The Cost of Higher Education

[What Would Jesus Do?]

Interesting article in the NY Times.

I've turned the data mentioned into a chart. These are the 1974 costs (annual costs in the case of college). First column shows the 1974 costs in 1974 dollars. The 2nd column is still the 1974 costs but in today's dollars. The 3rd column is the 2015 costs. The article did not give specific 2015 numbers for house or car.

................1974.....1974 adj...2015 actual
Family income...13,000....62,000....52,000
New house.......36,000...174,000
New car..........4,400....21,300
Private college..2,000....10,300....31,000
Public college.....510.....2,500.....9,000

So the message is that incomes have not kept pace with inflation, while higher education costs have skyrocketed.

I favor free public college education. But my problem is that I think today's prices are a ripoff. It's hard to argue that tax payers should pick up a bill that strikes me as grotesquely padded.

Whether we are talking about paying out of our own pocket or paying through taxes, I think we need to get a handle on these skyrocketing costs. Why are they so high? Are they justified? Obviously the private schools can charge what the traffic can bear, but that shouldn't be happening at public schools.

 

[What Would Jesus Do?]

Hmmm. I can't get the formatting to "stick" to make neat columns.

Well, that's an ugly work-around, but maybe easier to read.

 

[Metuo Accipiter]

Interesting article in the NY Times.

1974 1974 adj 2015 actual
Family income 13,000 62,000 52,000
New house 36,000 174,000
New car 4,400 21,300
Private college 2,000 10,300 31,000
Public college 510 2,500 9,000

.

Based on your info - here is the multiple increase of each rounded to the nearest whole number:

Family income 4X
New house 5X
New car 5X
Private college 15X
Public college 18X

(I'm going to assume some numbers are missing/misplaced)

 

[hawkifann]

I think one of the biggest things driving the higher ed inflation is the availability of cheap money in loans. I think we're starting to crack the shell, but there's been a standard of thinking over the past couple decades that college is essential and it's worthwhile and provides value no matter the cost. So universities can dial up the tuition and people will pay it because they feel they have no other choice and as we're really maxing out the number of kids who are going to college, universities are competing for students -- that means major expenditures on buildings, expansion, addition of programs, sports. etc. It's just become a self-feeding beast and it's terribly out of control.

I have two degrees and am a big proponent of education, but we're way over-doing the 4-year college thing. There are so many people out there who would be better off from a career perspective learning a trade or going to community college and who either can't afford or aren't interested in college as the classic learning experience. It's a mess and it's going to be really, really hard to unravel.

 

[22*43*51]

 

[Titanhawk2]

You're problem is wanting "free" education and expecting the cost to stay in line. Apparently economics is not a part of the "free" curriculum.

I apologize, I meant "free" as in the government will throw all the money at it that is needed to keep it "free", and in the economic sense of a price = zero

 

[naturalmwa]

You're problem is wanting "free" education and expecting the cost to stay in line. Apparently economics is not a part of the "free" curriculum.

Apparently that's a problem the current market also fails at doing.

 

[What Would Jesus Do?]

I think one of the biggest things driving the higher ed inflation is the availability of cheap money in loans.

I'm sure that's a factor. More dollars chasing the product is always a formula for inflation (if not the very definition of it).

But where does the money go?

Suppose we said to public colleges "we'll pay the inflation-adjusted $2000 per year per student but ONLY on the condition that you provide the standard education for that amount." In other words, schools can't just say "thanks for the free money" and then turn around and collect the difference from loan-burdened students or struggling parents.

Would today's schools be able to provide a quality university education for that? Or have they cranked up their costs and perks so much that they can't?

Again, where does that extra money go? How much of it would we say is "necessary" these days? For example, when I was in school back around that time period (a little before, actually), air conditioning was not common. And, yes, it could be miserable on hot days. I think most would agree that it's reasonable to bump the cost above the mere inflation-adjusted amount to cover air conditioning costs. What else?

 

[What Would Jesus Do?]

You're problem is wanting "free" education and expecting the cost to stay in line. Apparently economics is not a part of the "free" curriculum.

