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Here's a statement of the obvious: The opinions expressed here are those of the participants, not those of the Mutual Fund Observer. We cannot vouch for the accuracy or appropriateness of any of it, though we do encourage civility and good humor.

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Is College A Waste Of Time And Money?

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  • Dex
    edited July 2015

    @Dex and David,
    Asking whether college tuition is too high currently is different from asking whether a college education is a waste of time and money. Here's an example illustrating the difference:

    "asking whether a college education is a waste of time and money" is like asking if the price of a house is too high. Answer - it depends upon the location and condition of the home.

    Using the term 'education' alone is meaningless. The word has more use as an emotional trigger then a discussion point.

    If you asked is food good; who would say no? If you asked is eating McDonald's or high fat foods food all the time good; who would say yes?

    As to the link - look at two items
    1. Fields of study - again using my analogy of housing - they chose the right location/field.
    You would find many people who went to college in the '30-'60s who were successful. Some were part of the baby bust and first half of the baby boom generations. Times have changed. Economic conditions have changed.

    2. Dates - look back at the percent of population that went to college in those decades and then look at it today. Answer very small then; much larger now. Also, although the city college was free at that time there were admission standards that had to be met. In the mid '70s it became open admissions.

    The fact is that college education has become a necessity because primary and secondary schools are so poor. Employers use college as a filter.

    I really feel sorry for today's young people. They are getting and will be screwed by everyone ( including the oldster here who will increases their taxes them to pay for their SS).

    I understand that talking down the "Educational Industrial Complex" is like disrespecting, mom, apple pie and the American way.





  • Everything in the government budget is just a transfer of wealth. Taxes are transfers of wealth (cash) from some people (depending on the tax) into a general fund (usually). Expenditures, including so called subsidies, are payments for various things that benefit people unequally. That's true whether an expenditure is for education or for police.

    OJ - you write about unintended consequences. One of the consequences of reduced government spending on education (via "subsidized" university research) is the rise of commercially supported research. Now anyone can buy an expert, contract out product development to universities in the name of "research", and basic research withers.

    LA Times, April 28, 2015 (business column): Reduced public funding for basic research leaves U.S. in the scientific dust

    Lewis reminds us of the former promise (until 1976) of CUNY to provide free education to all New Yorkers. Just as UC had promised the same to Californians until Gov. Reagan - "the state should not subsidize intellectual curiosity". I did a little checking - it turns out that CUNY was only free to day students (I had not known this) until Open Admissions in 1970 (well intentioned but viewed by many as unsuccessful for various reasons). Here's history of tuition at CUNY, "When Tuition was Free, Sort Of"

    With respect to free education, what is so magical about the number "12"? Why pay for any education after, say, grade 8? And if public support for free high school seems like a good idea (I think it is), why stop there? I don't mean that in the sense of momentum (why not keep going), but rather I'm asking what is magical about that particular level?

    Further education doesn't have to be a four year liberal arts program - that doesn't suit all students. But that doesn't mean education should stop for all but the top students - there are other educational paths, and they don't have to be continuous, or exclusively STEM.
  • No one, certainly not I, is saying tuition growth has not been worse than wack. Yes, disconnected from value of higher ed. The next area to analyze is what higher ed should consist in. Some compelling (data-based) args for liberal arts, but it will continue to wane, I am sure.
  • . The next area to analyze is what higher ed should consist in.

    What do you suggest?


  • @Dex - Your timeframe on open admissions is a bit off - it was enacted in 1969, became effective 1970, and was substantially gutted in 1976 with the beginning of tuition.

    Even open admissions had standards - you could not get into a senior college directly unless you were in the top half of your graduating class.

    PreWW2 college attendance was indeed very low (around 5%). The GI bill changed all that, so the numbers may have grown faster than you suggested, but I'd have to check.

    As you observed, college demographics (and demographics in general) shifted rapidly and substantially. Success of open admissions (and free tuition) needs to be measured accordingly. Here's an interesting article (7 pages) from 1999 discussing open admissions, raising issues of normalizing data for economic status, student age, work status, native language, etc. It reports that while only 26% of the first class of open admissions students graduated within 5 years, 56% ultimately graduated. It's not Columbia, but it was hardly a failure.

    The question the paper raises, and should be asked in general, is whether there is a better way to do this. This is not talking down the Education Industrial Complex - it is recognizing that different students follow different paths.
  • Dex, I myself remain a strong believe in hardcore liberal arts along with hardcore STEM insofar as tolerable. The literature in the area, practical, idealistic, polemical, traditional, newfangled, whatever is vast. You will have to do your own googling. Hacker and Delbanco and others in NYRB (already partly cited) have had good essays in the past, but as I say there is just a ton of opining here. Econ chiefly was a chant a decade ago (one of my kids). STEM the same then and even more now.

