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The law of supply and demand is so simple that even a child can understand it. Maybe that's why our government doesn't. Maybe it would help if we lowered the age requirements to serve in Congress.
Why is College So Expensive?
Posted from prageru.com
Economics
Education
Posted 8 y ago
Responses: 5
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We are encouraging people to go to college that have no business going to college. IMV we would do our young folks a service by channeling kids towards either a vocational or college track as they transition from elementary or junior high school to high school. Earning a living as a plumber or carpenter with a high school education beats the hell out of scraping along as a McDonalds shift leader with a college degree in English ... or poetry ... or basket weaving and a boat load of college debt.
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CPT Jack Durish
When I arrived in California I asked where are the vocational schools? I was told they had been shut down because they were being used to discriminate against minorities, basically shuffling them into trade schools because they didn't have the smarts to go to college. Funny, but that sounded like discrimination to me.
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Let me give you some ideas why college cost has risen faster than most other goods and services:
-Student loans: the government has made it easy for people to acquire debt to pay for college. With more money chasing education services, the cost of those services can rise. Also, the consumers, namely students and their families, are less critical of the value they get for their education dollar. The seeming endless stream of loan money makes it easier for people to disassociate the cost from the quality of the education.
-Federal grants and aide: nearly every college and university gets Federal money for research projects. Grant writing is an entire industry. The schools use this Federal money to expand the university infrastructure and faculty. This gives the Feds control over what the schools research, teach, and buy.
-Loss of Public Accountability and Tenure: The customers (students and their parents) don't hold universities accountable for the quality of the service they provide. The faculty and administration invent low-tech programs of study and charge for them as if they guarantee a good paying job upon graduation. The programs teach students how to be victims, but not how to actually make a living. Closely related to this is tenure. Tenured professors are almost impossible to fire. Consequently no mater what kind of inaccurate liberal fairy tales they teach their students, the administration is stuck with them. So the administration hires more professors and graduate assistants to handle the work the tenured professors aren't doing. Increased labor costs.
-Belief in the Fiction that a college degree is necessary to get a job: this is becoming pervasive in many parts of society. It's a refusal to believe that many good jobs require skills that you don't learn in the average 4-year college. There's a real need for skilled tradesmen in many areas and descent middle-class incomes are available for those who apply themselves. This is part of the reason that many kids graduate from university and can't find a job. They were educated for jobs that don't exist or for career fields that are already saturated with well educated people. Auto mechanics, diesel mechanics, welders, plumbers and pipe fitters, HVAC technicians, and many other "dirty" jobs pay well and have openings in almost every town or city. Unfortunately the kid that would make an excellent Chef if he went to culinary school for two years, is now studying "gender education" at some 4-year school and loving his part time job in the school cafeteria.
-Student loans: the government has made it easy for people to acquire debt to pay for college. With more money chasing education services, the cost of those services can rise. Also, the consumers, namely students and their families, are less critical of the value they get for their education dollar. The seeming endless stream of loan money makes it easier for people to disassociate the cost from the quality of the education.
-Federal grants and aide: nearly every college and university gets Federal money for research projects. Grant writing is an entire industry. The schools use this Federal money to expand the university infrastructure and faculty. This gives the Feds control over what the schools research, teach, and buy.
-Loss of Public Accountability and Tenure: The customers (students and their parents) don't hold universities accountable for the quality of the service they provide. The faculty and administration invent low-tech programs of study and charge for them as if they guarantee a good paying job upon graduation. The programs teach students how to be victims, but not how to actually make a living. Closely related to this is tenure. Tenured professors are almost impossible to fire. Consequently no mater what kind of inaccurate liberal fairy tales they teach their students, the administration is stuck with them. So the administration hires more professors and graduate assistants to handle the work the tenured professors aren't doing. Increased labor costs.
-Belief in the Fiction that a college degree is necessary to get a job: this is becoming pervasive in many parts of society. It's a refusal to believe that many good jobs require skills that you don't learn in the average 4-year college. There's a real need for skilled tradesmen in many areas and descent middle-class incomes are available for those who apply themselves. This is part of the reason that many kids graduate from university and can't find a job. They were educated for jobs that don't exist or for career fields that are already saturated with well educated people. Auto mechanics, diesel mechanics, welders, plumbers and pipe fitters, HVAC technicians, and many other "dirty" jobs pay well and have openings in almost every town or city. Unfortunately the kid that would make an excellent Chef if he went to culinary school for two years, is now studying "gender education" at some 4-year school and loving his part time job in the school cafeteria.
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CDR Michael Goldschmidt
In many cases, they're also taught that "greed" is making a lot of money, and that doing so is bad, even if it provides goods and services people demand. Resultingly, students are not taught to innovate. Hell, how many of them believe that jobs come from government, not from people hiring to serve their own rational self-interests by fulfilling customers' needs?
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It seems to me that the nanny staters are more than willing to subsidize demand, but won't do a thing about supply.
When was last time a state opened a new land grant college/university? What would happen to tuition costs, if there were 50-100 new state universities each capable of graduating 2500-5000 students a year. That's 125,000-500,000 more college openings every year. That's a good way for the government to dabble in free market capitalism.
Want to reduce medical costs? Open a new medical college for every 10,000,000 in population a state has. That is another 32 medical colleges each capable of putting out another say 1000-2000 doctors, Physician's Assistants, Nurse Practitioners, Nurses and healthcare professionals into practice. Tuition won't be free, but it sure will come down. The supply of healthcare professionals will go up and the cost of medical care will come down.
Want to do away with income inequality and concerns that their aren't opportunities for economically disadvantaged minority youth who drop out because there is no "hope". Post graduate tuition pay back at the new universities if they stay in achieve acceptable academic performance through high school.
Other natural resources may eventually dry up, but population rarely does.
When was last time a state opened a new land grant college/university? What would happen to tuition costs, if there were 50-100 new state universities each capable of graduating 2500-5000 students a year. That's 125,000-500,000 more college openings every year. That's a good way for the government to dabble in free market capitalism.
Want to reduce medical costs? Open a new medical college for every 10,000,000 in population a state has. That is another 32 medical colleges each capable of putting out another say 1000-2000 doctors, Physician's Assistants, Nurse Practitioners, Nurses and healthcare professionals into practice. Tuition won't be free, but it sure will come down. The supply of healthcare professionals will go up and the cost of medical care will come down.
Want to do away with income inequality and concerns that their aren't opportunities for economically disadvantaged minority youth who drop out because there is no "hope". Post graduate tuition pay back at the new universities if they stay in achieve acceptable academic performance through high school.
Other natural resources may eventually dry up, but population rarely does.
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Maj John Bell
Sgt Gus Laskaris - Understood, my vet is actually a rehabilitated, (reformed?) obstetrician. She decided she had enough and went back to school to become a vet. She said she makes less (but not as much less as one would think), spends far more time practicing medicine and less time playing games. She says she also has a life now.
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CDR Michael Goldschmidt
Maj John Bell - In a word (well, two words)? Malpractice insurance. People expect doctors to be flawless and medical procedures to be 100% safe. Neither is. (Maybe I could boil this down to one word: lawyers.)
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Maj John Bell
CDR Michael Goldschmidt - Unfortunately, that single word (lawyer) explains so much of what is wrong in America today.
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CDR Michael Goldschmidt
Maj John Bell - Yup, wanted to be one, then matured enough to realize the colleagues I'd be dealing with daily. No thanks!
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