<p>A lot of people say the hyper-inflation in college tuitions and fees went to fund administrative bloat. Does anyone have more insight on that – whether it is correct or not?</p>
<p>Administrative bloat, sure. And my personal observation: edifice complex.</p>
<p>But what keeps the money flowing? It’s the artificial rise in demand that has lead to the bubble pricing. Easy loans, grants and financial aid, the pipeline of government money to the universities, the national delusion that education is worth any price - all these factors feed into it.</p>
<p>This party will end … eventually.</p>
<p>MK has it right. The party will eventually end, but it will be over the dead bodies of the current generations of public servants, administrators, and educators who have carved careers in education that have only an indirect focus on education. The current dollars are there but they fund research sinecures, absenteism, bloated salaries at the highest levels, untenable tenure protection, and all kind of programs people developed to exploit the public dollars.</p>
<p>The current system protects the fact cats and politically connected divas. Young teachers are abused but hope to be invited to jump on the gravy train of few teaching duties and plenty of publishing and research.</p>
<p>Speaking about a scorecard, how instructive would one be that CLEARLY shows the hours taught by EACH professor at schools that receive federal aid, AND the cost expressed in dollars per hour and dollars per student on a rolling ten years basis.</p>
<p>As far as helping the students, there is plenty that can be done. Rather than spending fortunes on research that is only published in insiders’ journal, why not redirecting the budgets to offer direct tax credits to companies that offer work study hours to students OFF campus. And, by the way, one positive change would be to make all financial aid non-taxable to students.</p>
<p>Spend the money where it makes a difference. That is in the classrooms and in the student wallets. Not in maintaining pristine ivory towers for the fat cats to enjoy … when they are not on sabbatical or avoiding teaching duties.</p>
<p>“Unfortunately for Obama, Economics 101 says that the more subsidies the government provides, the higher the cost will go.”</p>
<p>What economics 101 says that? What school?</p>
<p>This thread was about HIGER ED, which others turned into a criticism of K-12 (XIGGI) or political commentary re to HIGHER ED. Who will be the fastest to take advantage of the many educational tax advantages in place and new ones and other aid to help their kids? </p>
<p>Love the whines about the government jobs vs. private sector jobs, also.</p>
<p>Cute! Who posted about NCLB to turn back the clock and attempt to move the discussion from Obama’s record on education.</p>
<p>Going for the college vote again? That’s all I see here. One of the reasons college costs are skyrocketing is that the government is heavily involved in loans and wants to take that over exclusively. Everything the government is involved in has increased costs - give an example where that is not the case. When you eliminate competition, costs get quickly out of control. If the government continues on this path, college will only be an option for the very rich and those on scholarship. Yet again, another snub to the middle class. Obama’s base is the elite rich and those in need, so that works for him. He doesn’t care about the plight of all Americans. He didn’t pay a dime for Columbia or Harvard and just can’t imagine PAYING for this.</p>
<p>That State of the Union screen capture link has some of the crucial ‘factors to know’ that we on CC espouse: costs, graduation rate, student loan debt. The student loan repayment & earnings potential boxes are not applicable, really. Student loan repayment is personal & earnings potential is pie-in-the-sky.</p>
<p>While attempting to educate non-CC’ers on higher education costs is actually a good idea, the problem is–much like Obama’s address the other night–what he says & what he does are two completely different things…</p>
<p>Water…</p>
<p>Electricity…</p>
<p>Anyone else see the counterintuitive nature of “cut tuition or I’ll take away funding and you’ll have to raise tuition even more”?</p>
<p>I don’t know why others seem to think that de-funding higher education is somehow better for the country. The US has led the world in quality of higher education for a long time, and it’s because of its public and private investments into universities. In the THE ranking, for example, ~30 of the top 50 universities are in the US, and nearly half of those are public schools. This excellence won’t continue if we decide to cut funding to public universities. The main reason the tuition has gone up in the first place is the state-imposed budget cuts.</p>
<p>It’s a shame that the 2011 federal budget called for ~$45 billion in education, and ~$700 billion in defense spending. Of course, universities receive more research $ through discretionary spending in various other departments, but our defense accounts for nearly half of the world’s total defense spending; the sum of all the most powerful countries’ defense budgets doesn’t even equal the US defense budget. If anything is “bloated,” it’s defense spending, caused by an “artificial demand” (the supposed threat of other nations, i.e. “the boogeyman mentality” also known as paranoia), the national delusion that we need to spend $ to protect ourselves at any cost, and the easy pipeline of federal funding (encouraged by conservative politics).</p>
<p>Either divert more spending to education or raise taxes. The US can’t afford to have a dumber society (if that were possible).</p>
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<p>Two things I disagree with: one, spending less on research is never a good idea for the competitiveness of the US. Any society that wants to flourish economically and to remain a world power must invest heavily in research, or else the country will stagnate. (Since all commercially successful research is rooted in basic research, and since universities are where most basic research occurs, federal R&D funding to universities is important, even if publication/access is restricted in journals). And two, I don’t think corporations need any more tax breaks these days.</p>
<p>Side note, regarding insiders’ journals: I think all publicly-funded research should have open access. In an ideal world, *all *academic research would be open-access, which hopefully will happen with time (if publishers like Elsevier can be taken down).</p>
