"'We have a more informed class of college consumers,' said Bonnie Snyder, founder of Kerrigan College Planning in Lancaster, Pa. 'Everyone today knows someone who went to college and ended up with a career that didn't justify the cost. They see college as a more risky investment.'"
Yep. More and more of us know more and more examples of college graduates who live in their parents' basements because they can't support themselves with their college diploma. It's time to be more discerning consumers of higher education.
Colleges try to confuse the issue of their value with imaginary list prices subject to discounts ("scholarships") that mislead about what a college is actually worth. Here's an interesting link about how colleges are advised to set their prices by consulting firms, a link I learned about from a Harvard-trained economist and policy analyst:
High prices plus liberal aid is a great racket. The combination lets a college look both extra valuable ("such high tuition!") and extra generous ("so much aid!"). All the while, they're actually engaging in profit-maximizing price-discrimination and government-subsidy-farming. More on how this may not be sustainable for higher education here:
Colleges try to confuse the issue of their value with imaginary list prices subject to discounts ("scholarships")
The lack of transparency in the discounting process is deplorable. I ended up trying law study via an online correspondence school - a terrible idea, with hindsight, due to the social isolation - because the B&M schools' scholarship policy seemed so arbitrary and opaque that I was unwilling to take the risk of becoming liable for $ix-figure up-front tuition costs if I didn't play my cards right. This hasn't done my continuing education/career prospects any good, but in mid-life I don't feel comfortable playing poker for >$100k of non-dischargeable student loan debt.
"More and more of us know more and more examples of college graduates who live in their parents' basements because they can't support themselves with their college diploma."
Source? Or just speculation? I for one, know many people living in basements, but not a single one of them has a college degree. Anecdotal evidence only goes so far.
"It's time to be more discerning consumers of higher education."
Higher education is as necessary today as it has always been, and will continue to be for the forseeable future. We need trained professionals to work on highly technical areas, or we can't progress. How else are we going to have mechanical, aerospace, electrical, chemical engineers and many other professions?
This doesn't mean that a college or university is for everyone though. It is left to each person to balance the very subjective pros and cons of deciding whether to go to college or not. Also no students are forced to attend highly expensive colleges, since most of the time there exists a high quality public institution available.
I'll balance your anecdote with my own: I too know several who are living at home that have degrees.
Yes, we'll always need STEM people, but I think you're forgetting that STEM is a pretty narrow part of what colleges do. Heck, I've got a buddy who has his degree in Theater. Theater! Why that is a degree option at a university, I have no idea. Not to mention art, comm (which every other person seems to major in), History, English, etc.. These are a little more representative of the "basement" ex-college goers.
For non-technical people, I kind of feel like college is a pretty poor investment. Going to a vocational school would probably pay off more in the end.
Wait, I'm confused. See, I am about to graduate with a degree in theater. After four years of working my ass off academically and professionally, I have made serious connections in my field. I have learned, in the classroom and co-curricular opportunities, industry best practices as well as "real world eventualities." I have received job offers that are 100% due to the fact that I went to the college that I did, based on that school's reputation, that other students of other colleges (or no college) will not get.
I think that this was a pretty damn good investment, and I certainly understand why it's a degree option. So that people can learn how to do it.
The idea that philosophy and classics don't belong at universities would have shocked nearly all of the great thinkers of Western history. Universities were supposed to be repositories of learning and civilization, not job trainee factories. That they have become the latter is a sign of decay.
As I said, I have opportunities specifically because of the college I attended. A degree has also given me a chance to try other disciplines in the industry than my primary, giving me a chance to learn and try doing scenic art, technical direction, dance shows, and more.
The benefits of a liberal arts education span through the actual degree department too.
_Theater! Why that is a degree option at a university_
Maybe because theater is a big business. Disney makes Broadway shows and Cirque du Soleil is a billion dollar business.
But that's beside the point. High quality university education is not trade school. If you have a liberal education you should be ready for a wide range of tasks.
Yikes! I didn't mean to insult all the theater people. However... I don't think you can really compare the overall job prospects of a STEM based major to those of a Theater major.
Yes, some people make a lot of money doing Broadway, but on the whole, I'd wager that the bulk of "actors" live on "getting by" wages. How many steady $60k+ gigs are out there for the taking?
All that said, I may be the victim of sample bias. Though I was never a thespian, my core group of friends growing up consisted mostly of theater people in high school, and then onto college, I still hung out with many thespians, and now, the bulk of them are.. waiters/"actors." There are a couple that are working near constantly, but for very little money; Maybe a couple of hundred dollars for two weeks of shows.
