The Great Debate

[Salomé]

Interesting! How's the quality?

Exceptional. (That's because we charge foreigners)

 

[Lark]

Universities dont simply provide training for employment, in a lot of western nations they provide a stop gap between schooling and "life", it saves the labour market being glutted for a year or two when there are insufficient jobs for candidates.

Longevity in the UK has challenged it because people are working longer and the courses arent becoming longer, well some of them are but you get the idea, plus students dont necessarily want to study longer with the poverty and pressures that go with it.

This is the social policy and employment in the economy dimension of further and higher education and was maximised by Labour in the UK, it wasnt popular with some employers or elites because selection and recruitment became more difficult, in theory the declining scarcity of degrees and qualifications should have had a knock on effect in their costs but it didnt happen. The degrees in less vocational topics should have been naturally de-selected. Its a funny old thing the ways that the UK labour government tried to use consumerism and shopping to effect academic change.

 

[Lark]

Should higher education be free?

I'm not in agreement with free education, infact I dont like mislabelling things as free when they are at no extra cost most of the time, a gift with some sort of reciprocal obligation. In this instance I think it should be provided from tax revenue and talk about it BEING tax revenue.

In the developed world its impossible to compete with the wage costs of the developing world, so in theory they do it on the basis of skills, those skills training bills being provided at national taxpayer expense are a cost saving to international investors in a world economy able to shop between tax regimes.

So I think there are pragmatic and economic reasons for providing tax funded training including university places.

However, I would say that there is an equality issue, in the past it is true that public funded bursuries or tuition fees where a regressive form of redistribution from working families and the lower classes to the middle classes. By comparison with a lot of private secondary or boarding schools in the UK it was very cheap for middle classes to get a university education. It also led to the messing up of the primary and secondary school system in the UK as the middle classes deserted public schools and then attacked the tax funding of public schools, simply because it was affordable to do so.

The reforms that the UK government introduced where great but not popularly understood or supported, they appeared to abolish tax funded education altogether but they introduced child trust funds for the population with would mature at the age at which people would be eligible for university education, they could spend it on university tuition fees or they could invest it in a business or use it for a gap year. So it was no longer a regressive redistribution because everyone would be entitled irrespective of class and priorities. Education would be tax funded for those valuing/prioritising that. There was some sort of an idea that the trust funds would also encourage saving, fiscal literacy and home economy too but that didnt happen.

Popularly misunderstood and attacked in the press as yet another entitlement for loafers the conservatives where able to abolish them altogether without any hesitation or complaint from the electorate.

 

[The_Liquid_Laser]

I don't know if we should assume that if an education isn't free to the public its going to better than it would have been in the case where it was paid for by the customers. If university education is to be rendered free to the public, isn't it a possibility that the government will provide enough money for Universities to perform at the level they do now? I think that we can accept that as a possibility at least, the real question is whether or not the U.S government will be able to match the funds that Universities earn by forcing tuition fees on their customers. Do you see that as a likely outcome?

I'd like to say two things to this.

1) Do you think k-12 education is adequately funded? If not then why would university education be any different.

2) Tuition rates for universities are growing at an alarming rate, and they are going to continue to do so. Either taxation would get out of control or quality would suffer because of underfunding.

It's an oversimplified understanding of a very complex issue.
Essentially, k - 12 is free and it largely lowers its standards because its geared towards average people, and the funding for it isn't really great here in America, because Americans dislike taxation. Hence, these two reasons explain the lower quality.

1. Average people need to graduate (so says the government). As a result, we will lower standards so that they can all graduate.

2. Americans dislike taxation, which means public schooling will be lower in quality.

Thus, the U.S. government simply doesn't have much of the budget to be spending on public schooling. So it's obvious why it wouldn't be so great in terms of quality.

However, if Americans simply learned that more taxes generally = higher quality social programs (since we're so afraid of socialism, OOOH so scary), we'd have public education with a lot more quality.

Your solution seems to be that we should somehow change the opinion of most Americans. That task seems much more difficult than the task of making higher education free.