I apologize, I meant "free" as in the government will throw all the money at it that is needed to keep it "free", and in the economic sense of a price = zero

Quit being an ass. Try addressing the issue.

 

[hawkifann]

You're problem is wanting "free" education and expecting the cost to stay in line. Apparently economics is not a part of the "free" curriculum.

The other question we need to answer if we're interested in "free" education is whether we actually want college to become "High School, Part 2".

There was a time when a college degree was a differentiator because not everyone went to college, just like way back in the day, a high school diploma was a bit of a differentiator because a lot of kids had to drop out at 15-16 to go work on the farm or get a job and help the family out.

If college becomes "free", what's the cost? I'd argue that a free education that effectively becomes 2nd high school certainly isn't worth current costs. At that point, do master's degrees become the new bachelor's degree? I think we're already seeing a rise in grad school enrollment because of the watered-down value of the bachelor's degree combined with a sluggish job market.

Don't get me wrong, I'm pro-education for those who really want it (whether for career development or even as a basic knowledge for the sake of knowledge pursuit), but I think we've been perpetuating a system where young people who have very little income feel almost like they have no other viable option than to go take out a bunch of loans (or parents' feeling compelled to dip into retirement savings) to pay for something they're not sure they want either because they're not prepped or interested or because they just don't know what they want to do. Kids can always change their major, but a change of major can come with a $20k+ price tag by adding another year or two to the process.

 

[Joes Place]

This is precisely what I'd posted in the other thread. Salaries for faculty have pretty much tracked with inflation and other costs at 4x since ~1980. Tuition costs have rocketed up >3 times that, at around 14x.

So, if the people doing the teaching are not benefitting from the higher tuition costs, who is? Where is all that money going?

Buildings?

Every time I go back to the UI, they have another set of new buildings under construction. And it's not just the cost of building them, it's the maintenance, heating/cooling, cleaning, security, etc.

I have no problem with building new facilities when needed, but often it is far cheaper to upgrade existing buildings/facilities than to just keep building new ones. And as the money goes to the shiny new buildings, older ones generally fall further and further into disrepair - with fixes that get more costly the longer they are deferred. A 'new' building today is going to need the same upgrades in another couple decades or so....are the funds set aside for that work? Or are we just continuing to raise tuitions to cover those costs?

The problem with retrofitting 'old' buildings is you don't get to 'rename' them, and I think that universities often take 'donations' from people who want their name on a new building - that's great if it's 'free', but if there's no money in the donation for long term maintenance and servicing the building, I think universities need to start saying 'no thanks'.

 

[CarolinaHawkeye]

The availability of school loans is the biggest factor. It has enabled for profit schools to get actively involved. As for free education, I personally don't believe everyone belongs in college or needs a college degree. Perhaps we look at free education for entry level students. My personal opinion is that everyone should serve the country following high school but I'm not sure that will fly with most.

 

[hawkifann]

Suppose we said to public colleges "we'll pay the inflation-adjusted $2000 per year per student but ONLY on the condition that you provide the standard education for that amount." In other words, schools can't just say "thanks for the free money" and then turn around and collect the difference from loan-burdened students or struggling parents.

Would today's schools be able to provide a quality university education for that? Or have they cranked up their costs and perks so much that they can't?

I don't think it's going to be simple at all to unwind. What's a "standard education"? That absolutely sounds like "High School, Part 2". Costs do vary by location and program. STEM degrees are going to require more technology and materials and I would certainly expect that to cost more than a business degree or an English degree. Facilities and infrastructure will cost more in midtown Manhattan than in Manhattan, KS.....so how do we define "standard" and how do we move these costs to the taxpayer, since we all know that free does not equal free.

I'm also not sure what the higher ed margins are. They're mostly "non-profit", but are going to be mostly operating with at least a little more income than expense unless they're a truly failing school. Infrastructure investments already made have to be maintained, so that's not going to be easy.

