleges in the USA are subject to strict cost controls, we will see countless regulatory efforts to improve grades & graduation rates by tinkering with educational paradigms (think: Whole Language, New Math, etc).
In a hypothetical world where Universities & Colleges in the USA are subject to strict cost controls, we will see the proliferation of thickets and spiderwebs of new regulations that few can forecast (regulate the number of parking spaces allowed to students to encourage mass-transit? I bet bus-drivers' unions would lobby for this).
This subversion of the goal occurs because of the very nature of politicians: they "sell" laws in exchange for the currency of the realm: campaign contributions. Regulators "sell" regulations, because, well, that is their nature. If you see a surgeon, he will recommend surgery as the cure because that is what surgeons do. If you go to a car dealership & say to a salesman that your car isn't running well, he will recommend you purchase a new car because that is what they do. If instead you approach an auto mechanic & say your car isn't running well, he will recommend repairs. If you ask a bus driver, he will recommend you park your car & take the bus instead. etc etc etc.
I've seen this movie & know how it ends. It doesn't end well. The noble objective of constraining costs through government intervention is a road the ineluctably leads to increased costs and bureacracy that has nothing to do with actually educating students. Just see the current health care system in the USA (pre-Obamacare; it is far too early to tell what happens in a post-Obamacare world) as exhibit one.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kwhitegocubs
...But that system is diametrically opposed to your libertarian capitalist paradigm.
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Thank you for the compliment.
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