But if we could magically change the opinion of most people then funding higher education would be easy, and we'd know beforehand if it would work. Because if people were willing to pay higher taxes, then we'd first fund k-12. And if that went well then people would be naturally willing to pay taxes for higher education. (Well, this sounds good in writing, but really this is not a practical solution in any way, shape, or form.)

Thus, the real question is: why should we prefer a system that enables only the wealthiest members of society to get a really great education at the expense of the least wealthiest members instead of a system that grants all members of society a decent education in general?

Answer that.

Hey this is actually pretty similar to the question I already posed.

So the question is what is better: quality education or universal education?

You seem to be suggesting that universal education is better than quality education. There is nothing wrong with that opinion, but I believe that if you really want decent, affordable education then you are better off leaving things alone and letting things take their natural course.

Two-year community colleges offer decent quality education for the first two years and are very affordable. It's the last two years at a university that really cost, but I think that will work itself out in time. Either four year universities will wise up and lower costs, or (the more likely case) two year colleges will start to become four year universities but with a better cost structure, and the old model will disappear.

 

[Kasper]

I quite like the system here, it's called HECS (Higher Education Contribution Scheme) or HELP (Higher Education Loan Program). The idea is the government pays your fees to your higher education provider, you study, eventually leave and start earning money and then once you hit a threshold (Approx $45k atm) you begin repaying your debt which is automatically deducted from your pay, the percentage you are required to pay per year is directly related to your annual income and is no more than 8%.

Naturally foreigners are not eligible and must pay up front.

From a student pov free study would be great, from a tax payer pov the individual getting the opportunity to study should pay, therefore the system here seems like the best of both worlds. Those who are studying are incurring a debt so frivolous study is not encouraged but the system is set up so if you never earn over the threshold the debt will never be collectable meaning low income earners do not end up in a worse position.

 

[IntrovertedThinker]

Your solution seems to be that we should somehow change the opinion of most Americans. That task seems much more difficult than the task of making higher education free.

Precisely. And it's sad that people are such stubborn, short-sighted monkies. Ideology definitely keeps people bounded and chained in America.

 

[Red Herring]

Here in Germany (or in my part of the country, since education falls into the domain of the federal states and must not be regulated on a national level) they introduced fees of 500 Euros/semester shortly after I graduated. These are to be used on top of government subsidies and are explicitely meant to be used for investments the universities couldn´t afford otherwise, not as a subsitute for government funding (needless to say they are used for that anyway).

Germany has a lower percentage of university graduates than its neigbors, but since the number of students has increased dramatically compared to the 50s or 60s (when only an elite could go and basically had a good job guaranteed afterwards) and the basic structure has remained the same, our unis still can´t cope. The government´s solution was to introduce relatively small fees (which do keep some people away) and increase funding for a few select universities to create a German equivalent to an ivy league. But even this money is used selectively.

I graduated from Heidelberg University. That´s one of the best in Europe for medicine and a few other disciplines, but most of the humanities are severely underfunded (including my own department - translation), all the extra money goes into a few "clusters of excellence" (a very fashionable concept around here).

I consider education, including tertiary education, to be a civil right. On the other hand, there is a very strong link in my country between social background and education. In other words: The supermarket casheer pays taxes to finance the studies of the lawyer´s kids at a university his or her own kids will never enter.

So if you want broad access to education, you would have to start with reducing the number of dropouts, invest more in teachers to get more and better educated highschool graduates to begin with, encourage upward mobility from one school type to another (another German specialty - we have different school types you go to depending on how slow or gifted you are) and then make sure nobody stays away from university for financial reasons (either tax financed, which has it´s disadvantages in its current form, or through easy government credits as they do in Australia plus a good system of scholarships, of which there are very few in Germany).

Sorry for the long post, but this is a hot buttom issue were I live.

 

[Aleksei]

Should higher education be free?

For science degrees, yes (with strict entry qualifications). For arts degrees, no.

