Student loan forgiveness and free college are bad ideas.

[Pterodactyl]

Before getting off-track on the USSR, I just want to say that I think both sides have made some good points in this debate and I don't know where I stand.

 

[ahhell]

Before getting off-track on the USSR, I just want to say that I think both sides have made some good points in this debate and I don't know where I stand.

If you aren't with me your agin me!

 

[theprestige]

The USSR was in fact enormously successful in education. Particularly given it began as a very agrarian and feudal society, was very poor, and Was decimated by the revolution, purges, and WW2. Yet it turned out among the very best trained scientist and engineers in the world. And basically with a free education too.

Cuba also is an example of a country successfully providing a strong education cheaply to a poor population that had little access previously.

Deep flaws and evils? Absolutely! But in many ways their commitment to and success with free education questions why the US can’t do better.

I think the deep flaws and evils go hand in hand with the educational "successes". The USSR produced lots of elite scientists by taking away choice along the way. Citizens who showed aptitude were channeled into institutions that could fully exploit that aptitude. Citizens who did not were channeled elsewhere.

So yes, the US could probably produce more elite scientists. If it established mandatory trade school for everyone, and citizens with sufficient aptitude (and party loyalty) were sent to mandatory STEM programs and indentured to the collective once they graduated. At which point most of their scientific output would directed in one way or another to perpetuating the system of deep flaws and evils that enabled their educational outcomes.

 

[Giordano]

I think the deep flaws and evils go hand in hand with the educational "successes". The USSR produced lots of elite scientists by taking away choice along the way. Citizens who showed aptitude were channeled into institutions that could fully exploit that aptitude. Citizens who did not were channeled elsewhere.

So yes, the US could probably produce more elite scientists. If it established mandatory trade school for everyone, and citizens with sufficient aptitude (and party loyalty) were sent to mandatory STEM programs and indentured to the collective once they graduated. At which point most of their scientific output would directed in one way or another to perpetuating the system of deep flaws and evils that enabled their educational outcomes.

No doubt the USSR emphasized STEM programs and strongly encouraged individuals with appropriate potential to pursue their education and training in these areas. But they did not "take away choice along the way." Once identified these individuals did not have to pursue these disciplines, but certainly they could see that doing so had many rewards in turns of becoming eligible for more prestigious and higher paying jobs than if they turned down the opportunities. They had the choice to turn down these offers. It was not as if they would be arrested or punished by doing so. Instead they were channeled to other higher educational programs in which they had more interest (if also judged capable), including literature, music, language etc. Typically these programs made them eligible for teaching at the equivalent of K-12; perfectly reasonable and important jobs, although lower paying than many STEM careers (just like the USA). But strong success in many of these areas could buy students even in many of these humanities enormous prestige )): excellent dancers, musicians, etc. were among the elite.

Interestingly I think the majority of the posters in this thread have favored the idea that government-support of education in the USA (and other Western countries) should emphasize disciplines such as STEM that are closely tied to subsequent vocational success and that "pay-back" to the needs of the country. Apparently it's not just the evil communists who feel this way. Ironically I've been one of the voices against this and advocating liberal arts as an important part of the education for everyone. I strongly feel that in addition to its other benefits, a knowledge of the liberal arts improves one's "sense of smell" so one can better detect the odorous wrongs in society and in government. I was, in fact, composing a post in which I argue that learning only technical skills can allow one to unknowingly become a gear in a machine supporting corporate or governmental evil. Glad you agree with me!

Italics added in edit.

 

[Meadmaker]

My opinion is that people who study sociology or political science are more likely to cause the smell than to sense it.

 

[Giordano]

My opinion is that people who study sociology or political science are more likely to cause the smell than to sense it.

I'll give that a because I believe you are alluding to certain aspects of the study and discussions in these disciplines that are, um, quirky from a hard science perspective.

But I sincerely believe that a broad knowledge of history (histories because any one view of history is often at least slightly tainted by propaganda and prejudice), what is going on in other countries, what people different from me are like, how they live, and what they think, what ideas about morality, society, and one's responsibility to others, about different economic systems, about vast ideas of what it is to be human, etc., are what guarantee the freedom and the common good. People need to know these things to recognize what is right and what is wrong around them and about their government and the other powerful influences in the society. And yes the judgement of right and wrong is an individual decision but one that should be made based on deep and broad information and on practice in skilled thinking. One may be a strong supporter of hard capitalism, but that should be based on also knowing about communism and other economic systems.