Then you're wasting tax dollars and a slot at a school that could be filled with a student who actually needs an education for the field they plan on entering.
The devaluation of the college degree is partly because of the gross amount of people who go to college for no reason other than to socialize and enjoy themselves.
It isn't some recent "devaluation" that the public universities are supposed to be about something other than purely vocational training. When Thomas Jefferson (successfully) advocated setting up the publicly funded University of Virginia, for example, his main aim was to produce a generally educated populace, which had sufficient grounding in all major areas of knowledge—philosophy, science, mathematics, political theory, etc.—to operate a democracy effectively.
Uh, that's one possibility. The other possibility is that they're studying something they're truly passionate about, and they aren't focused on how - exactly - the're going to make a living.
I know a number of folks who simply fed their curiosity, and still ended up in productive lives. Indeed, the original purpose of an undergraduate degree was to expand one's horizons. Graduate school was the time and place to focus on profession.
The folks you know wouldn't happen to be over 35 or independently wealthy, would they? Tuitions have gone up tremendously in recent years, and following your bliss like it was 1998 would be a disaster now if you didn't have a good job lined up at the end, or at least a trust fund.
Why are you so dismissive of the humanities? I'm a Computer Science major myself, but I can't fathom how you've come to the conclusion that colleges are vocational schools for STEM subjects.
He's dismissive of spending so much money for a humanities degree because it's not a wise investment in this day and age. I don't see his statement as having a problem with the humanities themselves.
I was actually a music composition major before I switched to CS. I don't have anything against non-STEM fields. However, one day I looked at how much I was paying for school, how much I stood to earn, and what hard skills I would walk away with when everything was all said and done, and decided switching to my other love, CS, was a much better way to spend my time at uni.
The pay and employment gap between college graduates and non-graduates is actually higher in non-STEM fields, though, which seems to suggest that it's a more important credential if you're non-technical than if you are.
Over half of recent college grads are underemployed or unemployed. This figure used to be lower in the past. But the shift is smaller than I was honestly expecting, and largely can be attributed to the economy.
Out of the couple dozen of 2010 and 2011 graduates I know (I'm of their parents' generation) 20% or fewer are living with their parents. I would be embarrassed to ask whether they've had to move into the basement. Those who have moved out are not for the most part in STEM fields.
All I have to do is take one quick look at unemployment rates to understand just how valuable college is. In the rhetoric over rising costs, the benefits have never been more clear.
Huge correlation = causation implication in your comment. It's not clear how much intrinsic value college has vs what its signalling[1] value is for the people who go through it, and what alternate signalling approaches are available to them elsewhere.
Many college degrees are an indication that you have the determination to spend (aka waste) a big chunk of your money and youth to prove your ability to persevere, or indicate to other people that you're made of the right kind of stuff. The older I get, the more dismissive I am of college (undergraduate level) as anything other than a social marker.
The unemployment rate for college degree holders has more or less been 50% less than the overall rate for the last several years. College degree holders, as a class, weathered this recession far better than anyone else.
The real concern is not whether college degree holders, as a class, do better, but whether a 17-19 year old would do better by entering that class. What those statistics don't include is something for recent grads. Ideally, you'd want to look at the unemployment rates for people approximately 24-30, stratified by college degree or not. And even then, it wouldn't necessarily give you a complete picture, due to all kinds of selection bias in the people who do or do not go to college. I would predict, however, that the unemployment rate for recent grads would be closer to the non-college graduate rate for the same age than to the all-ages college graduate rate.
It's difficult to say for many reasons. You have selection bias going on, and maybe a bit of cargo cult ingrained into society. Not that I'm against college, but to make it a primary cause is probably not very accurate.
Place $100K (let's leave it at $25k /a year) in an investment account when you're 18-22 and take it out 40 years later. Add the fact that you are not working for 4 years and it's even more.
I am not dissing college, bu let's compare fairly: college isn't free, it requires lots of time and money.
On the other hand, factory jobs were sent to China or replaced by robots and there is work only for x number of plumbers, mechanics and electricians. Individually, everyone is trying to do better than the other, until they get the bill and have no jobs.
"18% of 165 private universities and 15% of 127 public universities project a decline in net tuition revenue"
What about the remaining 82% and 85%? What fraction of these project an increase? It's not mentioned, so perhaps there's also been a similar rise in the fraction that projected an increase, and all you can say then is that there's increased variance in projected revenue change, not that universities on average are facing projected revenue decrease.
