On Thursday, March 4th, thousands of people protested proposed educational budget cuts (HBD related photo in link). The dissidents expressed anger concerning increased college tuition at the UC campuses, overcrowded classes, and the purging of entire departments. Here's a rundown of the problem.
Most student loans are given out by the federal government through such initiatives as the Perkins and Stafford Loans. In total, the federal government provides about 100 billion dollars in federal loans per year, while also insuring private companies like Sallie Mae. The government now has trouble appropriating funds to support current students because, as Sailer shows here, a lot of people default. And why does this happen? It occurs because educational romanticism considers higher education an inherent right and not the exclusive domain of the intellectually privileged. Of course, there's also the quotidian grousing concerning racial and class disparities in educational attainment.
College has become the new high school, with Obama and Arne Duncan promulgating the idea that everyone is fit for higher education. This is reflected in the doubling of college students since 1970, despite the American population only increasing by half and that increase deriving primarily from Hispanic immigration and fecundity. But there are practical consequences to enrolling such a large number of students: the government will fund many individuals who lack the cognitive ability to make use of their degree. I break the "bad investments" down into three groups:
Dropouts: The college dropout rate has seen a marked increase corresponding to the undermining of higher education exclusivity. From a 20% rate in the 1960's, the current rate is about 50%. A college loan is given with the presumption that the individual attains a degree, obtains a stable middle-class income following graduation, and responsibly maintains a payment schedule. As so many fail to achieve this assumed trajectory, the government essentially throws money away funding their education.
Graduate, but Can't/Won't find Work: As the college degree has continually lost its market value, there exists a surplus of potential middle class individuals with little merit besides the vapidity of their credentials. Unable to find middle class work befitting someone of their rarefied status, many of them return home unemployed, eager to obtain a reprieve on their loans. Most will scoff at the notion of working in a non-cerebral environment given their educational background and will persist in unemployment until the "proper" job appears. Of course, the government foots this bill while our SWPL class "finds themselves" in their childhood bedroom.
Get jobs, but Not Value Creating: To co-opt a term from HalfSigma, I'll deem some jobs as "value stagnating". These are the history, sociology, and Women's studies majors who find work that constitutes a perpetual motion machine buttressed by government largesse. These individuals graduate with a history degree, meander around suburbia until they're inclined to pursue teaching, then they inspire young minds to eventually...teach history. Not only is the payback a drawn-out process due to their meager salary, but they engage in essentially no value creation.
So where do these budget cuts come from? A limit on funds and the romantic notion that every child deserves the pursuit of higher education.
34 comments:
A lot of students do not seem to get it, that there simply is no more money to fund them. They are quickly approaching that wall called reality...as is American society as a whole.
I wonder how much money would be saved if colleges got rid of worthless degree programs like women's studies and black studies and stopped paying big bucks to bring in liberal diversity speakers. Of course, if they abolished crap like that, these "students" would be protesting even harder.
From WSJ...Ananya Roy, a professor of urban studies, compared the planned 32% tuition increase over a two-year period with racial discrimination. "We have all become students of color now," she declared.
Great. What is that supposed to mean??? I'm happy to hear that increasing tuition is somehow related to racial discrimination. I'm not surprised it was an "urban studies" fraud who made the pitiful attempt to link these two issues together. Of course she just wants to keep her cushy ivory tower job where she does absolutely no value creation.
Government HAS to cut funds, because the investment in students at large isn't generating a sufficient return to cover costs. Many students in non-STEM fields do not need to be in college, if not for the credentialing that Charles Murray describes very well in "Real Education". Be they poor Latinos or well-off SWPLs, a History degree should very rarely be subsidized.
Thankfully, in East Asia, we don't have this kind of deluded mentality regarding the liberal arts. Chinese, Japanese, and Korean folks know the value lays in STEM fields and this is what they mainly pursue. Family pressure guides children towards a STEM path (and so do natural HBD related strengths) SWPL parents simply tell their children "to go find themselves", and this rarely ends up with the kid in value creation fields. Asian parents in the US are perplexed when they socialize with SWPL parents.
In East Asian societies, liberal arts degrees are looked down upon and STEM degrees glorified. In America? It's the other way around. And that doesn't bode well for the US.
I would propose drastically cutting back on liberal arts programs along with tuition increases in these programs. If you want to pursue a degree in History, you have to pay for it. History majors should be limited to those with enough cognitive ability to make it as a Ph.D and those whose parents can subsidize them. Limited full funding could be provided to high ability students.