If I were designing an educational system from scratch, I'd probably look at some level of public subsidization (probably locally) for community colleges and trade programs and I'd try to incentivize colleges and universities to partner with local businesses and government agencies to allow for tuition discounts in exchange for service time after to pay it back (programs like this already exist). If you want 4-year college and/or grad school, then people would have to pay. I don't think I'd make student loans as easy to get as they are independent of income and ability to pay.....but that's not an ideal solution either and comes with its own set of challenges for kids trying to get out of poverty.

Our system is a mess and there's not going to be an easy out. Grown-ups are going to have to sit down and actually work through real problems, not just shout platitudes and vague promises from the campaign trail while blaming the other team.

 

[Run&Blade]

The fasfa lets the school know how much you can get in loans.

Not sure that is a good thing.

I would like to know the ratio of students to administrators over the years. It would be the first place I would look for some pork.

 

[thewop]

Interesting article in the NY Times.

I've turned the data mentioned into a chart. These are the 1974 costs (annual costs in the case of college). First column shows the 1974 costs in 1974 dollars. The 2nd column is still the 1974 costs but in today's dollars. The 3rd column is the 2015 costs. The article did not give specific 2015 numbers for house or car.

................1974.....1974 adj...2015 actual
Family income...13,000....62,000....52,000
New house.......36,000...174,000
New car..........4,400....21,300
Private college..2,000....10,300....31,000
Public college.....510.....2,500.....9,000

So the message is that incomes have not kept pace with inflation, while higher education costs have skyrocketed.

I favor free public college education. But my problem is that I think today's prices are a ripoff. It's hard to argue that tax payers should pick up a bill that strikes me as grotesquely padded.

Whether we are talking about paying out of our own pocket or paying through taxes, I think we need to get a handle on these skyrocketing costs. Why are they so high? Are they justified? Obviously the private schools can charge what the traffic can bear, but that shouldn't be happening at public schools.

About 3.5 years ago, I spoke to a financial advisor about starting an education savings plan for our newborn son. He had a tool that took the cost of college as a trend over the past 15 years and projected it out 18 years from then. You could pick any school, so we selected a small private school that was more than a public university, less than a Harvard/Princeton to base projections on. When I graduated in 2002, the cost was around $21k/year all in, with books room and board. His projection estimated it at $102k/year in 2030. Ridiculous.

While after living in the UK and experiencing student dissatisfaction with their "free university" education (or heavily subsidized), I'm not sure I favor that here, but there is little doubt in my mind that the numbers are heavily "padded," as you put it.

It's unfortunate, because the traditional college experience is a great one for a young adult to have, yet it's increasingly becoming endangered, and reform is no doubt coming, whether it's market driven or forced by policy.

 

[hawkifann]

The fasfa lets the school know how much you can get in loans.

Not sure that is a good thing.

I would like to know the ratio of students to administrators over the years. It would be the first place I would look for some pork.

It's just not a real market. I think mortgage money comes a little too easily, but there the bank does have to take a bankruptcy risk. Here, the FAFSA provides all the information and the banks know that the loans are largely not bankruptable, so there's little risk in loaning the max. If the student doesn't pay, oh well, the government backing will kick in.

 

[theVoicefromtheTomb]

For the conservatives, here is a bone. The market determines the ultimate price of an education. If the cost has increased it's at least partially due to the fact that people do perceive a value in education and that the investment in education increases one's lifetime earnings and ultimately justifies the outlay. When people no longer perceive that college pays for itself than demand will fall and price will fall.

That said, the student loan program provides a subsidy that makes college more affordable for more people there by artificially driving up demand and ultimately price. In economics this is a distortion that moves us away from market equilibrium which is the most efficient (lowest cost) outcome. Reduce the availability of loans making college more costly and demand will fall. Of course, if the govt sees value in having a highly educated (skilled) work force than the subsidy provides some value back to society. It's simply not efficient from an economic perspective.

 

[What Would Jesus Do?]

...the traditional college experience is a great one for a young adult to have, yet it's increasingly becoming endangered, and reform is no doubt coming, whether it's market driven or forced by policy.

Good observations. And thanks in particular for that last comment. So many people today focus only on preparing kids for jobs and not preparing kids for life. As you say, the whole college experience is much more than merely job prep.