 

[Meadmaker]

Agreed on all counts. I may opine later on how free college would likely make the bad parts of the problem worse. However, it's a busy week coming up. There's a robot that has to be ready Thursday.

 

[ahhell]

I'll give that a because I believe you are alluding to certain aspects of the study and discussions in these disciplines that are, um, quirky from a hard science perspective.

But I sincerely believe that a broad knowledge of history (histories because any one view of history is often at least slightly tainted by propaganda and prejudice), what is going on in other countries, what people different from me are like, how they live, and what they think, what ideas about morality, society, and one's responsibility to others, about different economic systems, about vast ideas of what it is to be human, etc., are what guarantee the freedom and the common good. People need to know these things to recognize what is right and what is wrong around them and about their government and the other powerful influences in the society. And yes the judgement of right and wrong is an individual decision but one that should be made based on deep and broad information and on practice in skilled thinking. One may be a strong supporter of hard capitalism, but that should be based on also knowing about communism and other economic systems.

As a rule, I tend to agree, I am not all that convinced that universities in the US are actually accomplishing that goal.

 

[Giordano]

Agreed on all counts. I may opine later on how free college would likely make the bad parts of the problem worse. However, it's a busy week coming up. There's a robot that has to be ready Thursday.

There is a Russian bot loose in another thread. Are you missing one?

 

[Giordano]

As a rule, I tend to agree, I am not all that convinced that universities in the US are actually accomplishing that goal.

That's a different question, isn't it?

IMHO some programs/majors/colleges are, some are not.

Don't ask me about high schools or I'll start ranting.

 

[ajelehtija]

I think the deep flaws and evils go hand in hand with the educational "successes". The USSR produced lots of elite scientists by taking away choice along the way. Citizens who showed aptitude were channeled into institutions that could fully exploit that aptitude. Citizens who did not were channeled elsewhere.

From what I've gathered STEM education in the USSR was also criticised at the time as being the most narrow education possible to produce vast quantities of engineers who no doubt were qualified but with little education beyond their field with hints that this perhaps influenced the way later Soviet leaders (who were often educated in this manner, like Khrushchev and Breznev) saw society and humanity.

But in any case with regards to the topic, the more higher education is rationed on the basis of ability rather than wealth or nepotism, the better I'd say even if the latter will always help with the former.

 

[Roboramma]

Of considerable interest to the topic of this thread is this book:

Why Are The Prices So Damn High

That's a link to the PDF, which is free.

Here's a blog post by one of the authors: https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/05/the-baumol-effect.html

To give the plot away, they explain rising costs in education (and healthcare, as well as all service industries) with the Baumol Effect. The case seems quite compelling to me.

Because I didn't really explain this much, I'd like to expand on it. I think it has a lot to say about the topic of discussion.

Rising costs in education are one of the reasons that the OP is concerned with student loan debt. It's becoming harder to pay off student loans in part because they are becoming so much larger. The OP expresses some concern that part of these rising costs are due to students being more interested in fancy schools with nice facilities than with the quality of education.

Instead Tabarock makes a strong, data driven, argument that the costs of education have risen steadily not because of administrative bloat or fancy facilities, but because other parts of the economy have become more productive. As the price of manufactured goods dropped, their price relative to services is much lower, which means the prices of services relative to manufactured goods is higher. This mechanism leads to all service goods rising in price.

An example is cars. The price of a new car today is much less than it was in the 1970s. But car repair has risen by the same factor that the price of cars has dropped.

The authors thus make the point that while the cost of education has increased, it isn't less affordable.

I'm no expert and only just learning about the Baumol Effect, so my description is simply here to hopefully interest others in at least reading the blog post I liked to, which is readable and explains the issue much better than I am.

If their case is valid (and it seems pretty strong to me), then at least some of the assumptions upon which the OP is based are not. What this has to say about debt forgiveness or free college I haven't worked out yet, but the reasons for the high cost of education are certainly important to the issue.

 

[Meadmaker]

Because I didn't really explain this much, I'd like to expand on it. I think it has a lot to say about the topic of discussion.