 

[LastTangoThenParis]

Irish people get free fees at third level here, which works out well for me. Although it meant I couldn't justify going to Paris to study French and if I get into Law and French I'll have to make do with a year there...definitely not complaining though, if free fees weren't in place I'd have no hope of being able to go to university in September. Apparently they're considering re-introducing fees but hopefully that won't happen for a while.

Post graduate fees aren't paid by the government though.

 

[SolitaryWalker]

I'd like to say two things to this.

1) Do you think k-12 education is adequately funded? If not then why would university education be any different..

Could it be possible to change the plan regarding management of government resources? That way, the government might find enough money to adequately fund the K-12 and university systems. You mentioned that tuition fees are growing in alarming rate, but is it truly necessary for tuition rates to continue increasing in order to maintain the same quality of education? If so, why?

 

[sculpting]

I disagree with Liquids discussion regarding cost being the deciding factor in quality.

US K-12 schools suck due to diminishing internal standards that are unrelated to cost-more related to making everyone feel good about themselves and not failing students. Also the easier the school work, the more percentage of students pass-and the higher "rating" the school receives-while never learning how to work to learn. My older son made straight As in public school as a lazy ass little bastard. We placed him in a science charter school and he gets Cs and Ds with the occasional B....as they hold him accountable for his lack of work ethic.

universities of are of good quality as they dont help you much-thus force you to you have to learn to think and work independently. Junior colleges do suck as they tend to still spoon feed material, so when kids transfer to the university, they still have not had to "learn how to learn" and do poorly the first semester.

the grad schools are the best in the world, having little to do with coursework and everything to do with research that is conducted here.

I think it is perfectly okay to charge 5 to 10K per year for dorm/tuition.

 

[Aleksei]

US K-12 schools suck due to diminishing internal standards that are unrelated to cost-more related to making everyone feel good about themselves and not failing students. Also the easier the school work, the more percentage of students pass-and the higher "rating" the school receives-while never learning how to work to learn. My older son made straight As in public school as a lazy ass little bastard. We placed him in a science charter school and he gets Cs and Ds with the occasional B....as they hold him accountable for his lack of work ethic.

I could not agree more with this. The US actually spends over $10,000 per pupil and American schools are in shambles.

 

[The_Liquid_Laser]

Could it be possible to change the plan regarding management of government resources? That way, the government might find enough money to adequately fund the K-12 and university systems. You mentioned that tuition fees are growing in alarming rate, but is it truly necessary for tuition rates to continue increasing in order to maintain the same quality of education? If so, why?

Tuition is increasing for universities, because of the existence of community colleges. People are getting their gen. ed. requirements there, because it's cheaper, and the quality of gen. ed. courses at a community college is not much worse than a university.

Most universities make money on gen. ed. courses and lose money on upper level courses. Gen. ed. courses are larger and often taught by grad students or adjunct faculty. Upper level courses are smaller and mostly taught by tenured professors. So when enrollment drops on only gen. ed. courses the university loses money and has to raise tuition.

I suppose if universities were made absolutely free, then you wouldn't have to worry about people going to community colleges. Instead you'd have to worry about paying for all those people from the cheap college coming to the expensive university. You'd also have to pay for all of the people who can't even afford community college. Enrollments would skyrocket as soon as you made the change.

I disagree with Liquids discussion regarding cost being the deciding factor in quality.

I didn't mean to imply that cost was the deciding factor in quality. I'm sorry if my point was not clear. My point really is that it depends more on the source of the money: public or private.

If the money is coming from individuals, then education behaves like any other market. Universities compete to give quality education at a reasonable price. Businesses have to keep their quality high, because competitors would steal their customers otherwise. In terms of sheer quality you cannot beat a market economy.

The downside to this though is that businesses discriminate on what types of customers they want. They purposely set the price high enough so that people who want to pay a low price won't buy their product (in this case eduction). This is because they can get more money from people willing and able to pay a medium to high price. In other words price is a method of rationing. Goods and services are rationed to those who are willing to pay a high enough price.

Therefore if the funding comes from individuals in a market the education will be high quality, but it will not be available to everyone. If education is publicly funded then it will be available to everyone, but it will be of lower quality.