Make tuition for students pursuing STEM disciplines FREE, as an incentive.
Pretending that a degree in sociology is equal to a degree in Chemical Engineering is pure nonsense. But only in the US can we laud the NAM who took 6yrs to earn her degree in urban studies and scorn the Asian male who graduated with honors in Chem.E. Some college degrees are more equal than others.
Is government funding of education a good idea? To some extent, "Those who pay you, own you." History suggests that as the number of ships in a navy shrinks, the number of admirals in the navy grows. Doesn't it seem that as government-financed education grows, the % of worthless degrees and the % of educrats also grow?
The Asian of Reason.
Please forgive my ignorance, but what the hell is "urban studies" I have never heard of this subject and do not have a clue what it is. Oh, I think I might have figured out what STEM means. Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathmatics. No?
Thank you. JFA
In India, at the 10th grade exam, there is a 3 way streaming
the top 20% go into science, engineering and medicine, the next 20% go into accounting and law
The remaining stupids go into arts
The federal government does have two grants which go towards students who might be worth educating: the Academic Competitiveness Grant, given to students who take a "rigorous secondary school program". One of the possible "rigorous programs" seems to match my public high school's graduation requirements, however.
The SMART grant is given to students with a 3.0+ GPA studying STEM & "critical foreign languages".
Only students eligible for Pell Grants are eligible for these grants, however.
Think about all the wasted educational resources spent on people tracked into STEM by standardized testing who become service workers. I've met more than a few of these types from Europe and Asia teaching foreign language classes in American colleges.
I agree with you that far too many people are going to college, but I believe the cognitive elite in our society should have the option of receiving well rounded higher education. For most people, the role of higher education is job training. But the high IQ intellectuals, the elites, need to have cultural knowledge in order to be effective leaders. Could you imagine a society where everyone was just educated for a specific widget making job?
History, art, literature . . . this is our cultural heritage and if it is forgotten then our society will break down. You cannot underestimate the value of cultural capital. Employers certainly don't. Despite your stereotype of liberal arts majors living in their Mom's basement, I have found this to untrue. Really, I don't know where you get this a lot of this stuff from OneSTDV. It seems like a lot of your blog posts are just cranky rants about liberal tropes that don't have a lot of connection to reality. Perhaps you are someone who could benefit from an education that stresses rigorous investigation and critical thinking.
http://www.mnprivatecolleges.org/publications/stories/2010/02/employers.php
"History, art, literature . . . this is our cultural heritage and if it is forgotten then our society will break down. "
Do you have any evidence or argument to support your claim?
Actually you seem to be making 2 separate claims:
(1) Without widespread knowledge of history, literature, etc., our society will break down; and
(2) College education is necessary to preserve this knowledge among high IQ types.
Do you have any evidence or argument to support these claims?
Okay, I am hopelessly numbers oriented.
Last year about 1.5 million students took the SAT.
711k male, 818k females
213k males and 147k females scored above 600 on math.
So about 360k students who took the SAT are actually qualified to enter college.
In order to qualify for gov't aid students should have to meet some minimum standard like 600 on SAT math, because students who score lower than that are so unlikely to ever make a return on the investment that they are actually victimized by the debt. Now if mom and dad want to pay, fine. But taxpayers should not be funding higher ed for those of such modest intellect.
There needs to be better vocational testing for high school students so that they get into appropriate vocational training programs so they are ready to work when they graduate. College prep. work in high school drives the drop out rate. The students know they are ignorant and they want to learn, but the high school curriculum is not what they need. They need job skills apprenticeships etc. SAT data clearly show that the number of students qualified for higher ed is quite limited.
One big problem with cutting state college budgets is that these colleges simply turn around and raise tuition. They would never dream of implementing salary cuts or other cost cutting measures to bring down their operating costs.
This, in turn, means students end up borrowing more to pay for college.
Eventually, this borrowing will reach a "death spiral" in which too many students will have borrowed too much, and thus not be able to even make the interest payments on their loans. Then a student loan bailout will no doubt be cried for by the public.
What needs to happen is a cutting of Fed/State government loans and grants to college students.
This would bring down the cost of college (by putting real downward pressure on the price a college can charge for tuition) and simultaneously decrease the number of college students (making college degrees more valuable).
If someone wants to go to college, then let them work/save for it like anything else.
