Conservatives want to cause a massive recession in higher education

These people dont seem to understand anything, even that education bureaucracy isnt especially liberal and is aligned with them in various ways. Like the main reason people want to dump capital here (or come educate themselves here and stay) is our university system, stable civil service sector, rule of law, etc. Just gonna kill all that and make everyone poorer, except some billionaires. Seems like Europe or China could take advantage of the inevitable 'brain drain' too.

 

Higher education has overinflated over the last 25 years. There needs to be a reset, kids can't afford to go unless they go into debt, and sometimes for a education or arts degree...

The ROI for degrees is also diminishing as tech and AI can do it faster, cheaper and better for the individual.

Having said all that, we need to keep the graduate level research intact somehow. What a lot of people, including our billionaire class don't realize is that a lot of tech, medicine and other advanced disciplines are subsidized by education. 5G, for example, was developed by the universities, I worked on it at UF while I was in grad school. Now it's available for ATT and Verizon to screw you over for it.

Self driving cars were developed in the labs of Stanford, UF, Carnegie Mellan, VT, GT, in 2000-2011. I'm sure Tesla hired these folks and now you have their software. Businesses rarely invent anything of value without federal research $.

 

Explain how making universities poorer and less staffed will help with tuition costs lol

 

By reducing the overhead at the universities. They had a free charge whatever you want with guaranteed student loans and grants. If the customer never says no,.prices creep up. Same thing happens with medicine.

Only way to fix them is to cut what you don't need, students can shop or decide what they absolutely need or not. Same thing with medicine, you cut routine services, folks can decide what they want to do.

The other option is regulations and more taxes. It's really that simple. The American public want their cake and eat it too. Not possible. Something or someone has to pay...

 

Just met with a 2025 dental student about to graduate. Over $300K in debt. My wife graduated in 2006...$100K in debt. No reason the cost of dental school should have tripled. But easy money made it easy to just raise the cost to the student. At least there is a reasonable ROI still there for a dental degree. But higher ed got full of itself and took advantage of being able to charge ridiculous tuition.

 

C'mon, in what world do you think less university slots (i.e. smaller supply), means lower tuition? Do you really think their motivation is to make school affordable for many or only affordable for the most well-off?

 

The biggest beneficiaries of gutting the traditional universities will be all those scammy non-accredited private schools, and those typically cost more money to begin with, and when university costs rise, they will be more competitive. People will continue to pay high costs for education, but will get less out of it.

 

It’s funny some people are surprised at the increasing expense of a higher education when everything is more expensive. For instance the average cost of a car in 2006 was $23,634. Today the average cost is $47,000.

A major reason is because tuition in this country is unregulated as opposed to other first world nations.

 

It was obvious 25-30 years ago that education should cost far less.

Online education is key. School voucher make sense for K-12. And higher education has to be accredited. Work in your field to gain practical experience Then you pass a test to demonstrate competency.

As always, liberals fight tooth and nail to make everything less efficient and more costly.

Licensure should be ended. There are ways to show that you are above average in your field without being licensed. Per Milton Friedman

 

Online should be free. Computers have gotten cheaper over time by the way, if you compare apples to apples.

 

Somewhat disagree with that. Most govt run universities have multiple funding sources, so saying that they can't find a lecture without student tuition is crazy. There are ways to reduce cost, especially for undergraduate studies. Most lectures are now recorded. No reason to have the same lecture every semester when you can just put them on a LMS and let the student decide how fast to learn.

You mentioned veterinarians, medical doctors etc. The reason these are so expensive is because they are artificially limited by the govt. They only take so many students a year, and because of that, cost goes through the roof. If there was more access to these degrees, costs would drop and so would salaries for doctors, hence why they won't do it. I live with one so I'm fully aware of the debt and the game these universities play.

 

Apparently the COVID schools shutdown taught you nothing.

Distance learning can work with a few who can work independently and responsibly, but most students rely on the structure and support of in-person school to help them stay on track with assignments.

School vouchers sound great on paper, but a voucher school being sold as a prep school is a joke. They don’t provide the same services like transportation, school lunches, and even health care that parents rely on and expect. As far as instructors go, in Florida to teach at a voucher school a college degree isn’t required. So a kid can drop out of school, pass a GED exam, and go to work teaching at a voucher school the next day.

As far as licensure goes a teacher can’t get a license without a degree, passing a teacher exam, and then certification exams for their subject. Would you be comfortable having a doctor who isn’t board certified?

 

But aren't they trying to cut those other sources of revenue (e.g., research funding)?

It is interesting that just 5 years after the wailing about how online education was so much worse that the solution has gone back to online education.

 

The govt needs to stop subsidizing. Let the employers pay if they want their workforce to gain skills, right now they are getting a free ride by getting higher ed trained employees without paying for it. Some of the training responsibilities need to be shifted to employers. The govt literally pays from age 5 to almost 25. Not sustainable.

If folks want to keep the current system or increase education, that's ok, but we need to start voting in politicians that will raise taxes across the board.

 

make it harder for "colleges" to qualify for student loans
publish graduation rates and total cost of attendance
publish 1, 3, 5 year average salaries of graduates of each program
more online, less ivy tower. look at the UF experience today vs 30 years ago and wonder why it costs so much. yes dorms need a/c. no, they don't need tanning beds and nap pods and Starbucks

Obama tried to touch the third rail of higher ed his first year in office and got burned. I think I recall that 1 in 6 jobs in the US are related to higher ed

interesting..higher ed lobbying groups decreased and funding decreased in 2019 when earmarks died and really fell off the cliff in 2024

Higher Ed Spending On Lobbying Declines

Colleges and universities spent just under $75 million to lobby Congress in 2019, Inside Higher Ed reports, which is $22 million less than they did in 2010. The number of institutions of higher learning that were hiring lobbyists also dropped, from 683 to 396.
A big difference, insiders say, is that before the drop, Congress was using earmarks when appropriating federal money. The year before Republicans banned the practice, colleges and universities received almost $2 billion in such grants.

“In 2010, Congress was still using earmarks in the appropriations process, and a lot of work was devoted to this particular part of advocacy,” says Terry Hartle, senior vice president for government relations and public affairs for the American Council on Education.

The decline in spending by colleges and universities “reflects an overall drop in spending on educational lobbying, including K-12,” according to Higher Ed. Its source is the Center for Responsive Politics, which reports that $81 million was spent last year on education lobbying, a drop from $109 million a decade ago. A partial explanation for the decline — besides the end of earmarks — is that Congress in 2010 was hammering out changes to the federal student loan program.

National Council of Higher Education Resources Lobbying Profile • OpenSecrets

 

Why do employers need to be education providers? More importantly, why should they? This is ridiculous to think they a)would and b) whatever they provide wouldnt be highly tailored to a very discrete tasks, which would make that person less marketable if they wanted to change jobs. At best you get a employees more in thrall to employers or you are asking employers to make their workers more skilled and thus more hirable to competition, which they have no incentive to do. At worst, you get people in debt servitude to their employer working off the cost of their education!

 

The gop has been anti education for decades and we are reaping the rewards of that in recent years. An ignorant population is easier to manipulate and control. Plus they despise " all those ivory tower elites, experts, scientists, etc". Back to your rowing stations!!!!!

 

Not only have we foolishly tied healthcare to employment in this country, we have people advocating we do the same for education. Unbelievable!