Those that project a net increase could do so by inflating the costs while assuming the number of students remains unchanged. In context I gathered that the schools predicting a decline saw a decline not just in per-student revenue but also in student enrollment.
> College officials said they need to increase net tuition revenue to keep up with rising expenses that include faculty benefits and salaries.
I would put forth that administrative costs are increasing faster than faculty costs. No hard evidence to back it up, just a lifetime of studying how organizations & bureaucracy grow.
I would also put forth that college life is increasingly cushy. The dorms at my alma mater are amazingly nice, compared to when I went there. I lived in a converted motel run by the university. Today's students have suites, with kitchenettes, free cable TV, reserved parking, and a fitness center. I'm not saying it should return to the barely-better-than-prison experience I had, but there needs to be a limit set, because all that stuff adds to the semester's cost.
> I would also put forth that college life is increasingly cushy. The dorms at my alma mater are amazingly nice, compared to when I went there. I lived in a converted motel run by the university. Today's students have suites, with kitchenettes, free cable TV, reserved parking, and a fitness center. I'm not saying it should return to the barely-better-than-prison experience I had, but there needs to be a limit set, because all that stuff adds to the semester's cost.
How about letting the free market decide, instead of forcing students to live on campus?
I tend to agree. Add to it the fact that a lot of people (or is it most) do not pay the sticker price. Most top colleges use their endowments regularly to make ends meet so it's not like there is money deposited to the proverbial bank account from student's tuition.
The irony is that when colleges want to pay faculty less or cut benefits, students protest and call them greedy.
Healthcare alone is growing by xx% a year and employees expect a raise each year. Building repairs and everything else is also increasing, year after year.
I'm 33, with a PhD, a full time job, a start up on the side, and I am still in tertiary education. I'll be in the library this evening. I'm fine with this. I think I'll do an MBA next.
Ye good folk States-side need to quit slamming on 'college education' and start complaining about the 'costs of education'. Education is just learning. Maybe some sources of education are better than others, and in particular for some fields, but you shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater, and keep railing against university, which really just opens up opportunities, and lets somebody who knows more than you choose what you should learn.
Although, to qualify, I choose graded self-study courses where possible, because I'm kinda a dick as a student.
I have trouble understanding the logic of making education so expensive. Isn't it obvious that making education free, or at least cheap, allows the country to grow, both economically and intellectually.
Sure, have your private universities for the elite. But the government should be subsidising education for the rest of the population in the interest of improving the life of everyone.
In Australia it only costs about $10,000 per year and that is even outlaid by the government and only paid back when the student is earning over about $50,000 per year (as a small percentage added to their tax). If you never earn over $50K, you never have to pay it back.
> Sure, have your private universities for the elite
If you mean the financially elite, then actually in the US the top private universities are often more affordable for the non-elite. For instance, if your family income is under, I believe, $100k, Stanford waives tuition. If it is under something like $70k, they also waive room and board.
It's actually the top state schools, such as the University of California, that are the hardest for the non-elite to afford (especially for students from out of state).
Unless you have no contact with your parents, of course. Or they're just assholes who refuse to provide you with their tax returns. Most private schools won't give you aid unless you fill out their own specialized financial aid forms, like the CSS profile. Even if you're classified as an independent student on the FAFSA (like I am), 99% of the private universities I've talked to say I'm ineligible for all of their scholarships/aid if I don't provide my parents' info. (Note: I'm age 24. Have been financially independent and living on my own since age 18.) If you're from a jerk family that won't help you with college, either by paying your tuition or providing their tax info, you're pretty much just fucked. It's also entirely possible to have a $0 contribution on the FAFSA and then like $30,000 or something on the CSS profile--private colleges can ignore the FAFSA and use their own definition of calculation of "financial need," to ensure that you aren't found "needy."
Also, many of the top private universities don't take transfer students--non-elite students often have to work for a few years before attending college, and it's unpleasant to find out that having tried to take what community colleges you can afford in terms of time and money while holding down a full time job to keep a roof over your head has literally made you ineligible to apply almost anywhere except a state run university (who also tend to heavily discriminate against transfer students).
Even for your example, Stanford, transfer admissions are significantly more selective than normal admissions processes:
"Transfer admission is considerably more competitive than freshman admission. In recent years, the admit rate for transfer students has ranged from 1% to 4%. Between twenty and fifty transfer student spaces are typically available each year."