"Think about all the wasted educational resources spent on people tracked into STEM by standardized testing who become service workers."
Reminds me of my doctor, lawyer, engineer friends who got married, quit working and are home with their kids. Their parents were so proud of their smart daughters' accomplishments. However those careers were their parent's dreams and the dreams of social engineers not the dreams of the women themselves.
[I rarely respond with such an acerbic, antagonistic tone, but this comment really irked me.]
"but I believe the cognitive elite in our society should have the option of receiving well rounded higher education."
Sometimes why do I even bother replying. Think about this for a second: does your statement above contradict my idea that the government shouldn't be giving out SO MANY loans?
Think about it really hard. No really hard.
If you can't figure it out, here's the answer: the government should give out less loans, but that doesn't mean every single loan is in engineering or computer science. So the government can fund non-STEM college students, but let's make sure they'll use the degree and make a positive impact in their chosen field.
And of course we need historians, journalists, etc, though as silly girl notes: college isn't a necessary condition to pursue these fields, i.e. Derb has an undergrad in math.
"Despite your stereotype of liberal arts majors living in their Mom's basement, I have found this to untrue. Really, I don't know where you get this a lot of this stuff from OneSTDV. It seems like a lot of your blog posts are just cranky rants about liberal tropes that don't have a lot of connection to reality. Perhaps you are someone who could benefit from an education that stresses rigorous investigation and critical thinking."
Your smugness is hilarious. I love people who come here and pontificate on things they know nothing about, then suggest I'm the ignorant one. Perhaps, you could have engaged in a 10 second Google search before condeming my post.
Suck on this:
http://www.collegegrad.com/press/2009_college_graduates_moving_back_home_in_larger_numbers.shtml
Among 2009 U.S. college graduates, 80 percent moved back home with their parents after graduation
Oh and look my reasoning ("ranting") is spot-on!:
"According to the CollegeGrad.com poll, nearly 70 percent of recent grads did not have jobs lined up when they graduated. The job market is certainly competitive, but Ogunwole believes there's an additional dynamic getting in the way of some graduates' employment: unreasonable expectations.
""Many recent graduates are turning down good job offers, holding out for better jobs and salaries in the belief that a college degree entitles them to more than entry level," says Ogunwole. "In today's job market, that's just not realistic.""
That was just too easy. Go away before you embarrass yourself further.
(1) Without widespread knowledge of history, literature, etc., our society will break down; and
(2) College education is necessary to preserve this knowledge among high IQ types.
Do you have any evidence or argument to support these claims?
Oh Christ Sabril, do you want me to write a dissertation on a blog post? This is obvious stuff here.
Most people don't need, desire, nor are they capable of obtaining a well rounded education that is obtained with a BA. The ones that do are actually highly valued on the job market. (See my link above)
Charles Murray, the guy you people seem to worship in the HBD-sphere, makes the exact points I made above in his book Real Education. Maybe you should read an actual book instead of blog posts. It will give you a more in-depth, nuanced understanding of what you are talking about.
College is just an expensive four year job interview for most people at this point. It's a very inefficient way of guaranteeing businesses a reliable flow of docile and interchangeable employees. It also allows middle-class parents to spend four more years pretending that their son or daughter is special before they become just another corporate drone.
Win/win.
"Oh Christ Sabril, do you want me to write a dissertation on a blog post?"
I want you to summarize the evidence and arguments supporting your claims. A dissertation is not necessary.
The tone of your post suggests you've got nothing to back up your claim.
"Charles Murray, the guy you people seem to worship in the HBD-sphere, makes the exact points I made above in his book Real Education. Maybe you should read an actual book instead of blog posts. It will give you a more in-depth, nuanced understanding of what you are talking about."
Maybe I should and maybe I shouldn't, but it's not my responsibility to go combing through the literature looking for evidence to support your claim.
Sorry, but I'm not your research associate. Please either bank up your claim or admit you cannot do so.
In other words, put up or shut up. Although somehow I expect you will do neither.
Quit with the invectives or I'm banning you AGAIN.
"(1) Without widespread knowledge of history, literature, etc., our society will break down; and"
A rather grandiose statement, but I probably agree. Of course, you provide no evidence.
"Charles Murray, the guy you people seem to worship in the HBD-sphere, makes the exact points I made above in his book Real Education."
Not really, he explicitly disagrees with your second point (which sabril summarized below).
"(2) College education is necessary to preserve this knowledge among high IQ types."
