My favorite quote: In Vietnam, still run by the Communist Party, the very selective national university is offering free tuition to anyone who signs up for the university’s curriculum in Marxism. They’ve had to offer free tuition because no students have been signing up for these courses, as in zero. I can’t help but be amused that the market-clearing price for courses in radical philosophy is lower in a Communist university than in American universities.
Regardless of political leanings, this is the most salient point to me. What has been causing this? To me, this is one of the disasters that liberals and conservatives have both been responsible fro creating, liberals because of their insistence that everyone borrow as much money as they want, and conservatives for slashing higher education budgets, ensuring that students have to borrow that much. Whatever the case, the professor is correct that it's the wrong direction. I have no idea how we could reverse this trend, but I think it's a must (both on a human level and for practical, economic considerations). Anyway, no matter what your political leanings, this is a very interesting lecture, and I recommend reading it if you have some time.Today, only about 7% of recent college graduates come from the bottom-income quartile, compared with 12% in 1970 when federal aid was scarce. We’re going the wrong direction.
I would have said "government" rather than liberals/conservatives as to who is responsible for ruining schools. I think schools with big endowments should lose tax exempt status and/or have a permanent 1-5% yearly tax on their capital. It would, er, sharpen them. Anyway, off topic. I would also be interested to learn more about how federal money for research has changed schools from what we view as the "golden era." -XC
Well, yeah, but the definition of conservative/liberal changes a lot over the years as the center shifts. For example, we rarely argue about free silver/gold (William Jennings Bryan call your office), etc. And I read today (somewhere on the internet, so it must be true!) that congress is going to wind down Fannie and Freddie in the next few years. So apparently government sponsored mortgages for people who can't possibly afford them is no longer on the board. (Charlie Rangle, you call your office too, ok?) -XC
I think the solution is to nationalize higher education and get private money out of it.
I've never liked that idea, because it would leave us with a situation like in Europe where higher education is rationed. The US is unique in that one always has a second chance to get more/better education to improve one's circumstances. This is a result of paying to go to school. I'm no fan of for profit colleges, but I do think there is a lot of value that results directly from having to fund you own education.
I've never seen any evidence to support the claim that higher education in Europe is rationed. And a cost barrier to higher education is innately classist.
Is that necessary? Just because higher education becomes public doesn't mean you have to ration it. But even if we stuck to rationing higher education is it really worse than what we have now? Crushing student debt that amounts to over $1 trillion dollars?
"People go to college just to go to college." Some do, sure. Do you have any statistics for what % of students are doing that? "Don't get a PhD in English lit at a cost of $100,000 if you plan on being debt free in your life." I don't think it's right to restrict what type of education one wants to perform based on what they are expecting to be paid after they graduate. A lot of education that may not be considered economically viable can still be useful.