These are fantasies pimped by what I presume is your preferred media. If higher ed is becoming less popular, it's all about economics.
My God. This is getting stupid. PLEASE try to learn something about the purpose about a college education. For ..... sakes. You're smarter than this.
yes, my statement on that was perhaps overstated, but the point is, federally subsidizing the study of fields that doesn’t have an individual or societal payoff should not be among our highest priorities. Given you are resorting to dislikes and insults now … clearly this is upsetting to you because you are personally vested in the government subsidizing all matter of irrelevant studies and upper middle class welfare. You want the rest of us to pay for all this, at the expense of people who have little and at the expense of more important priorities.
You clearly didn’t read the article. Politics is absolutely a factor and is reflected in the political demographics of who is going to college.
Those were all questions. And do you really believe it is all economics? That seems like a very simplistic approach to a complex issue.
Ok, now that we're both down in the mud, I'm gonna step away. I generally like your posts and respect your knowledge about economics. We are Mars/Venus on this topic. Cheers
Fair enough. I understand the issue with my ideas/suggestions on this issue - even if one agrees with them (which you don’t , and that’s fine) is how exactly do you implement them - for which I don’t have a good answer.
Yeah, I'm not a big believer in the government engaging in central planning to determine what ideas and disciplines will be valuable economically and socially in the future. The market will take care of it. Don't students already view college as a license to party? I'd say people are incentivized to not flunk out because it's hard to get a decent college to accept you if you do.
Can you give me a list of the "irrelevant studies"? I'm interested in knowing which majors you think are not economically valuable or societally beneficial.
I have no problem with “the market” sorting it out. Government guaranteed loans are not consistent with the market taking care of it.
Instead of me listing my biases and perceptions, such a policy should look at actual criteria - such as earnings potential, percent of loans in default, etc. If art history (which I am randomly picking on) has a better payoff and lower default rate than others, by all means, subsidize it. Perhaps set up some sort of loan market - with private lenders setting the criteria. If private lenders think art history is less risky than engineering or accounting, so be it.
There are norms and etiquette even on message boards. Typically dislikes are reserved for offensive material or when people become emotional.
Is earnings potential a strong predictor of societal value? Social workers and teachers don't make a lot of money. Investment bankers make a ton of money. In the law, corporate lawyers make far, far more money than public defenders, prosecutors, and the average civil rights lawyer. Does that adequately convey societal value? How does creating a system that will lead to more profiteering and predatory behavior benefit anybody? We're already seeing this sort of shit in health insurance, and it is not a good thing. Why would we expand it to higher education? End of the day, the people who are picking less lucrative majors will end up making less money over the course of their careers. They might be comfortable with that for many reasons because there are other things they value more highly than money.
I understand it is difficult, perhaps impossible to set up logical and agreeable criteria. However we have chosen to go down a model where states fund less college, government steps in with loans, and via subsidized competition colleges create these elaborate luxurious campuses and facilities and all kinds of obscure programs for academic notoriety - all of which adds lots of cost. I just think there needs to be a more logical and deliberate way of allocating resources. What we are doing now is not working. I’m open to suggestions.