"Most people don't need, desire, nor are they capable of obtaining a well rounded education that is obtained with a BA. The ones that do are actually highly valued on the job market. (See my link above)
"
Charles Murray doesn't really agree with this either. He agrees with the first part, but he laments the second part. He understands, as all of us do as well, that a college degree is necessary fr an actual job, but as I've posted on extensively previously, it's really just a credential for positions outside STEM. (see my series on Education). Murray makes the point in Real Education that a college degree has little real world value besides getting an interview. Thats why he's such an ardent supporter of vo-tech.
Seriously: Do you enjoy being an asshole troll? Don't you have something better to do with your life? I understand maybe it's fun once and awhile, but you've been trolling here for months. Go to TheRoot, I'm sure they have articles that are more to your liking.
A better idea is for the government to temporarily take over the accrediting board and accredit several online colleges of sufficient quality. Or the government could open up its own online college where you could get a degree in any field very cheaply, and quickly, providing you were able to do the work and passed the appropriate tests.
Isn't this action being taken by the colleges themselves rather than being forced upon them by the US government? Alumni donations have dropped, endowment portfolios have shrunk while costs have continued to rise and obligations made in earlier fat years cannot be met.
Without the time to read up on it, my impression is that the cuts are a response to the unsustainable education bubble that has been building in the US since the boomers left in late 60s/70s. After that large cohort passed through, colleges became seen as a universal franchise to enact social justice leading to problems other outline here.
In addition, colleges grew to be the worst kind of self-perpetuating bueracracy, one infused with extreme ideology that brooks no compromise with oppressive thinking like fiscal limits. Thus, even the smallest college has entire diversity departments staffed to seek out, expose and destroy repressive white patriarchy like the near genocide happening at UCSD now.
Compare the organizational fat of colleges in terms of %spending for professor salaries from 1960-2010.
The third big issue is that colleges think they need remake themselves into a elite resort with every modern convience like an $80m state-of-the-art atheletic facility to attract the best students and climb up the rankings.
"The third big issue is that colleges think they need remake themselves into a elite resort with every modern convience like an $80m state-of-the-art atheletic facility to attract the best students and climb up the rankings."
What's ironic is that most state schools don't provide really any extra incentives besides Honors classes to the best students. Take Penn State, they'll offer very small scholarships (especially to in-state students) and enrollment in SOME Honors courses (not all of one's courses will be Honors) to potential students.
No wonder so many of the best students pick schools like Yale instead of ones like Penn State. If state schools really wanted the VERY BEST students, they would start giving them real perks: free laptops, exclusive buildings and dorms (like ones with air conditioning and singles), exclusive social events, special meal plans, etc.
I'm shocked no "Public Ivy" has thought to do this.
^
State schools don't want the very best STUDENTS.
They want the very best football and basketball players.
No wonder so many of the best students pick schools like Yale instead of ones like Penn State. If state schools really wanted the VERY BEST students, they would start giving them real perks: free laptops, exclusive buildings and dorms (like ones with air conditioning and singles), exclusive social events, special meal plans, etc.
I'm not sure of other public universities, but UT Austin had a program ~15yrs for their Texas state academic scholars who attended including the pick of housing, courses, and the like.
Bottom Line Question from a taxpayer to protesting faculty, staff, and students: What do you do for me? Why should I pay you?
History majors should be limited to those with enough cognitive ability to make it as a Ph.D and those whose parents can subsidize them.
No. Plenty of people are smart enough to get a PhD and have folks who will pay for it, and this number is far less than the number of history professor jobs available. The number of history PhDs granted should be limited to the number of professorships that will be available - that is about a 10x reduction in current PhD production.
I believe the cognitive elite in our society should have the option of receiving well rounded higher education.
Sure, if they pay for it. There is NO reason the taxpayers should foot the bill for this.
You cannot underestimate the value of cultural capital. Employers certainly don't.
LOL! Cultural capital and $2 will get you a cup of coffee.
"You cannot underestimate the value of cultural capital. Employers certainly don't."
Uh, let's think about that.
I can't underestimate it?
So, no matter how low I value it, it won't be too low?
Okay, well then I will put a low value on it and hire foreigners for less money.
before you diss sociology, remember the jobs of the people who wrote "The Bell Curve"
Not all of us are worthless. Only the ones that cant understand math are.
Simple.
Replace debt financing of education with equity financing.
-Gopher
"Simple.