This further increases the ability of Stanford to keep its student body composed of financial elites--while touting its "generous" financial aid policy. Plus, even an 18 year old applying to Stanford requires SATs, extracurriculars, etc that most of the non financial elite are unable to afford. Most college applications are at $80/pop nowadays; if you can only afford one college application, why pick the university you probably won't be accepted to?
"This further increases the ability of Stanford to keep its student body composed of financial elites--while touting its "generous" financial aid policy."
This just isn't true. The student body has a diverse range of incomes, and the financial aid policy is indeed generous sans quotes. The aid packages of Stanford and its peers made them cheaper than in-state tuition minus financial aid at the University of Texas for me.
There is considerably moral hazard in allowing students to omit the financial information of estranged parents. People would "disown" their children to get free tuition.
There are also considerable ethical issues in assuming that people with estranged parents are somehow undeserving of a college education.
If you have no family support, you need college more, not less. Of course, places like Stanford are far more concerned with turning a profit than enrolling poor people.
You'll note that the median family income of a Stanford student is $125,000, which is more than double the median family income in the US as a whole. Maybe that's not a lot to you, but it's almost inconceivable to someone who was raised, say, in a family making 12-20K/year.
(You complain that people would disown their children to get free tuition, but forget the fact that before it became profit oriented, Stanford used to have free tuition for everyone--no disowning required.)
And yet, America does much better at the high end of education than Australia does. I have known a few professors who tried working on Australia for their careers and were not very impressed by the infrastructure and opportunity of research, nor the general caliber of students in their classes. I'm not saying cheap education is not useful, but I don't think it is a panacea, and the issue is much more complex than it appears.
Australia was colonized quite a long while after the US was, and still only has 22m inhabitants. It'd be surprising to me if it weren't a few decades behind the US for another 10-20 years.
How much is the non resident tuition? How would you afford the living costs in a foreign country if you can't get a work visa? (It seems a lot of countries have severe work restrictions for students.) A poor US person might not even have enough money for the plane ticket. :/
Throwing more money at these universities will not drive down the cost of education. The answer is MOOCs of course. If you want personal treatment, you pay to go to a university. If you just want the curriculum and the credit, you use a MOOC.
It would be interesting to see colleges investing in people via education and getting returns via some sort of percentage of the first years of professional career... Say, let the university teach/prepare the kids, and then for the first 10 years charge a 10% "income tax'(numbers would vary)... Some careers would be quite idiotic to promote, while others very good, it would further incentivize colleges to shape kids into productive citizens and give better education and resources... and then people who chose crappy majors can no longer complain about how the system sucks, because they paid little to nothing for what they got...
You then end up with little to no incentive for "non-profit" producing things, like archeology. While it might work, it does detract from the purposes of a university, which is to educate, not vocational training.
Its a shame that not more people opt for vocational training instead of university, then expecting to get vocational training at a university, all the while complaining it costs so much more.
Perhaps this would be a good time for schools to reevaluate the number of MBAs they have hired. Some amount of management is clearly needed, but when a university has as many MBAs as professors, something is very wrong. Also, perhaps schools should stop trying to turn their campuses into the equivalent of a suburban mall, and reconsider having students do some of the work that is being contracted out.
I am a programmer. Every day I am happy and, frankly, a little mystified to find that I get to make a great living doing something I love. But that's why I originally pursued it: because I loved it. Not because I was chasing a paycheck.
I am horrified that we have so little place for others whose passion is in other directions. Man can not live on bread alone, and society can't flourish on software alone. It is heartbreaking that in our increasingly efficient world, where production of food, shelter, and even medical care for all should be trivial, they seem to be harder to reach for many.
We should have more room for the humanities now, not less. It should be possible for more people to pursue philosophy and literature and theater and art and music for the rest of us to enjoy.
Things go on until they don't, so we could be experience the beginning of a college crash, which has been predicted for awhile now given student demographics.
"'We have a more informed class of college consumers,' said Bonnie Snyder, founder of Kerrigan College Planning in Lancaster, Pa. 'Everyone today knows someone who went to college and ended up with a career that didn't justify the cost. They see college as a more risky investment.'"
Yep. More and more of us know more and more examples of college graduates who live in their parents' basements because they can't support themselves with their college diploma. It's time to be more discerning consumers of higher education.
Colleges try to confuse the issue of their value with imaginary list prices subject to discounts ("scholarships") that mislead about what a college is actually worth. Here's an interesting link about how colleges are advised to set their prices by consulting firms, a link I learned about from a Harvard-trained economist and policy analyst:
http://www.maguireassoc.com/services-challenges/optimize-net...