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College is not the kind of service that you can make more of and lower the price. That's what Baumol's cost disease means - the supply-demand curve does not apply. If you do more of it, you just get higher costs.
The only way to lower the cost is to have fewer people go.
The issue is that COST PER STUDENT has been rising so rapidly, not that overall cost has been rising because more people are attending.
Reducing the number of students attending college would do nothing to reduce the COST PER STUDENT.
In fact, it would probably increase it since the fixed costs (administrators, infrastructure, etc) would be spread across fewer students.
Colleges know this so they try to get as many students as they can handle. To do this they spend even more money on infrastructure, athletics, advertising, scholarships which drives up costs even more.
Also, you can lower the cost of college by making more of it (within reason). It is less expensive to teach a class to 200 students than to 10.
In fact, it would probably increase it since the fixed costs (administrators, infrastructure, etc) would be spread across fewer students.
fewer students means they don't need admins/infrastructure/etc...
Look at the College of the Ozarks, they have a no tuition policy, instead their students work off their tuition by working on/around campus
Quote:
It is less expensive to teach a class to 200 students than to 10.
if you are talking about benefit to the student, this does not do as well either. Cost per student isn't really any lower because the student needs to spend more time/effort to learn something well when they only get 1/20 of the education because the professor can't work 1 on 1 with them as easily during class time. They can't move ahead if they learn a material because they have to wait for people to catch up. They can't learn something well because the class needs to stay on schedule so if they fall behind, they might not catch up
Nothing wrong w/ an art history degree. I could see that leading to a job in a museum or a teaching position. Besides, it's not about jobs, it's about improving your quality of life. We stopped educating people a long time ago in this country, all we do now is train them for jobs. So, what's wrong w/ that you might ask?
I'll tell you what is wrong w/ that. Everything. Training people for jobs in a narrow field that may come and go on a whim leaves people unemployable in other fields. Their education needs to be broader and deeper, not just job skill orientated. When people lose their jobs, that costs the country huge amounts of money in terms of lost earnings for social security and medicare, lost dollars being spent in the economy, strain on medical facilities when people get ill and have no insurance, and on and on.
The whole system needs to be overhauled from top to bottom in education. Eliminate tenure for one thing. Increase the salaries of teachers in primary schools (those are the important years in a person's development) and reduce the pay for college professors. Get rid of this hierarchy nonsense. There should just be teachers, period.
Next, make college free for everyone, assuming they pass the entrance tests and show a desire to learn. You pay for this in two ways. Cut out all the corruption and waste at the Pentagon. Reduce their budget to about 1/4 of what it is, and reduce the size of the military. Permanent war is taking us to the poor house, not only in money spent, but in ruined lives when a corrupt and callous system of government puts these broken people back into society. They need expensive medical care, often for life, and they draw money from the government to survive. This causes a huge strain on society. Focus on peace, not war, but maintain a military that is efficient and no bigger than the task at hand. The whole arms race is insane. When people are no longer sent into insane wars only to come back here insane, when people are given a chance to learn and improve their lives, they will contribute to a better society, not only monetarily, but spiritually, culturally, and mentally too. We will be a much better society for educating everyone that wants it.
W/o these changes, or changes similar to them, we will remain stuck at the same point we always get stuck at....doing the same things over and over and expecting different results. Mass insanity, in other words. Look at the world today, that's exactly what we have no matter where one lives. It hasn't worked, and it will never work. Never.
Nothing wrong w/ an art history degree. I could see that leading to a job in a museum or a teaching position. Besides, it's not about jobs, it's about improving your quality of life. We stopped educating people a long time ago in this country, all we do now is train them for jobs. So, what's wrong w/ that you might ask?
I'll tell you what is wrong w/ that. Everything. Training people for jobs in a narrow field that may come and go on a whim leaves people unemployable in other fields. Their education needs to be broader and deeper, not just job skill orientated. When people lose their jobs, that costs the country huge amounts of money in terms of lost earnings for social security and medicare, lost dollars being spent in the economy, strain on medical facilities when people get ill and have no insurance, and on and on.
The whole system needs to be overhauled from top to bottom in education. Eliminate tenure for one thing. Increase the salaries of teachers in primary schools (those are the important years in a person's development) and reduce the pay for college professors. Get rid of this hierarchy nonsense. There should just be teachers, period.
Next, make college free for everyone, assuming they pass the entrance tests and show a desire to learn. You pay for this in two ways. Cut out all the corruption and waste at the Pentagon. Reduce their budget to about 1/4 of what it is, and reduce the size of the military. Permanent war is taking us to the poor house, not only in money spent, but in ruined lives when a corrupt and callous system of government puts these broken people back into society. They need expensive medical care, often for life, and they draw money from the government to survive. This causes a huge strain on society. Focus on peace, not war, but maintain a military that is efficient and no bigger than the task at hand. The whole arms race is insane. When people are no longer sent into insane wars only to come back here insane, when people are given a chance to learn and improve their lives, they will contribute to a better society, not only monetarily, but spiritually, culturally, and mentally too. We will be a much better society for educating everyone that wants it.
W/o these changes, or changes similar to them, we will remain stuck at the same point we always get stuck at....doing the same things over and over and expecting different results. Mass insanity, in other words. Look at the world today, that's exactly what we have no matter where one lives. It hasn't worked, and it will never work. Never.