 

[theiacowtipper]

As many of you know, I work at a community college as a faculty member. These numbers came from our college president at the "state of the college" message at the beginning of the semester. In 2004, the percentage of revenue that came from students in the form of tuition was 17%. In 2015, the percentage of revenue that came from students was 67%. In that time frame, the government of the state of Iowa has made the conscious choice to shift the burden of attending school from taxpayers over to the student.

 

[ping72]

As many of you know, I work at a community college as a faculty member. These numbers came from our college president at the "state of the college" message at the beginning of the semester. In 2004, the percentage of revenue that came from students in the form of tuition was 17%. In 2015, the percentage of revenue that came from students was 67%. In that time frame, the government of the state of Iowa has made the conscious choice to shift the burden of attending school from taxpayers over to the student.

This, and it's happening all over. I've worked at 3 Universities in 3 different states, all ranked in top 40 nationally. It was the same story...most of them have held steady or decreased their expenditures the last several years since things got bad in 2008. The biggest change is the decrease in support from the state. One of them had faculty members actually debating the merits of trying to break from the state system and becoming private. Their funding was down to something like 7% from the state; yet there were a LOT of strings attached to that 7% and that's not even counting bad press from idiots who cry about every dime spent at a University claiming it's their tax dollars (when it's almost always private money).

 

[Hoosierhawkeye]

The other question we need to answer if we're interested in "free" education is whether we actually want college to become "High School, Part 2".

There was a time when a college degree was a differentiator because not everyone went to college, just like way back in the day, a high school diploma was a bit of a differentiator because a lot of kids had to drop out at 15-16 to go work on the farm or get a job and help the family out.

If college becomes "free", what's the cost? I'd argue that a free education that effectively becomes 2nd high school certainly isn't worth current costs. At that point, do master's degrees become the new bachelor's degree? I think we're already seeing a rise in grad school enrollment because of the watered-down value of the bachelor's degree combined with a sluggish job market.

Don't get me wrong, I'm pro-education for those who really want it (whether for career development or even as a basic knowledge for the sake of knowledge pursuit), but I think we've been perpetuating a system where young people who have very little income feel almost like they have no other viable option than to go take out a bunch of loans (or parents' feeling compelled to dip into retirement savings) to pay for something they're not sure they want either because they're not prepped or interested or because they just don't know what they want to do. Kids can always change their major, but a change of major can come with a $20k+ price tag by adding another year or two to the process.

A BS or BA isn't really a differentiator anymore. Too many people have one. Honestly because of this I actually think skilled trades will overtake the 4 year degree in terms of income.

I would suggest that if we want to provide free educations we provide them to everyone earning a certain GPA in high school and those lower then that can pay tuition if they want or they can get free tuition at a trade school.

I don't believe in telling someone "No you can't do this" but I do think we need to try to encourage more people to pick up the trades and this might be a way of doing that.

Because I think what ends up happening is when people graduate from high school they sort of split into 2 groups. One group is the group that wants to get an education in order to get some sort of skill to give them better professional options. Most go straight to college, some join the military to pay for college . . . but these people in the end go to college. The problem is that this group seems to almost all go to college now because in our culture and our schools we have hammered on this as being the great place where you will spend 4 years and then leave school and make a ton of money at a job you love. And then you leave school and many kind of find out that isn't exactly what happens because holy crap everyone has a college degree anymore.

The other group is a group that is sort of aimless or has options that most other kids don't have. Maybe Dad or Mom owns a business and they can go to work there and earn good money and eventually take it over. You can't do much with these kids.

But my thought it what if we changed the field a little bit to encourage more of the first group to choose trade schools. And we do it using $$ and these kids knowing that if their GPA isn't top 20% or whatever they can get a free trade school education and still earn a pretty good living.

The biggest problem that I see is that college has a certain prestige to it that trade school doesn't. We honestly live in a culture right now that will make a person who took out tens of thousands of dollars of students loans feel superior to a person who didn't pay a quarter of that money in tuition even though they ended up making about the same amount of money or in some cases the college graduate earning less money. It's honestly insane on the face of it, but there is a strong superiority complex we've created regarding college educations.