Rising costs in education are one of the reasons that the OP is concerned with student loan debt. It's becoming harder to pay off student loans in part because they are becoming so much larger. The OP expresses some concern that part of these rising costs are due to students being more interested in fancy schools with nice facilities than with the quality of education.

Instead Tabarock makes a strong, data driven, argument that the costs of education have risen steadily not because of administrative bloat or fancy facilities, but because other parts of the economy have become more productive. As the price of manufactured goods dropped, their price relative to services is much lower, which means the prices of services relative to manufactured goods is higher. This mechanism leads to all service goods rising in price.

An example is cars. The price of a new car today is much less than it was in the 1970s. But car repair has risen by the same factor that the price of cars has dropped.

The authors thus make the point that while the cost of education has increased, it isn't less affordable.

I'm no expert and only just learning about the Baumol Effect, so my description is simply here to hopefully interest others in at least reading the blog post I liked to, which is readable and explains the issue much better than I am.

If their case is valid (and it seems pretty strong to me), then at least some of the assumptions upon which the OP is based are not. What this has to say about debt forgiveness or free college I haven't worked out yet, but the reasons for the high cost of education are certainly important to the issue.

I haven't had time to look at it, and I probably won't for the next few days, but the claim that administrative costs, facilities, and student services make up a large portion of the cost increases is also a data driven argument. It isn't just a bunch of people grousing and saying, "I think it's all those danged bureaucrats and counselors....." It's a bunch of people counting the number of bureaucrats and counselors, and noting that there are more of them per student than there once were.

 

[Roboramma]

I haven't had time to look at it, and I probably won't for the next few days, but the claim that administrative costs, facilities, and student services make up a large portion of the cost increases is also a data driven argument. It isn't just a bunch of people grousing and saying, "I think it's all those danged bureaucrats and counselors....." It's a bunch of people counting the number of bureaucrats and counselors, and noting that there are more of them per student than there once were.

Yes, that's right (a point which he makes sure to be clear on in the blog post I liked to - there's actually a series of posts and it's worthwhile reading them all if you have the time, though the main point is made in the first one).

He goes into a little more detail with respect to the same argument about health care costs and finds that while it's true that the number of administrators/doctor has increased, it's only by about 50% since 1970, so can't explain the several fold increase in price. He makes some arguments that these increased administration costs are actually to be expected.

I expect that administrative bloat is probably a part of the story and addressing that could bring education costs down. The question is, is it the main factor? And he makes a strong argument that it isn't, particularly if you look at data across many different industries. We wouldn't expect that administration costs would only be rising in service industries but not manufacturing, yet across the entire economy services are rising steadily in price while manufactured goods fall in price.

Anyway, I'm only saying this in hopes that you won't think it's a one dimensional position. The blog posts will express the ideas much better than I am likely to.


ETA: Some data from the book regarding administrative and amenities costs:

The bloat theory is questionable as a theory, but we need not theorize without data. The data also reject the bloat theory. Figure 8, for example, shows spending shares for public institutions of higher learning from 1980 to 2014. Contrary to the bloat theory, the administrative share of higher education spending has hovered around 16.0 percent (15.7 percent and 17.0 percent are the minimum and maximum) with no obvious increases over more than three decades. The research share has been only slightly more volatile, averaging 10 percent (9 percent minimum, 11 percent maximum).
The share of spending that supports operations and mainte- nance of plant and equipment, called plant share, has actually declined from 9 percent in 1980 to approximately 7 percent in 2014. Plant share is where we would expect to see the long-run cost of “climbing walls,” “lazy rivers,” and other “edifices.” Thus, the data on plant share provide no support for the bloat theory.

 

[Cain]

They don't. Why do you think college being free for everyone who wants to go translates to "everyone has to go to college"?

I missed this post, but I wasn't missing much.

The notion that everyone should go to college pre-dates this push for free college. Making college "free" is ABOUT increasing accessibility. I've been to public schools in the hood. Some change out room numbers for university titles: "You're in UC Irvine." Where's that? "Go past Occidential and UCLA; it should be on the left." Staff are encouraged to wear propaganda from their alma mater every Tuesday, and so on.

 

[eeyore1954]

MM, you presume there are affordable choices. But colleges that offer cheap courses often turn out to be scams or religious conversion factories - so more scams

The problem is precisely that students can't declare bankruptcy to rid themselves of excessive loans - if they could, universities would be much more cautious about who they accept and how much they charge.