This is essentially the debate of Capitalism vs. Socialism in general. It's just that we are applying it specifically to education in this instance. And the majority of people usually decide somewhere in between the extremes. In the US we have state schools which are partially funded by the government and partially funded by individuals. That is basically a compromise between the two systems.

Also I totally agree about k-12 schools sucking because of diminishing standards. However this is just a side effect of being a public system. Publicly funded systems do not have competitors to keep the quality of their institutions in check.

 

[Coriolis]

K-12 education in the U.S. is best described as inconsistent, at least partially due to its legacy of being locally run and funded. There are excellent public schools, terrible ones, and many mediocre ones in between. If lack of competition is to blame for poor quality, schools overall should be better in areas with many private and church-based alternatives, but there seems to be no such trend. Poor and mediocre schools flourish because Americans have little stomach for academics. They would be happier to see the football team do well than for half the graduating class to be admitted to Ivy League colleges.

Higher education, as others have observed, is likewise inconsistent. Given how many colleges and universities exist in the U.S., it stands to reason that some will be among the best in the world, but very many are barely better than a decent high school.

As for funding, it does a disservice both to society and to individual students to exclude any student from an educational program for which they have interest and ability, because of lack of money. Higher ed could be funded through taxes as a public good; or through loans provided along the lines that Trinity described, with repayment linked to income.

A model that might be more accepted in the U.S. is for higher-ed to be sponsored by industry, in much the same way that the military ROTC programs work. A company or other entity would pay a student's tuition and fees, and the student would then work for that company for a specified amount of years following graduation. A by-product would be that more students have jobs upon leaving university. If the "repayment" term is relatively modest (ROTC is generally 4 years), there is still plenty of time for the student to take that experience and go elsewhere.

 

[SolitaryWalker]

Tuition is increasing for universities, because of the existence of community colleges. People are getting their gen. ed. requirements there, because it's cheaper, and the quality of gen. ed. courses at a community college is not much worse than a university. .

Do you know what inspired more students to take an interest in a community college education?

Most universities make money on gen. ed. courses and lose money on upper level courses. Gen. ed. courses are larger and often taught by grad students or adjunct faculty. Upper level courses are smaller and mostly taught by tenured professors. So when enrollment drops on only gen. ed. courses the university loses money and has to raise tuition..

Suppose that the Universities make no effort to raise their tuition fees and suffer the financial loss of fewer students enrolling in general education classes. In that case will the losses be significant enough to preclude these institutions from maintaining the quality of their current education? I suspect that much of the money that the University earns lands in the pockets of elite officials of the organization. Suppose we cut their salary in half and devote the funds for educational purposes. There is no reason for them to be making $300,000 per year when we have dozens of adjuncts laboring for fast-food wages. Do you think that this idea could be implemented in 10, 20 or even 30 years?






I didn't mean to imply that cost was the deciding factor in quality. I'm sorry if my point was not clear. My point really is that it depends more on the source of the money: public or private.

If the money is coming from individuals, then education behaves like any other market. Universities compete to give quality education at a reasonable price. Businesses have to keep their quality high, because competitors would steal their customers otherwise. In terms of sheer quality you cannot beat a market economy...

I agree with your fundamental premise that businesses need to do what must be done to satisfy customers, however, I cannot accept the conclusion you've arrived at. The general public is generally not interested in learning and attends college to merely earn a degree. They demand courses in which one could succeed without learning a great deal. As you may know, many professors assign simple mutliple choice tests instead of essays that require critical thought and the answers to the tests can almost always be found in the lecture material. American Universities are renowned for their quality of education, however, the truly edifying classes are taught at graduate school academes and not in conventional undergraduate institutions.

Therefore if the funding comes from individuals in a market the education will be high quality, but it will not be available to everyone. ...

In that case it will be the kind that the public demands, but the thesis that it will be of high quality is not warranted.

This is essentially the debate of Capitalism vs. Socialism in general. It's just that we are applying it specifically to education in this instance....