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<p>Spoken by one of our most helpful parent posters and experts on financial aid. One cannot legislate economics 101 (that would be micro, the business of running a college), altho Washington tries mightily (thru macro).</p>
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<p>Small nit, but the US Constitution clearly lays out a federal role for the national defense. The Constitution does not discuss education, which historically has been the responsibility of the states (Amendment #10).</p>
<p>Macro can affect micro…</p>
<p>And it does…</p>
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<p>Depends - Mrs. Turbo applied for a senior IT position in our state (where IT is about 10+ years behind the times) thinking the same as the above, only to find out the salary was $25k/year less, the gilded benefits and pension were history, and only vacation was worthwhile. And extremely nice offices.</p>
<p>At the extremes, sure - low-skill jobs may pay more at the government level, but only because the private sector does not want to pay living wages. At the other extreme, how’s a president of a 40,000 student, few thousand employee university making half a million a year making more than a CEO of similar size company?</p>
<p>Yes, the UNC rate increase sucks for me as a student planning to attend a school in that system. But we’ve managed to keep stunningly low tuition rates around here. Just look at Chapel Hill’s reputation as one of the top colleges in the country and their very low in-state tuition rate. It HAD to happen sometime, that isn’t an example of “jacking up tuition” for more money. </p>
<p>I do agree that it shouldn’t be possible to start jacking up rates every year, but I’m not sure if pulling aid is the way to prevent this.</p>
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<p>True, but the Constitution also doesn’t outlaw gender discrimination and still has vestiges of an old time like the right to bear arms. Times have changed, and the Constitution is still playing catch-up; the federal government has clearly stepped into public higher education by controlling student loans, giving out Pell Grants, funding research, and giving states categorical grants for education.</p>
<p>IMO the government needs true opposition, not a phantom or pure delusion, to justify “defense” as the Constitution defines it. Otherwise it’s just “offense.”</p>
<p>State University of New York (SUNY) is trying to keep the tuition money going into the classroom by having the schools aligned geographically to reduce administrative costs. Some of the smaller colleges are sharing a President and they are looking into sharing billing on a regional basis. Both of my sons are at SUNY schools and each had a difficult time registering for the freshman required courses since there simply were too many freshman for the number of slots available which means that it could take them longer to graduate if the incoming freshman don’t have credits earned in high school. Both SUNY schools did preregister them for courses in their respective majors which keeps them on track if they can register for the gen eds down the road. Hoping the streamlining makes up for the tuition increases and that the students will be able to get into the classes that they need by putting more dollars into the classroom.</p>
<p>As a small note, let’s confine our remarks to the role of government and politicians in … Education. Let discussions about defense spending bring joy to another forum.</p>
<p>Phanta, you misunderstood the “modest proposal” regarding tax breaks for corporations. Perhaps I should tryvia an example. Rather than funding basic research about the use of the iPhone as an automatic translator to a foreign language, why not fund or detax the work of Stanford students at a small company in Mountain View? The tax breaks would be for direct salary expenses paidby the company.</p>
<p>Let’s not kid ourselves. Research dollars will keep flowingto universities. We will still see obscure research published in places that are only read by the peers. My proposal would simply dedicate resources to DIRECT partnerships between the funders, the schools, and the companies that hire students for jobs that are related to their studies. </p>
<p>I am sure you have your pulse on what such partnerships could mean in Palo Alto, if history repeats itself. Getting some benefits to students is simply a cherry on the cake.</p>
<p>i remember when student loan access and correlationn to high COA was a Republican issue.</p>
<p>likewise FNM, FHA, SLM,</p>
<p>Remember, Taxpayers Are Subsiding DS & me-Parents, $21,000 on $60,000 federal guaranteed loans, if held to term. We however will pay just $7,000 in tax deductible interest.</p>
<p>and we were full payers.</p>
<p>Current Students should consider maximizing their direct student loans now, and then do an consolidation prior to July 1. It would a conservative financial strategy.</p>
<p>LP, it is hard to find a murkier subject than government students’ loans. Is charging interest at 3.4 or 6.8 percent really a subsidy for students when the government borrows the funds at an effective rate that is close to zero? The entire history of government action or inaction is as sad as it comes, filled with abject political games and hundred of millions diverted to line the pockets of bandits politically connected to both parties. </p>
<p>However, as you may know, the subject of the OP was not student loans, but the direct aid to colleges. It was not about the 140B of loans, but about the 3B of direct aid. </p>
<p>Much more is needed in cleaning the education funding mess. The cost for families, be it direct or indirect via taxation or ad valorem taxes has long ago reached its natural limits. Reducing costs through austerity plans should contribute positively, especially if the savings are redeployed intelligently. Our education system presents the dual image of being rough on the young and weak(er) professionals and amazingly profitable for what I have called the fat cats. In tertiary education, the life of associates and assistant teachers is nothing compared to the professors who started decades ago. In K-12, recent teachers who did not start in eras of unfettered union-extracted benefits are probably wondering why they have to put up with such abuses. Please tell me how we justify allowing the super of a school system such as Syosset can earn over 500,000 per year and be driven around in a chauffered limo and at the same time paying minimum wages to graduates from our best schools who want to be teachers? </p>
<p>And the students suffer about everywhere from this dysfunctional system. Fair or not, the problems do start at the top.</p>