And I'm not immune to it. While I recognize that trade school guys can often earn more money for less tuition, I want my kids to all go to college. . . even though they will likely have to pay for most if not all of it themselves.

 

[HawkMD]

The problem with free education is that it is free. Many students will not take education seriously unless they have skin in the game. I also value higher education, but see too many abuses with making it free. Perhaps a better plan would be to make more campus or private sector jobs available so kids can work their way through, if needed.

 

[hawkifann]

I agree with a lot of your points, Hoosier. The "trade school" track is often looked down upon, even though these people often spend less on an education and make more money earlier in their lives. Even if there's a lower cap in some cases, there's overall value in not starting $50k+ in the red and making good money earlier. I'm also not one that wants to dictate to people, but I think we owe it to kids to give them a clear picture of all their options.

I changed majors in undergrad and then got out with a journalism degree. I used that degree and worked as a reporter for several years, but in the end, I decided I didn't love the work enough to justify the lifestyle. So, I sort of randomly found a job doing data management for a research group through a friend and that got me into IT and eventually security and I went back for a master's. I'm very happy where I am, but I do think I'd have had better direction in my early 20s if there were better career education programs available when I was 16-22. I had salary numbers and vague expectations, but I didn't really know what would go into training and then ultimately doing a lot of professions.....I also hadn't really figured out who I was yet. The more we pigeon-hole kids into the "college-prep" track early in school (and parents want their kids to be "smart" and "smart" kids get college prep), the more we're pushing kids to decide what they want to be at 17 rather than letting them explore the world of options and decide what's going to be the best long-term fit.

...and in all this thread, there's not yet been a mention of women who go into big debt so they can launch a career and "have it all" and then decide at 30 when they have kids that being a SAHM is the most important thing they can do and leave the work world for the noble job of raising kids. My wife has done that, leaving a career as a physician to stay home and raise our boys. Again, it's all individual choice and it's great to be educated, but college is getting so expensive now that it's much more difficult to get the degree and leave the work world later. I know women who now stay home and I know many others who feel trapped in their careers because of school loans.

 

[Metuo Accipiter]

As many of you know, I work at a community college as a faculty member. These numbers came from our college president at the "state of the college" message at the beginning of the semester. In 2004, the percentage of revenue that came from students in the form of tuition was 17%. In 2015, the percentage of revenue that came from students was 67%. In that time frame, the government of the state of Iowa has made the conscious choice to shift the burden of attending school from taxpayers over to the student.

I'm struggling to believe those numbers - from 17% to 67% in a little over a decade? Can you actually show something to back this up?

 

[naturalmwa]

As many of you know, I work at a community college as a faculty member. These numbers came from our college president at the "state of the college" message at the beginning of the semester. In 2004, the percentage of revenue that came from students in the form of tuition was 17%. In 2015, the percentage of revenue that came from students was 67%. In that time frame, the government of the state of Iowa has made the conscious choice to shift the burden of attending school from taxpayers over to the student.

People think redistribution of wealth is all food stamps for welfare queens. The reality is this sort of education program was the type of redistribution that made us successful. It's also the sort most posters here received even if they are unaware of just how much government help they got. We need to get back to investing in citizens.

 

[Titus Andronicus]

My own ideas:

-The schools accepting these students and arranging the loans should not be allowed to transfer the risk of non-payment to the government. Many have deep pockets through endowments and should carry the paper themselves. Others could sell them in the open market without any sort of government backing. I personally would have no problem with the government seeking recourse against those institutions that have dumped all of their bad paper on the government. They knew they were making poor underwriting decisions and should be held accountable. If we bankrupt a few institutions in the process, that would be fine. We have far too many colleges and universities as it is.

-Arguing that college is not for everyone is a non-starter in my view. This assumes that someone out there has the ability (and the right) to determine just who should and who should not go to college. If a student wants a traditional liberal arts education, there should be an avenue open to that student; perhaps not an Oxford-style education with private tutors, but something that would expose him/her to the same material.

