Comments on College Capacity Grows

• Stone Age Financing Formulas?
• Posted by Glen S. McGhee , Dir., at Florida Higher Education Accountability Project on September 12, 2007 at 8:55am EDT

• The policy folks need next to look at the differential costs between programs *to* the institutions that run them.
  Since tuition costs are uniform, this masks the underlying market dynamics that value a pharmacists degree more than an elementary school teachers.

  The actual cost of producing elementary school teachers, for example, is now about 1/20th the cost of educating chemists and physicists. Yet, the debt burden to students and taxpayers is the same, regardless of degree. Everyone pays the same for their degree, even though the costs AND the value of the respective jobs varies considerably.

  At some point we will have to come out of the Stone Age, and a top-to-bottom examination of financing would be a start.

• Posted by Tom Ferstle , Professor on September 12, 2007 at 10:50am EDT

• University education is based upon a medieval model, not a "stone age" device. I was wondering how a student in the pharmacy department who had to take my core freshman writing class would feel about having paid more for the class than the education major sitting next to her. Or would these adjustments be made further down the road in light of the tax benefits given to certain professions over others? Part of the problem seems to be that the medieval model was not predicated upon a capitalistic social model, and its aims and goals of education were not designed with some instrumental purpose of education in mind, but rather an essential nature of education to form a certain kind of person that would make choices and decisions to improve society based upon their natural abilities. Perhaps if students weren't charged so much for their education they would be more likely to choose professions from their heart rather than from the probability of reward for entering some new (well actually here is a sector as old as the stone age) economic sector demand, like military armaments design and distribution.
  Best Regards,
  Tom Ferstle

• Posted by MB on September 12, 2007 at 10:55am EDT

• Good point, Glenn.

• Posted by Harbinger on September 12, 2007 at 1:25pm EDT

• "the number of high-school-age and adult students grows — and their academic preparation is perceived as declining"

  Yay! a greater proportion of underqualified, functionally illiterate slackers who resent education,feel entitled to be passed for minimal effort, and generally make an over-taxed system rely on underpaid adjuncts.

  "Higher" education is coming to an end...

• College Costs
• Posted by Blind Man on September 12, 2007 at 3:00pm EDT

• There would be many economic problems with the model that Glenn has proposed. I will touch on only a few here.

  For instance, there is the concern that those degree's with a higher tuition cost might not attract enough people to fill the jobs related to the degree. This could cause a ripple in society (higher taxes, and a possible spike in starting salaries) when the related jobs went unfilled. Current starting salaries may be a factor in determining major I am sure, but only one factor.

  Or that the low tuition related majors would be overburdened resulting in a glut of graduates for that major, and as a consequence a future increase to the tuition for that major to deal with the demand. Also a drop in salaries for those students who constitute the glut group.

  Tuition should not be the driver for economic fine tuning. It makes more sense for the university to try to make it a level playing field for students and to let the student choose where they "want to go" so to speak.

  For example, the current nursing shortage has caused a proliferation of attempts to fill the gap with expanded financial aid, hiring additional instructors, loan forgiveness among others.

  Market need (job availability) is only one factor in the decision making process for students. Interests, skills and aptitudes play a part as well and there are many others.

  Further, it is not the sole mission, nor arguably the most important mission of colleges to be the apparatus of the state or business interests as one poster noted. Of course, public colleges would give greater weight to this than the privates might.

  There is much merit in keeping tuition costs for all as low as possible.

  Perhaps the right approach to address the nursing shortage, for instance would have been for those public colleges offering nursing degrees to roll back tuition on the promise of a state subsidy for nursing students rather than providing the student with additional grant or loan. Some people don't like the idea of any money going to the college rather than the student though, and in the end the effect is probably the same.

• You can Pay me Now or Pay me Later
• Posted by Joe Hagy on September 13, 2007 at 7:30am EDT

• If any other "business" tried to sell their product with the cost/price structure that higher education uses they would be out of business or in jail for price fixing and usery.

  The effect of "everybody pays the same" can be seen in the number of Liberal Arts graduates still paying on student loans versus those Pharmistist ect. Another effect is the reduction of males teaching elementry school. Heck, it is seen in the number of teacher period.

  The almighty American Higher Education System is well on its way to becoming the almighty American Ford Motor Company, a failure on its way down.

  When you look at the added value of a bachelors degree as a salary generator it is a waste of money for most of the non-hard science degrees. Thank God we still can sell people on the value of learning for learnings sake. (Is that what they are buying?)

  The greed of the money lenders, has cut the ground out from under the "one price fits all" students. It has now become the "one debt fits all". Of course they don't see what's happening, all theives lie to themselves about what they do and its effect. We are all good men as we ourselves know.

  If a school can calculate all those "fees" it can calculate a deferential tuition. There is no technical reason for not doing it. Ah, but there is a revenue issue isn't there?

  Liberal Art type students and their parents are beginning to wake up to the fact that they are subsidizing the potential better life styles of their chemistry major room-mates.

  Don't be fooled by the fact that enrollments are "going up". That always happens in a recession, and in fact is a percurser of such.

  The key concept here is simple "equity". It is amazing that higher education can't handle such a simple concept.

  America still has faith in higher education and its value. Don't let that go away, you will never get it back in your lifetime. Try fairness for the student, or lose the whole game.