    Some kids would struggle having to think hard about a Donne poem or investment RoI or blind testing or the unconscious or liver function or transducer radiation pattern or 1870s US railroad legislation or meiosis or the identity thesis in aesthetic theory or Plato's cave or Schubert harmonies. But 'twas ever thus.

    It cannot devolve down to studying tech writing and spreadsheet analysis and marcomm at community college, and/or sports PT and writing a business plan. Or maybe it will.
  • @LewisBraham- Yes, good article, thanks. I guess that the point that I was trying to make is that perhaps we should be trying to reevaluate and prioritize our system of wealth transfer, so as to get the most bang for the buck, considering that need priorities may have changed significantly over time. But that's probably wishful thinking in this political environment.

    And msf asks a very interesting question: "With respect to free education, what is so magical about the number "12"? That's the sort of discussion that I think we need, as a nation.
  • Dex
    edited July 2015
    msf said:


    Your timeframe on open admissions is a bit off

    The question the paper raises, and should be asked in general, is whether there is a better way to do this. This is not talking down the Education Industrial Complex - it is recognizing that different students follow different paths.

    I'll take being a bit off, as long as it isn't a byte.

    The questions are:
    - Why have primary and secondary education failed the students
    - Why have primary, secondary, and college education reticent to change?
    - How to reduce college costs?
    - How to take out the 'College Industrial Complex' in the decision making process?

    In short there are many questions.

    And ultimately, the students will get shorn. This will not change. That is the trend.

  • edited July 2015
    @MSF One of the ancillary benefits of education rarely discussed is it's link to crime reduction and how much that saves the country financially. In other words, it's cheaper to teach a kid than police and incarcerate him, even if what he learns in, say, liberal arts, has no material value to the bean counting set. Education is ultimately a civilizing force. I speak from experience. I was almost a savage before I graduated from junior high. In fact most of the boys I knew at that age were. Here's a summary of this linked study's results:devweb.tc.columbia.edu/manager/symposium/Files/74_Moretti_Symp.pdf
    https://tc.columbia.edu/centers/EquitySymposium/symposium/resourceDetails.asp?PresId=6
    "Increasing the high school completion rate by just 1 percent for all men ages 20-60 would save the U.S. up to $1.4 billion per year in reduced costs from crime.
    A one-year increase in average years of schooling reduces murder and assault by almost 30%, motor vehicle theft by 20%, arson by 13% and burglary and larceny by about 6%.
    Extrapolating from current high school graduation rates and arrest rates, a 10% increase in graduation rates would potentially reduce murder and assault arrest rates by about 20%, motor vehicle theft by about 13% and arson by 8%.
    Had high school graduation rates in 1990 been 1% higher, an estimated 400 fewer murders and 8,000 fewer assaults would have taken place. Nearly 100,000 fewer crimes would have taken place overall.
    The current difference in the education levels of white and black men accounts for 23% of the higher incarceration rates for black men.
    The direct costs of one year of high school were about $6,000 per student in 1990. Society has since lost between $1,170-$2,100 per year in costs of crime for each male non-graduate from that year.

    Linking additional education to reduced crime has tremendous policy implications.

    One study finds that each additional police officer placed in large U.S. cities costs $80,000 and saves $200,000 in annual crime costs. An additional 100 high school students would have to graduate to generating equivalent crime-related savings, at a one-time cost of $600,000. However, those additional 100 students would also generate an additional $800,000 per year in human capital and annual productivity."

  • @OJ, I don't deny that the system we have is broken and needs to be fixed, but some of the cures I see suggested seem worse than the disease. I think the only people happy with college tuition rates and the value students get for them today are university presidents with ungodly salaries and lenders. I also think Dex may have a point. A bust could be coming in this sector.
  • >> Why have primary and secondary education failed the students

    Who poses that question?

    The kids today who hit it hard in HS and college in this country are immensely well-educated, in my experience, and not small in number at all.
  • I'm wondering if I ran across the education/crime linkage because I followed some links here already, ran across it on my own, or just saw it sometime in the past. Regardless, I'm aware of the huge payoff, and don't need to be sold.

    Unfortunately, no one in government seems able to spend a dime to make a buck. Infrastructure spending is something everyone agrees is necessary, would help the economy, and would pay for itself many times over, yet nothing is done.

    College overhead costs - I stopped giving to my alma mater (a relatively small school) when they started paying their president one of the highest president salaries in the country. One of a college president's main roles is fundraising, and I figured if their president was that good, they didn't need my money.
  • "The kids today who hit it hard in HS and college"

    Speaking as one who really didn't "hit it hard" and managed to survive reasonably well, I'd guess that those who do "hit it hard" will always do well, at least as far as their formal education plays a part. I wonder if, in a typical school system, there is a significant statistical difference regarding the ratio of "hit it hards" and goof-offs comparing when I was a kid and now. At the risk of incurring another bout of PC wrath, I'd guess that here in SF there might possibly be such a difference: an increase in "hit it hards" due to the Asian influx in this area, but that might also be offset by the equally large influx of other newcomers who don't place the same value on formal education. I really have no idea.