-Online learning should be vastly cheaper than it currently is, and certainly cheaper than what the for-profit schools are currently charging. This entire arena should be invaded by the brick-and-mortar schools so that large numbers of students could be taught more efficiently and more cheaply ... at least in basic sorts of courses where you are simply presenting background in preparation for higher level courses.

-Accreditation is a swamp, so do away with it, or at least deemphasize it. People will soon come to know which schools offer value and which do not. Value is in the eye of the beholder anyway, so do away with this ability to pre-select where others will seek their learning. ... (Let the market decide!)

-There is no reason why a person could not be resident in a college town or nearby and construct their own personalized curriculum incorporating courses from schools all over the world. Their college advisors could assist, but my guess is that the free-market would create and suggest all sorts of packages ... and keep the pricing competitive.

-Let the job market determine who is educated and to what degree.

.....................

Incidentally, I have taken a dozen or so MOOCs over the past several years and have never paid over $25 for any of them. Most were around $10 and a handful were actually free. These are simply compact (10-20 hours of instruction) non-accredited on line courses offered by companies such as Udemy, Coursera, Udacity, and others. You take the course, you get whatever benefit you want from it, and either live with the results or go find a better offering. You figure out for yourself if you benefited. Some of the courses have had 30-40,000 students from all over the world. It is all out there; Coding, applications, history, languages, science, and on and on. The range goes from Yoga to Particle Physics. About half of the instructors are real professors teaching their regular subject material online and the others are simply entrepreneurs.

I think that by eliminating a huge portion of the existing brick-and-mortar infrastructure and tying in what is left with serious online learning, we could vastly reduce the cost of higher education. Impose some underwriting discipline into the loan process, and the student loan issues will self-correct.

...................

 

[What Would Jesus Do?]

As many of you know, I work at a community college as a faculty member. These numbers came from our college president at the "state of the college" message at the beginning of the semester. In 2004, the percentage of revenue that came from students in the form of tuition was 17%. In 2015, the percentage of revenue that came from students was 67%. In that time frame, the government of the state of Iowa has made the conscious choice to shift the burden of attending school from taxpayers over to the student.

Wow!

 

[What Would Jesus Do?]

My own ideas:

-Arguing that college is not for everyone is a non-starter in my view. This assumes that someone out there has the ability (and the right) to determine just who should and who should not go to college. If a student wants a traditional liberal arts education, there should be an avenue open to that student; perhaps not an Oxford-style education with private tutors, but something that would expose him/her to the same material.

Agree strongly on the point I excerpted. Disagree on accreditation - too much lag time for markets to correct, even assuming markets are up to the task. The rest of your ideas have merit and are worth discussing or doing.

 

[KennyPowers_96]

People think redistribution of wealth is all food stamps for welfare queens. The reality is this sort of education program was the type of redistribution that made us successful. It's also the sort most posters here received even if they are unaware of just how much government help they got. We need to get back to investing in citizens.

I agree with you, but massive student debt makes for better wage slaves.

 

[ping72]

The problem with free education is that it is free. Many students will not take education seriously unless they have skin in the game. I also value higher education, but see too many abuses with making it free. Perhaps a better plan would be to make more campus or private sector jobs available so kids can work their way through, if needed.

The other problem with making it free is that it becomes a "right" for anyone to get a degree. If everyone can/should get a degree you have just devalued it by 1)flooding the marketplace, and 2) dumbing down the requirements so everyone can achieve them.

Not too many decades ago you had to get a high school diploma for a good job. Then they dumbed down high school so everyone could get a degree b/c that's what you needed to get a good job. But then everyone had one so they didn't mean much. So then everyone had to get a college degree. Now college degrees are much easier to obtain and they are beginning to flood the marketplace (there are exceptions like very technical degrees from great institutions). It's already starting that you need a Master's Degree to stand out...soon it'll be even more.

Eventually, all we are doing is delaying people entering the workforce.

 

[Hoosierhawkeye]

I agree with a lot of your points, Hoosier. The "trade school" track is often looked down upon, even though these people often spend less on an education and make more money earlier in their lives. Even if there's a lower cap in some cases, there's overall value in not starting $50k+ in the red and making good money earlier. I'm also not one that wants to dictate to people, but I think we owe it to kids to give them a clear picture of all their options.

