Conservatives want to cause a massive recession in higher education

jimma carter created the Dept of Ed in 1979

what has it accomplished that is noteworthy- surely there must be something as our educational standards have gone down

 

What is the question? If the question is: "how do you make college affordable and accessible to as many people as possible in a market-driven system" then yes, throwing money at it is the answer (including throwing money at debt forgiveness). What else could you do if your commitment is to both markets and access? Now, if the question is: "how can we lower rich people's taxes and create a caste of virtual serfs in a market system" then some of these solutions presented in this thread are better for sure. None of these things would be on my list of ideal, but I'm one of the few here who is not ideologically committed to market economics.

 

Well it does run probably the most profitable government program in history, Federal Student Loans

 

So the assumption is all the added expense and cost is necessary? That it all serves the students and the goal of educating them? That there is no way to address this from a cost perspective? Just accept it and print more money?

Just doesn't sound like a reasonable solution. Not sure that anyone's tax burden really needs to go up either because there is probably a lot of fluff (shiny new projects) that could be cut. Especially so if the system - like most Western countries who value an educated populace - has the exclusive goal of educating not filling the pockets of the usual parasites.

 

Well, if the goal is serving students and educating them, then we should make college free for anyone that is qualified, and that would definitely cost more than loaning money to people who are willing to go into debt to pay market rates. The primary goal in this particular society is to profit, and keep taxes low on the wealthiest individuals to appease them. Its all 'waste' to them.

 

Maybe. Maybe not. There is certainly a "cost" to the current student loan program. Throw in inflated costs overall . . . .

Then there is the benefit to having a better (or the best) educated populace in the world. May not be a number you can stick in an excell cell right now, but there is definitely a benefit to that.

Very similar to healthcare, right? We pay more for less.

 

If you are talking financial costs, the student loan program is enormously profitable for the government and it generates a tremendous amount of knowledge and research that is used for both good and nefarious purposes. Its a boon for the government, and probably to a lesser degree citizens and residents who theoretically benefit from technical, medical or defense advances in the abstract (subject to the enormous inequalities capitalism produces). The cost is to the people who take on debt, whether you can pay it back or not, at best its an opportunity cost at worse its a crippling financial burden. Yet, whenever we address that, people get high and mighty about debt relief being immoral and their go to policy is always preventing people from getting loans, reducing access. Making sure lenders get paid their interest seems more important than students, who we of course blame for studying the wrong things.

 

When serving the needs of lenders is the goal, the result for society will always be poor.

 

Yet if you poll people, I'm sure "paying your debts is important" will get Putin-like approval numbers. You can say "screw banks" in the abstract, but the majority of posters here were saying Biden's debt forgiveness was anything from bad policy to downright sinister.

 

Something I heard many years ago but have adopted as my own; Between the unions and politicians, the students don’t have a chance. If you don’t mind, I would like to request the parasites be added to that statement.

 

Despite the recent change in perceptions, education is still your best bet with a high ROI. The higher the education achievement level, the lower the unemployment rate and higher the average earning rate. While there is no guarantee for success, there is still no safer bet than education.

And government paying for education is a solid investment. The government makes a solid ROI on K-12 education, as again, every study shows a person with a high school education will remain employed more, earn more, and pay more in taxes. Same argument to have government pay for higher education as well, and in many countries, they do.

The drawback for paying for higher education is lack of competition. And competition in higher education drives achievement and innovation. In countries where higher education is paid for, most students go to their local college because there isn't much of a difference between schools in the country. The US system is very different.

With that said, costs have been outpacing inflation, and it's getting more and more out of control. Competition and innovation also drive up costs for the best resources. This includes infrastructure and talent, which aren't cheap. Even online education has costs for professors, TAs, and IT, as online infrastructure to run a Student Information System with thousands of students and hundreds of professors isn't cheap nor easy.

Not sure what the answer is, but deep cuts to the DOE without studying the effects is definitely NOT the answer. It will lead to chaos and less innovation. It already takes months, if not years for schools to be able to launch new programs and get DOE approval. Schools are are slow to react to the market to offer new programs that keep up with new tech. The DOE is often a major bottleneck. This is only going to get worse.

 

"Rufo: I think that you could put the university sector as a whole into a significant recession. And I think that would be a very salutary thing. I think that putting the universities into contraction, into a recession, into declining budgets, into a greater competitive market pressure, would discipline them in a way that you could not get through administrative oversight with 150 extra Department of Ed bureaucrats. A medium- or long-term goal of mine is to figure out how to adjust the formula of finances from the federal government to the universities in a way that puts them in an existential terror and have them say, Unless we change what we’re doing, we’re not going to be able to meet our budget for the year."

I have never liked the model of the feds taking money from states & then requiring them to behave a certain way/beg to get their money back. I much prefer a model where states keep the money they need* for state functions & let the federal government beg for money to run fed programs.

* this would be somewhat complicated as states of course would arg they need it all. It would not be that hard to work out though. It is my understanding that this is the Swiss model.

 

Yeah, the other thing we have not touched on is every school has "rankings brain" and is in competition with other schools, which of course does not incentivize larger enrollments in special programs or just in general. Competing as an "elite" institution while also maximizing enrollment involves contradictions.

 

Obviously dentists, doctors or electricians could be certified to be at a certain level of competency by professional organizations, hospitals or whatever.

Underwriters Laboratories certifies electrical appliances and equipment.
People look for the UL label because they know it's sign of quality.

Why impose your standards on everyone else? Where it's harder to become a dentist dental health declines. One reason is there are fewer dentists and the cost of dentistry rises. Some patients forego trips to the dentist. Wait times to see a dentist become longer.

Same with doctors. Fewer doctors means longer wait times. Doctors become overworked and overstressed. Doctor suicide rates rise.

Generally the free market would keep the number of poor practitioners low. If you suck and screw up you get sued. And when you suck it will be difficult to get insured.

Online referrals or referrals from family and friends would be a good way to increase your chances for getting a competent professional.

What happens when there is a shortage of electricians and too much needed work? Licenced electricians will hire unlicensed workers to do much of the work, often bending the rules to do so.

Here's another problem with licensing health professionals--who decides who gets licensed and what schools are accredited? Often doctors and others who have a financial incentive to limit competition, that's who.

Just a few random thoughts that I know Dr Ron Paul would agree with. So would nobel laureate economist Milton Friedman if he was still around.

 

Just wait until Trump and Musk decimate Medicaid. People will no longer be able to get preventive care and will flood the hospitals for simple things like toothaches and sore throats and ankle sprains, etc.Without Medicaid, patients will truly forego dental and preventive care until they end up in hospitals with chronic health crises.

 

I can't tell if you're being serious or not...
Maybe we could end state licensures and boards and just go with Angie's List certifications, that could easily rank electricians on how many folks have died by electrocutions resulting from that electrician's work.
Yeah, that's it, let's abolish state licenses and rely on Angie's List for reviews instead of certifications.

 

Ok, so what are the unions and politicians specifically doing that makes students "don't have a chance?"

 

I don’t think to some of these people, and maybe even Trump now, they don’t give a damn about a recession. It’s all about winning the culture war. They just want to have cultural power. If we are all poorer as a result, that’s a price they are willing to pay.

They idolize Victor Orban, the head of a very middling economy.

 

Interesting how that works. Give a student a loan for virtually anything and make them impossible to discharge through bankruptcy, not coincidentally lower rates and in monopoly fashion crushing the private sector….then champion how profitable that is……if that was private sector you’d be crying foul. And yes I’m fully aware of undue hardship in bankruptcy Good luck with that.