    But I digress: my real question here concerns those like me who were in the goof-off category. In my age cohort, many of us did quite well due to the abundance of well-paying jobs which did not require a higher education. That's certainly not the case today. So, if the ratios that I mentioned still hold more-or-less true, we now have a significant number of "products of the educational system" who no longer have a shot at a decent income, family, or life. I can't see this necessarily as a failure of the educational system- seems to me to be just the way that life is, and always will be.

    The educational system can only work with the raw material that it receives.
  • Dex
    edited July 2015

    >> Why have primary and secondary education failed the students

    Who poses that question?

    The kids today who hit it hard in HS and college in this country are immensely well-educated, in my experience, and not small in number at all.

    Sure blame the victims/kids. They are the failures because they didn't "hit it hard".

    That just shows how distorted education has come in this country. Education was to be the great equalizer. But, good education is for those who can afford private primary, secondary and college education. The others get pseudo education, debt and blamed for not 'hitting it hard'. Don't question the quality of primary and secondary education and how they prepare the student. I guess that passes as liberalism these days.



  • "Sure blame the victims/kids. They are the failures because they didn't "hit it hard". "

    Well, Dex, it's pretty obvious that you got nothing useful from my attempt to explore that area. Let me try again: the educational system can only work with the raw material that it receives. Could you please show me some evidence that the "educational system" has radically deteriorated from it's performance in the 1940's/50's?
  • edited July 2015
    msf said, "Unfortunately, no one in government seems able to spend a dime to make a buck. Infrastructure spending is something everyone agrees is necessary, would help the economy, and would pay for itself many times over, yet nothing is done."
    ---

    I have a simple theory best expressed in a series of premises - which may or may not be accurate.

    1. The income tax is based on a set percentage of earned income. (It's also graduated.)

    2. This % factor requires a disproportionally larger sum from wealthier taxpayers. (The percentage may be the same, but the dollar amount is much greater). Example: 20% on a 100K income is $20,000 paid to government. But 20% on a 1Mil income is $200,000 paid to government. That's a $180,000 difference.

    3. For things like roads, parks and public education the benefits to the two taxpayers is essentially identical. Both enjoy and use roads and parks and schools about the same.

    4. This results in a built-in disincentive for the wealthier to (in fact) "subsidize" the lifestyles of the less affluent. With roads, it may well be more cost efficient for a wealthy individual to trade in his car every year or two than to pay the higher taxes necessary for better roads (which reduce the wear and tear on a car). It might even be more cost efficient to avoid roads completely by chartering private aircraft. Likewise, it might prove more cost efficient to send his children to well funded private schools than to support the public ones through higher taxes. And it might be more cost efficient for some to live in gated communities with their own private security forces than to fund public safety through higher taxes. On and on and on ...

    5. Combine the built-in disincentives for the wealthy to pay higher taxes along with the SC decision allowing unlimited campaign/political contributions (used in large measure to sway voter opinion thru political advertising) and you've got a situation of serious and deterioriating underfunding. So successful has that well funded negative advertising (polite term here) been, that merely suggesting what I've suggested invariably brings out cries of "class warfare."
  • Dex,

    >> ... blame the victims/kids. They are the failures because they didn't "hit it hard".
    >> That just shows how distorted education has come in this country. Education was to be the great equalizer. But, good education is for those who can afford private primary, secondary and college education. The others get pseudo education, debt and blamed for not 'hitting it hard'. Don't question the quality of primary and secondary education and how they prepare the student.

    Oh, man. Seriously, is this all you got? I mean, do you *know* any teachers? Have you ever taught? Have you ever been in a large classroom of MS or HS kids? Or college freshmen? Or had kids? Good grief. You really don't know what you're talking about. Yes, there is lots of low quality, absolutely.
  • Old_Joe said:

    "Sure blame the victims/kids. They are the failures because they didn't "hit it hard". "

    Well, Dex, it's pretty obvious that you got nothing useful from my attempt to explore that area. Let me try again: the educational system can only work with the raw material that it receives. Could you please show me some evidence that the "educational system" has radically deteriorated from it's performance in the 1940's/50's?