I changed majors in undergrad and then got out with a journalism degree. I used that degree and worked as a reporter for several years, but in the end, I decided I didn't love the work enough to justify the lifestyle. So, I sort of randomly found a job doing data management for a research group through a friend and that got me into IT and eventually security and I went back for a master's. I'm very happy where I am, but I do think I'd have had better direction in my early 20s if there were better career education programs available when I was 16-22. I had salary numbers and vague expectations, but I didn't really know what would go into training and then ultimately doing a lot of professions.....I also hadn't really figured out who I was yet. The more we pigeon-hole kids into the "college-prep" track early in school (and parents want their kids to be "smart" and "smart" kids get college prep), the more we're pushing kids to decide what they want to be at 17 rather than letting them explore the world of options and decide what's going to be the best long-term fit.

...and in all this thread, there's not yet been a mention of women who go into big debt so they can launch a career and "have it all" and then decide at 30 when they have kids that being a SAHM is the most important thing they can do and leave the work world for the noble job of raising kids. My wife has done that, leaving a career as a physician to stay home and raise our boys. Again, it's all individual choice and it's great to be educated, but college is getting so expensive now that it's much more difficult to get the degree and leave the work world later. I know women who now stay home and I know many others who feel trapped in their careers because of school loans.

Women or men who go into college debt and become stay at home parents don't bother me all that much because I'm looking at things from the employment prospective and education prospective.

What I mean is you have an oversupply of college degrees and not enough jobs that require them to fill them. Meanwhile the trades are under supplied because everyone's told to get a college degree. So it's an issue of pushing people towards the right training for well paying jobs without over supplying one area. College can teach you lots of things, but they don't teach you to fix air conditioners for example. . . and if my air conditioner is broke and it's 90 degrees out I need someone who knows how to do that stuff.

As far as I'm concerned stay at home parents open up work for others who need the work more and this increases wages overall. So I worry very little about them. In fact quite frankly I wish more people in more well off families would do that sort of thing. Decreasing the size of the workforce increases wages.

Also it might not seem efficient on their end but there is problems with looking at it like that.

One is that you can't always plan for these things. I've known of some women who decided to forgo education and things of that nature because their plan was to be a stay at home mom. Seems efficient but what if they don't find Mr. Right? Seems to happen a lot to the people who have that stay at home parent thing in mind as a career track.

And I think part of that is that in today's world, people don't want to marry a dependent. How many people are interested in someone who has no plan other then stay at home parent. I really doubt I would have married my wife if her only plan was to marry some guy to take care of me and impregnate me while I stay at home with our kids.

 

[theiacowtipper]

I'm struggling to believe those numbers - from 17% to 67% in a little over a decade? Can you actually show something to back this up?

The president of our college stood in front of the room and gave us that data. Sorry, that's the best I have.

 

[cigaretteman]

As many of you know, I work at a community college as a faculty member. These numbers came from our college president at the "state of the college" message at the beginning of the semester. In 2004, the percentage of revenue that came from students in the form of tuition was 17%. In 2015, the percentage of revenue that came from students was 67%. In that time frame, the government of the state of Iowa has made the conscious choice to shift the burden of attending school from taxpayers over to the student.

Yep. That's the overriding problem driving soaring tuition in Iowa's public universities, and the public universities in the majority of the other states as well.

 

[theiacowtipper]

Yep. That's the overriding problem driving soaring tuition in Iowa's public universities, and the public universities in the majority of the states as well.

I will add one more point, but I will have to approximate the numbers. The state of Iowa has also made the choice to value four year colleges and universities over community colleges. A community college gets ABOUT a thousand dollars less in general fund dollars from the state of Iowa than a state university receives. Private universities get less than the state universities, but again more than the community colleges. This is in spite of the fact that a student who completes an associate degree at a community college and transfers is more likely to graduate from a four year college than one who enrolls directly as a freshman.

