College-Industrial Scam

[bigbadwolf]

Article at Yahoo:

No one else is going to tell you this, so I might as well.

You sit here today, $30,000 or $40,000 in debt, as the latest victims of what may well be the biggest conspiracy in U.S. history. It is a conspiracy so big and powerful that Dan Brown won’t even touch it. It’s a conspiracy so insidious that you will rarely hear its name.

Move over, Illuminati. Stand down, Wall Street. Area 51? Pah. It’s nothing.

The biggest conspiracy of all? The College-Industrial Complex.

Consider this: You have just paid about three times as much for your degree as did someone graduating 30 years ago. That’s in constant dollars - in other words, after accounting for inflation. There is no evidence that you have received a degree three times as good. Some would wonder if you have received a degree even one times as good.

 

[Daniel Duffy]

40 years ago I paid 300 punt per year.

 

[bigbadwolf]

40 years ago I paid 300 punt per year.

How much today at the same uni?

 

[Daniel Duffy]

How much today at the same uni?

http://www.tcd.ie/Treasurers_Office/fees/fees_pgdegfees.php

 

[bigbadwolf]

Not too bad when you compare to the bandits, er universities, of the USA.

 

[Daniel Duffy]

Trinity College were always a decent bunch, I found.

 

[Lyosha]

The value of education increased. Much like a rock band that increases ticket prices as they become more widely known (and arguably of worse quality!).

 

[Daniel Duffy]

The value of education increased. Much like a rock band that increases ticket prices as they become more widely known (and arguably of worse quality!).

You don't mean Iron Maiden I hope

 

[bigbadwolf]

As someone just pointed out, you can now supplement worthless bachelor's degrees with equally worthless master's degrees (aka "credential inflation"):

The nation’s colleges and universities are churning out master’s degrees in sharply rising numbers, responding to a surge in demand for advanced credentials from young professionals who want to stand out in the workforce and earn more money.

From 2000 to 2012, the annual production of master’s degrees jumped 63 percent, federal data show, growing 18 percentage points more than the output of bachelor’s degrees. It is a sign of a quiet but profound transformation underway at many prominent universities, which are pouring more energy into job training than ever before.

The master’s degree, often priced starting at $20,000 to $30,000, is seen by some universities as a moneymaker in a time of fiscal strain. It is seen by students as a ticket to promotions or new careers. For them, the lure of potentially increasing their salary by many thousands of dollars a year outweighs the risk of taking on large tuition bills and possibly debt.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local...8462fa-b726-11e2-92f3-f291801936b8_story.html

 

[Lyosha]

And in the USSR a globally disproportionate part of the male population (and as a result also female population) held Ph. D.s

What's your point? More people being more educated is a good thing for a society.

 

[Daniel Duffy]

And in the USSR a globally disproportionate part of the male population (and as a result also female population) held Ph. D.s

What's your point? More people being more educated is a good thing for a society.

A PhD is a very specific degree. Too many PhDs floating around is not (necessarily) the sign of a balanced economy.

A PhD is trained to think in a certain way. But some essential (practical) skills they do not learn.

 

[bigbadwolf]

And in the USSR a globally disproportionate part of the male population (and as a result also female population) held Ph. D.s

What's your point? More people being more educated is a good thing for a society.

Why? What's the logic? A lot of the Soviet PhDs were working as cab drivers or petty traders. What was the use of sinking in so much resources (state), effort and time into creating specialists for whom there was no use?

As I see it, the mad stampede for advanced credentials is playing in a negative-sum game of musical chairs where jobs and opportunities are continually declining and diminishing and people are trying to get an edge on one another on an individual basis rather than looking at a collective response to a collective problem. And the powers-that-be encourage this kind of thinking. "No job? Get a degree? Still no job? Hey, it's a "high-tech" economy today -- get a master's! What, you're massively in debt? But look at the return you'll get once you get a job commensurate with your qualifications."

 

[Daniel Duffy]

What after PhD? Associate (junior, senior) Fellow of University XYZ?

 

[Lyosha]

What was the use of sinking in so much resources (state), effort and time into creating specialists for whom there was no use?

Because the payoff for the education level of a country is highly non-linear (economists of the world, shudder now).

Memorial day just passed. Consider what the USSR was immediately after WWII, and consider what it was when Gorbachev took power.

"The state" does not play an individual game. It does not care about your individual contribution and payoff. It is playing purely the long net game, a game of averages.

 

[bigbadwolf]

What after PhD? Associate (junior, senior) Fellow of University XYZ?

A post-doc where from the first day you're juggling your teaching duties, nourishing the frail plant of your research, and looking for the next post-doc (or maybe a tenure track job, though most don't have a snowball's chance in hell of landing one).

I think I read somewhere that 40% of freshly minted US engineering PhDs don't have a job (not even a post-doc).

Meanwhile, from the humanities side, someone posted this:

In December of 1998, I finished my undergrad studies at a certain state university with a BA in Economics and a BA in History; with a 3.85 GPA, I was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. Over the course of the next several years, I had several jobs, only one of which had anything to do with my studies and also had to deal with several bouts of unemployment and homelessness.