We are paying specifically so we can get a degree that lands us social prestige and a lucrative job. The American social values hold education in low regard. If the public could earn money without going to the Universities, they would gladly drop the pretense that they have any interest in learning.



My concern is that radicalization of capitalism in the university education system will create an undesirable competition among universities. They will be competing not to provide the most edifying education possible, but to appease the interests of the philistines who have little interest in anything but wealth and prestige. An increase in funding for universities certainly improves the quality of graduate level education and academic research, however, it does not have a significantly educative impact upon the general public.

 

[The_Liquid_Laser]

Do you know what inspired more students to take an interest in a community college education?

It's cheaper.

Suppose that the Universities make no effort to raise their tuition fees and suffer the financial loss of fewer students enrolling in general education classes. In that case will the losses be significant enough to preclude these institutions from maintaining the quality of their current education? I suspect that much of the money that the University earns lands in the pockets of elite officials of the organization. Suppose we cut their salary in half and devote the funds for educational purposes. There is no reason for them to be making $300,000 per year when we have dozens of adjuncts laboring for fast-food wages. Do you think that this idea could be implemented in 10, 20 or even 30 years?

Sounds good on paper, but I don't think that will happen in actuality. Businesses in general tend to become top heavy over time. Universities are no different. When a business becomes top heavy, then some new competitor will come in and do things cheaper and steal the customers away. That is basically what needs to happen with education. Community colleges are only stealing students for the first two years. There needs to be a better alternative for years three and four.

I agree with your fundamental premise that businesses need to do what must be done to satisfy customers, however, I cannot accept the conclusion you've arrived at. The general public is generally not interested in learning and attends college to merely earn a degree. They demand courses in which one could succeed without learning a great deal. As you may know, many professors assign simple mutliple choice tests instead of essays that require critical thought and the answers to the tests can almost always be found in the lecture material. American Universities are renowned for their quality of education, however, the truly edifying classes are taught at graduate school academes and not in conventional undergraduate institutions.

I somewhat agree. From what I've seen students often resent gen. ed. courses. So some will take these at a community college. Most students seem to be interested in courses that are in their major though. I do believe there is a high interest for learning in one's own major.

In that case it will be the kind that the public demands, but the thesis that it will be of high quality is not warranted.



We are paying specifically so we can get a degree that lands us social prestige and a lucrative job. The American social values hold education in low regard. If the public could earn money without going to the Universities, they would gladly drop the pretense that they have any interest in learning.



My concern is that radicalization of capitalism in the university education system will create an undesirable competition among universities. They will be competing not to provide the most edifying education possible, but to appease the interests of the philistines who have little interest in anything but wealth and prestige. An increase in funding for universities certainly improves the quality of graduate level education and academic research, however, it does not have a significantly educative impact upon the general public.

When I say quality I mean quality as defined by customers, i.e. the students. You have a point in that this may not be the same as quality defined by you or most educators.

However I think that the main reason people are disinterested in education is that much of it is not relevant to their lives. For example people are taught math, but they are not taught how to balance a checkbook or what credit card interest rates mean. So they are not prepared in a financial sense. Also health and P.E. are often deemphasised or cut in school programs, and yet right now there are a lot of Americans making poor health choices.

I do think our universities will (gradually) be done away with and replaced with something else. However the system that replaces our current system needs to do a better job of teaching people things that they actually want to know.

 

[Lark]

Could it be possible to change the plan regarding management of government resources? That way, the government might find enough money to adequately fund the K-12 and university systems. You mentioned that tuition fees are growing in alarming rate, but is it truly necessary for tuition rates to continue increasing in order to maintain the same quality of education? If so, why?

I agree with that, with every tuition based system there's a hope that market forces and consumer demand will eradicate certain study options and cheapen others, I doubt it will happen though because universities and study has existed for a long time as an elite, exclusive pursuit without a mass subscriber base and it'll simply revert to that once again.

It could mean that, if people do the math, the governments find they are out more money to people claiming benefits than going to train in skills shortages fields because of the initial personal outlay.