If the purpose is purely education why is college even needed? I can audit (for free) thousands of classes today, from machine learning to ancient greek mythology at places like Coursera or edx.org.
I often wonder why more people don't take advantage of this abundance of free knowledge.....perhaps because there isn't a degree at the end of it that they can show to employers.
Next, make college free for everyone, assuming they pass the entrance tests and show a desire to learn. You pay for this in two ways. Cut out all the corruption and waste at the Pentagon. Reduce their budget to about 1/4 of what it is, and reduce the size of the military. Permanent war is taking us to the poor house, not only in money spent, but in ruined lives when a corrupt and callous system of government puts these broken people back into society. They need expensive medical care, often for life, and they draw money from the government to survive. This causes a huge strain on society. Focus on peace, not war, but maintain a military that is efficient and no bigger than the task at hand. The whole arms race is insane. When people are no longer sent into insane wars only to come back here insane, when people are given a chance to learn and improve their lives, they will contribute to a better society, not only monetarily, but spiritually, culturally, and mentally too. We will be a much better society for educating everyone that wants it.
W/o these changes, or changes similar to them, we will remain stuck at the same point we always get stuck at....doing the same things over and over and expecting different results. Mass insanity, in other words. Look at the world today, that's exactly what we have no matter where one lives. It hasn't worked, and it will never work. Never.
There is no "free education" and you will not be able to fund it from your suggested categories. First of all, you cannot cut military costs anywhere near that level. The world is more complicated and with the threats around the world, it just isn't going to happen. Secondly, healthcare costs related to former military personnel is small compared to the rest of healthcare spending. End of life care represents about 30% of total expenditures, obesity related disease account for 21% and smoking related health causes are just below that. Total DoD spends for current and past service members probably between 6 and 8%, depending on how you do the math and factoring some duplication in the other statistics.
If the purpose is purely education why is college even needed? I can audit (for free) thousands of classes today, from machine learning to ancient greek mythology at places like Coursera or edx.org.
I often wonder why more people don't take advantage of this abundance of free knowledge.....perhaps because there isn't a degree at the end of it that they can show to employers.
A lot of universities will allow audits of courses for a small registration fee and written permission from the instructor. Ie: at University of Texas it's $20. A bachelor's degree is about 120 hours, around 30-40 classes, so I could audit a whole degree plan from University of Texas for $800, but I'd have no proof I did anything.
Most allow seniors 65 or over to audit for free. Even some private universities will do this. From what I can tell online, some universities are more audit friendly than others, it depends on their community outreach. I just looked up some of the colleges around me and some encourage it, others don't.
Any public university generally allows use of its research centers and libraries to the general public.
Technically what coursera, edx, etc... are doing is providing the online platform and some IT & online system support to universities who want to run a class on it. The universities are paying the regular salaries of the "course team" and coursera paid them some extra to create a course for them. Some of the professionals involved in creating them actually do that work pro bono or as service credit.
Even through Coursera if you want a verified certificate of course completion you have to pay something, I think it's like $50 or $100 now.
So clearly what we pay for is the *proof* of education, not actual education.
Last edited by redguard57; 08-04-2016 at 03:12 PM..
A lot of universities will allow audits of courses for a small registration fee and written permission from the instructor. Ie: at University of Texas it's $20. A bachelor's degree is about 120 hours, around 30-40 classes, so I could audit a whole degree plan from University of Texas for $800, but I'd have no proof I did anything.
Most allow seniors 65 or over to audit for free. Even some private universities will do this. From what I can tell online, some universities are more audit friendly than others, it depends on their community outreach. I just looked up some of the colleges around me and some encourage it, others don't.
Any public university generally allows use of its research centers and libraries to the general public.
Technically what coursera, edx, etc... are doing is providing the online platform and some IT & online system support to universities who want to run a class on it. The universities are paying the regular salaries of the "course team" and coursera paid them some extra to create a course for them. Some of the professionals involved in creating them actually do that work pro bono or as service credit.
Even through Coursera if you want a verified certificate of course completion you have to pay something, I think it's like $50 or $100 now.
So clearly what we pay for is the *proof* of education, not actual education.
Student loans represent over one trillion dollars more than the gross national product of some good sized countries! How they plan to launch this insanity is pure conjecture and a political carrot that will require tweeking . It's a tickling of the ear time as candidates in both parties roll out their dream packages some I believe are obsurd . My sister and brother in law struggled for 35-40 years to pay for their Masters degrees my sister having to retire early for health reasons as a social worker and her husband getting a counciling position at $12 hour . He now has an overwhelming blood clotting disorder and was forced to retire as well both on disability.
My sister and brother in law struggled for 35-40 years to pay for their Masters degrees
sounds like they were just bad at managing money in general, and has nothing to do with "debt" level... If not the master degrees, they would have some other form of debt in its place to pay down.
people assume that if they had no school debt, they would be fine at graduation but ignore the fact that they can still get into other forms of debt during the same time
The nature of the future economy & technology will probably require more years of education. Our K-12 system was built for the last century. Literally it originated in the 1890s.
Something that I think will happen in the future is that the community college system we already have will be subsumed into public education.
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