In August of 2005, I got my MA in Political Science from another state university. My GPA there was 3.90. The first job I had out of there was for around minimum wage at a food service establishment. I later taught Political Science 101 (US Government) at a community college for one semester, for a marginally higher salary than at the food service place.

Now, I'm on the precipice of finishing my PhD in International Relations from an English University. I currently am working at the same food service job that I worked at for 3+ months back in late 2005 after first getting my MA.. I just turned 36, and I've probably had about 35 jobs in my life, roughly 7 or so of which had something to do with my studies. The first job I got after college was probably the best-paying one, except for a comparably paying one that I got in 2011 - 2012 out of the country in a relatively cheap place (thus my spending power was higher.)

 

[Anthony DeAngelis]

I agree that education has increased in price, especially in the USA. But competition in the USA has also increased. Over the last 30 years you've had the USSR democratize (debatable right now) and China go from a poor farming nation to a global powerhouse. This, combined with student loan money, has driven increased prices.

I'd say local demand has also increased exponentially. 30 years ago you could have landed a job making $50K with a high school degree. Now those jobs are gone. You need beyond a 12th grade education which has made a bachelors all the more beneficial.

I do think too many people get degrees in impractical fields. If you have to take out debt to receive an education you sure as hell better receive a degree that can get you a job. College =/= education in many circumstances. I would have loved to study history, but soon found that I couldn't make a living in that. I switched to finance and relegated my love of history to a passionate hobby instead of a debt incurring educational path.

 

[bigbadwolf]

This, combined with student loan money, has driven increased prices.

Some of us were discussing this yesterday (including several marginally employed PhDs). If student loans were not available, the cost would not have increased so much. If students (or their families) had to scrimp and save to pay tuition, they'd be much more cost-conscious and colleges would be far more careful in containing costs. As it is, college costs seem to have gone up for three reasons:

1) Spending on academic stars at elite schools ("Hey, I was taught by Niall Ferguson at Harvard.").

2) Spending on unnecessary facilities (e.g., sports coaches can be made an order of magnitude more than even academic stars). Which reminds me of the president of the U of Oklahoma saying some years back, "We'll make this into a university our football will be proud of." And unnecessary buildings and halls.

3) A bloated, parasitical, and grossly overpaid brigade of self-serving bureaucrats who would probably be making minimum wage without their bureaucratic sinecures. Again, senior officials make more than academic stars.

I'd say local demand has also increased exponentially. 30 years ago you could have landed a job making $50K with a high school degree. Now those jobs are gone. You need beyond a 12th grade education which has made a bachelors all the more beneficial.

Well, another perspective is that employers who were once satisfied with high school graduates are now asking for college graduates -- even where the work has remained identical. Again, two reasons. One, there's a surfeit of college grads out there so why no ask for more? And secondly the related phenomena of credential inflation and declining standards. Nothing can be expected of today's high school graduate whereas a very little can be expected of a college graduate.

I wouldn't use the word "beneficial"; rather I'd say "necessary" while being very far from "sufficient."

I do think too many people get degrees in impractical fields.

Agreed -- but then again, STEM graduates are also having problems.

 

[TraderJoe]

It is almost impossible to fnd an unemployed Computer Science or MIS graduate. But the students are reluctant to study these majors even though they could make $150 K within 5 years of graduating from college. People prefer to do PhD in Math / Physics / Philosophy / Fine Arts, and then be unemployed, whereas they could go to a Community College and study CS for two years and get a $70 K job.

 

[Anthony DeAngelis]

I am torn with the student loan issue. I've used them to help finance my graduate degree and consider them an investment at a relatively low rate. Then again I understood why I was taking them on and probably would have had to go about a graduate education in other ways. Not every investment is the same.

Without student loans many responsible people wouldn't be able to reasonably finance their education. Tuition prices would decline though.

How about a cap on how much you can borrow for an UG degree. This would force tuition to decrease some and force students to think about the ROI of their chosen major. It would also still allow people to take loans out for what can be the best investment in oneself a person can take.

I do agree that there needs to be a reduce emphasis on college education and more on skill building. There is a great school in NYC that teaches coding (I believe Flatron School). Plenty of demand for skilled plumbers, electricians, tradesman.Would be nice if there was a partnership with local university to offer maybe a business certificate for these skilled workers so they can have a business acumen to help them if/when they open their own business.

 

[Yike Lu]

2) Spending on unnecessary facilities (e.g., sports coaches can be made an order of magnitude more than even academic stars). Which reminds me of the president of the U of Oklahoma saying some years back, "We'll make this into a university our football will be proud of." And unnecessary buildings and halls.

From what I've heard, the big name sports programs typically self fund, as the schools where this is important have alumni booster clubs shelling out a lot of $$, plus promotions/advertising/television.

So while it's "unnecessary spending", it doesn't equate to increased costs.