    The decline in primary and secondary education has been discussed for decades.

    http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/07/03/schools-and-colleges-still-struggle-to-reduce-the-need-for-remedial-education
    Nationwide, about 20 percent of freshmen entering four-year colleges are placed into remedial English and mathematics courses. At community colleges, that number jumps to about 60 percent. Doing so is an expense for both the students and the universities because remedial courses do not count for college credit. One study from the National Bureau for Economic Research found the annual cost of remedial education is about $7 billion dollars.
  • edited July 2015
    You guys know more about this than I do. But may I suggest a couple things you might want to chew on further? Seems to me a written test can measure a lot - but not everything. Ability to think creatively and critically might be a couple things a written test wouldn't measure very well. Ability to interact socially towards achieving a common goal might be a another. I'm also wondering about computer skills.Someone looking back decades, as some of this research seems to do, would likely not even be measuring computer skills or knowledge.

    This all reminds me of the mania in this country in the 80s and early 90s to try to emulate the Japanese educational system where high school students consistently scored much higher on standardized tests than American students.

    Thanks for any thoughts.
  • hank said:

    Someone looking back decades, as some of this research seems to do, would likely not even be measuring computer skills or knowledge.

    Thanks for any thoughts.

    Definitely agree. Look at web sites that are geared to mobile phones - all you have to do is tap - no typing. Everything computer will be getting easier. Automatic programming and artificial intelligence will eliminate much of what humans do today.

    Population growth and technological singularity are two topics not spoken about that will (are) change the world.


  • Good grief. You really don't know what you're talking about. Yes, there is lots of low quality, absolutely.

    Well, Charlie Brown, don't bother replying to my posts in the future.

    Have a nice day!

  • So ... you gonna back up what you say, or just walk and dismiss when someone calls bullshit?

    >> good education is for those who can afford private primary, secondary and college education. The others get pseudo education, ... Don't question the quality of primary and secondary education and how they prepare the student.
  • edited July 2015
    @Dex- Well, I tried to make the point that there has always been a certain ratio between students who try to their maximum ability and those who don't. Evidently you don't believe that's a relevant factor in educational results.

    When I was a student that ratio determined who went to college and who didn't. Additionally, the students virtually all spoke English as their primary language. Now, everybody is supposed to go to college, ready or not, whether they tried hard in the lower schools or not, whether they have learning disabilities or not, whether they speak or understand English well or not, whether their families value education or not, indeed, whether they even have a two-parent family or not. Even if they are fortunate enough to have a family environment which values education, it's highly likely that both parents are now working, since the ability of our society to support a family on one working parent no longer exists. This naturally results in much less time and energy available for educational support in the home environment.

    Evidently you have a problem seeing that there's been a broad lowering of standards with respect to who is expected to go to college. The perceived "decline in primary and secondary education" is largely due to the fact that the educational system can only work with the raw material that it receives.

  • Dex
    edited July 2015
    Old_Joe said:

    @Dex- Well, I tried to make the point that there has always been a certain ratio between students who try to their maximum ability and those who don't. Evidently you don't believe that's a relevant factor in educational results.

    When I was a student that ratio determined who went to college and who didn't. Additionally, the students virtually all spoke English as their primary language. Now, everybody is supposed to go to college, ready or not, whether they tried hard in the lower schools or not, whether they have learning disabilities or not, whether they speak or understand English well or not, whether their families value education or not, indeed, whether they even have a family or not.

    Evidently you have a problem seeing that there's been a broad lowering of standards with respect to who is expected to go to college. The perceived "decline in primary and secondary education" is largely due to the fact that the educational system can only work with the raw material that it receives.

    My eyesight is fine thank you.

    You asked for info on how primary and secondary ed has failed students; I gave it.

    You want to blame the students instead of the institutions. It isn't a solution but if it works for you, go for it.



  • @Dex- A while back MJG mentioned a great quote from H. L. Mencken: “For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong”.

    You seem to specialize in such answers, but if it works for you, go for it.
  • Dex
    edited July 2015
    Old_Joe said:

    @Dex- A while back MJG mentioned a great quote from H. L. Mencken: “For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong”.

    You seem to specialize in such answers, but if it works for you, go for it.

    What amazes me is the personal attacks when people such as yourself can not present a cogent defense of your position or refute information that is contrary to your position.

    Is that a failure of your education or a personal failure similar to the 'material' you mentioned above?
  • Cogent defense? Are you ever going to explain this?:

    >> ... good education is for those who can afford private primary, secondary and college education. The others get pseudo education, ... Don't question the quality of primary and secondary education and how they prepare the student.

    Or are we supposed to nod and say Yeah, that Dex, he clearly knows what he's talking about.
  • @Dex- The subtlety and depth of your commentary is remarkable for it's absence. Reminds me a lot of politicians and their "talking points", which merely repeat the same simplistic statement over and over. My position is perfectly adequate with respect to cogency and detail. Your refusal to acknowledge or respond to that detail is telling.
  • I guess the Answer to the Threads Question IS:
    A (College) Education Does not equate to Money (earnings) so is it a waste of Time?
    MY point: In the economic world Skills=Earnings (money)
    So IS skill Learning a waste of Time?....I guess that would be your choice (answer)

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