 

[cigaretteman]

I will add one more point, but I will have to approximate the numbers. The state of Iowa has also made the choice to value four year colleges and universities over community colleges. A community college gets ABOUT a thousand dollars less in general fund dollars from the state of Iowa than a state university receives. Private universities get less than the state universities, but again more than the community colleges. This is in spite of the fact that a student who completes an associate degree at a community college and transfers is more likely to graduate from a four year college than one who enrolls directly as a freshman.

What general fund dollars are private universities getting from the State of Iowa, and why?

 

[aflachawk]

I think one of the biggest things driving the higher ed inflation is the availability of cheap money in loans. I think we're starting to crack the shell, but there's been a standard of thinking over the past couple decades that college is essential and it's worthwhile and provides value no matter the cost. So universities can dial up the tuition and people will pay it because they feel they have no other choice and as we're really maxing out the number of kids who are going to college, universities are competing for students -- that means major expenditures on buildings, expansion, addition of programs, sports. etc. It's just become a self-feeding beast and it's terribly out of control.

I have two degrees and am a big proponent of education, but we're way over-doing the 4-year college thing. There are so many people out there who would be better off from a career perspective learning a trade or going to community college and who either can't afford or aren't interested in college as the classic learning experience. It's a mess and it's going to be really, really hard to unravel.

Winner, winner chicken dinner. Free college will blow costs even more.

 

[What Would Jesus Do?]

I will add one more point, but I will have to approximate the numbers. The state of Iowa has also made the choice to value four year colleges and universities over community colleges. A community college gets ABOUT a thousand dollars less in general fund dollars from the state of Iowa than a state university receives. Private universities get less than the state universities, but again more than the community colleges. This is in spite of the fact that a student who completes an associate degree at a community college and transfers is more likely to graduate from a four year college than one who enrolls directly as a freshman.

Interesting. I suppose there might be differences in equipping labs and such for higher level coursework. Or is it that more profs at 4-year schools are doing research and not teaching, while most at CCs are teaching - and being paid less - thereby reducing costs at CCs. Just guessing.

Why are private universities getting anything?

 

[Capital1Hawk]

Free healthcare free college free free free. Everything free is at someone's expense. Do you think sucking off the government tit is going to keep people motivated?

 

[WhiteSoxClone]

Two of the biggest issues are the facility arms race and the increase in administrators. There is almost always a large crane operating somewhere on the University of Iowa campus. Competition between universities to get the best students so that they can improve their rankings has meant that they are constantly striving to one up each other with facilities that attract students. Additionally, I heard on NPR a few months ago when this topic was discussed that the faculty to administrator ratio has like halved or even worse since the 1970s.

Sorry, I don't have time to read all of the response right now, so if this is a repeat of something that's been discussed, I apologize.

 

[Joes Place]

Two of the biggest issues are the facility arms race and the increase in administrators. There is almost always a large crane operating somewhere on the University of Iowa campus. Competition between universities to get the best students so that they can improve their rankings has meant that they are constantly striving to one up each other with facilities that attract students. Additionally, I heard on NPR a few months ago when this topic was discussed that the faculty to administrator ratio has like halved or even worse since the 1970s.

Sorry, I don't have time to read all of the response right now, so if this is a repeat of something that's been discussed, I apologize.

Exactly. How many adminstrative functions are duplicitous and could be either automated, or consolidated? When I was at UI, some of the larger departments within the hospital/teaching complex were overly bureaucratic - that's ONE DEPARTMENT. Plus, they had some admin/secretary staffers who were utterly worthless, but they couldn't terminate because of all the rules/regs involved. I'd bet they could EASILY eliminate 10% of the administrative staff and just use sound management techniques and automation/apps to handle those 'functions' and end up being MORE efficient.

They can probably eliminate even MORE of the 'upper level' administrative functions, as many of those posts end up being figureheads with very limited value. This is why putting a president in place who has some sound business background makes pretty good sense to me.....will he assemble a team of 'process/efficiency' experts to look over many of the administrative functions and look for ways to streamline things? If we have a significant fraction of the UI budget going to paying those salaries, it'd sure be a place to start...