Replace debt financing of education with equity financing.
-Gopher"
Yup...the alternative is to do a nationwide testing board for all college grads...
There is a human problem here...that confounds free market solutions....that is parents and children will both wildly overestimate their own abilites and future income...hence the ability of colleges to extract equity (say they negotiate for a % of the students income for the next 30 years) OR debt is enhanced.
There will always be a systemic information asymetery.
The colleges will know what a student is likely to make...while the students unrealistic EX will be encouraged by the college.
"Not all of us are worthless. Only the ones that cant understand math are."
That would apply to most fields, not just sociology.
Asian of Reason, Ananya Roy is Desi. Nobody makes less sense than a Desi "liberal". In fact, "Desi liberal" is an oxymoron. Any Desi who claims to be liberal or left-wing or PC is FAKING IT to try and fit in or something.
The solution is to make HIGH SCHOOL more relevant and start teaching kids trades and skills that they can market by the end of their senior year.
The health care and retirement industry has hundreds of thousands of jobs. High School kids should begin training for those in their freshman year.
The super smart kids can go on to University. Everyone else can work in Health Care and take care of old people.
What's the big deal?
Gopher: "Simple. Replace debt financing of education with equity financing."
DK: "parents and children will both wildly overestimate their own abilities and future income...hence the ability of colleges to extract equity (say they negotiate for a % of the student's income for the next 30 years) OR debt is enhanced. There will always be a systemic information asymmetry."
DK, you may be right about IA, but it'd still be awesome if colleges negotiated for a % of a student's income over the next 30 years: students would still graduate debt-free, with the only problem being that they left some cash on the table. And colleges would soon learn which students and which departments pay off: e.g., Yale would soon learn that its Angry Studies Dept was a big loser and its Bio dept was a cash cow.
But I am not so pessimistic about the market. If 18-year olds could sell Bowie Bonds in themselves, posting a short prospectus on eBay++ with grades, test scores, intended majors, and recommendations, I bet that investors would quickly learn to price them pretty well, especially if they bought portfolios (e.g. "0.5% of Stanford's entire class of 2015"). Parent/student over-optimism never even enters into it.
Or better yet, 22-year-olds entering grad school, where a lot of the uncertainty has already been squeezed out.
You'd kill two birds with one stone: eliminate student debt and starve Bad Academic Fields.
(Plus you'd finally give Steve a way to put real money on his HBD insights.)
-Gopher
"But I am not so pessimistic about the market. If 18-year olds could sell Bowie Bonds in themselves,"
You'll run into the same problem all over again. Colleges would take as much as they could (which is a ton) and STILL probably require loans.
That's the problem with current student loans. Colleges will raise their price to whatever the student is capable of paying. And since most FINAID is individually tailored there is no national market where prices could be brought down.
The way to do it IMO is to somehow
make the colleges, who are the agents with the most objective information, bid on the students future income.
Come to think of it.... if colleges are competing auction style... IA doesn't really matter does it? It only applies if negotiated individually.
Heh. I'm reminded of some wag's description of top colleges as A multi-billion-dollar tax-free hedge fund and premium dating service -- that happens to grant degrees.
That's an interesting point, that the schools themselves would either jack up their prices to equilibrium, or buy so heavily into the market that they'd crowd out private investors.
Let's think that through: a typical Ivy has ~5-10K undergrads and charges ~$40-50K tuition. That's ~$200-500M/yr total tuition revenue. Ivies have ~$2-25B to invest. I suppose they could float the tuition, but it'd be a hardship for most Ivies to tie up ~$0.8-2B in capital for four years.
Looking at it another way: Call it $200K/student for tuition. For that investment to return 5% over a grad's 40-year career, you'd need to get $11,656/yr on average. Now, some grads could pay that, but the majority even of Ivy grads could not stomach that level of payment, year after year.
Bottom line, viewed in two ways, I can't see that Ivies would want to take on the entire burden of equity-financing their students' educations. Maybe a portion, but not all of it. That leaves some room for private investors to step in.
-Gopher
Of course, the tastiest benefit of equity financing for education -- that it would starve leftist-dominated, capitalist-hating academic fields -- remains, regardless of whether schools pay or private investors pay.
Right now, Angry Studies is arguably a profit center for schools. If schools had any skin in the game, and if their incentives were aligned with those of society at large and how society values those fields, they would quickly see that Angry Studies is a losing investment, and buy less.
-Gopher
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