Maybe it depends upon where you live but NY has affordable schools that aren’t scams. Excellent community colleges and state universities. Between low tuition and tax credits it is not that hard to get a 4 year degree with very little debt or debt free.

 

[Roboramma]

Potential alternative to student loans?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...90d0ee-0be3-11ea-97ac-a7ccc8dd1ebc_story.html

In an ISA, a student borrows nothing but rather has his or her education supported by an investor, in return for a contract to pay a specified percentage of income for a fixed number of years after graduation. Rates and time vary with the discipline of the degree achieved and the amount of tuition assistance the student obtained.
An ISA is dramatically more student-friendly than a loan. All the risk shifts from the student to the investing entity; if a career starts slowly, or not at all, the student’s obligation drops or goes to zero. Think of an ISA as equity instead of debt, or as working one’s way through college — after college.

Someone else upthread mentioned this, but seemed to view it in an unfavorable light. It seems like a good idea to me.

 

[Giordano]

Maybe it depends upon where you live but NY has affordable schools that aren’t scams. Excellent community colleges and state universities. Between low tuition and tax credits it is not that hard to get a 4 year degree with very little debt or debt free.

Tuition plus fees at New York State universities and colleges offering BA and BS degrees are currently about $8,800 a year for state residents, which are on the better side of the range for state 4-year universities. Tuition plus fees at New York State community colleges are ~$5,700 a year (plus ~$3,850 room and board). Books and ed supplies are estimated at an additional ~$1350, plus of course the indirect costs of transportation, room and board (if one has to live on campus), etc.

The bottom line is that these are pretty good deals in the current market place. But they can be prohibitive for low income families (especially given the loss of potential work income from the job seeker turned student). Or, per the OP, they can push people into getting student loans that bite back hard in 4 years. The median household income in New York State is ~$68,000 per year, so an additional $10,000 outgo a year is not trivial even for the typical family.

Notably New York State instituted an Excelsior scholarship program that pays tuition for eligible students (must have lived in NY for at least a year, enrolled in a minimum of 12 credits per semester, have total income under $125,000 a year). Free education for those not wealthy enough to afford it otherwise. I'm good with that. There are other types of tax credits, scholarships, etc for many of those not under the Excelsior program.

BTW. SUNY used to have the motto "Let each become all he is capable of being." Other than the gender restriction I very much believe that is the true goal of education.

 

[Giordano]

Potential alternative to student loans?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...90d0ee-0be3-11ea-97ac-a7ccc8dd1ebc_story.html


Someone else upthread mentioned this, but seemed to view it in an unfavorable light. It seems like a good idea to me.

I am not the person who posted the unfavorable opinion upthread but I too have mixed feelings about this. I see it as essentially a form of indentured servitude (with a wider choice of who to serve after graduation).

Another way to look at it is that is very much a loan, but one that is paid off by sweat equity. Or a loan whose rates of payment reflect one's income, which might sound good to some but I am certain the student can't decide to just remain unemployed after graduation and pay back nothing.

With the right cautions and regulations this strategy may indeed help people to get training in the majors that are most marketable as high paying careers (I presume the contracts are most available and have the best deals for these types of majors). The free market, right? Fine! But the free market can be abused, and in this case doesn't help as much those with less high paying career goals

Once again I wish to emphasize that higher education is, and should be, much more than vocational training. It makes for a better society if done right , or for just cogs in the wheels of an unjust society if done wrong. These contracts can help pay for higher education for some. But producing graduates who must serve the goals of "the state" as in some dictatorships, or a private enterprise, as here, is something that one must be very cautious about.

 

[Minoosh]

The plans being discussed only make state public universities tuition free.

This is a big problem, IMO. I don't see any reason not to broaden this to include trade schools. Maybe ideally you'd have 2-year community college degrees that also certify you in vocational fields. A 4-year college degree is not for everyone.

Every credit I got from community college counted for my bachelor's. (Tuition was $180 per semester!) It was nice to have, but my clerical skills were more relevant to getting a job which fortunately turned into a career. I had a writing degree and I got a writing job, but they really didn't have much to do with each other.

Later I got certified to teach, and the academic work had little to do with effective classroom practice. I did that through a private college that charged $5,000 per semester. I was steered hard toward financial aid but didn't end up needing it.