

The Prestige Racket - najirama
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/college_guide/feature/the_prestige_racket.php

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dkarl
_“Some 40 percent of students pay list price,” Trachtenberg says. “These are
people from wealthy families; I have no compunction about charging them list
price. They can afford it.” But the school’s financial aid numbers make it
clear that the picture is a little more complicated._

It doesn't outright say so, but it seems that Trachtenberg is relying on the
canard that students attending on loans are not actually paying full price,
which is absurd.

I actually had a college send me an embossed certificate in the mail awarding
me a "Faculty of Arts and Sciences Scholarship." It was a low-interest loan. I
felt like they were making fun of me. It was humiliating. I really wanted to
go to that school, and it was like getting an embossed "Fuck you" in the mail.

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hugh3
Isn't a loan at below-market rates equivalent to free money?

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dkarl
Oh, yay, I would have got a few percent off the list price that I was 70% away
from affording.

They could have given me that money up-front, right? Only that would have been
too honest. The fact that they called a loan a "scholarship" is all you need
to know about how much respect they had for kids' understanding. They rely on
kids not knowing what it's like to pay off loans. Or on kids wanting to cash
in on their degree after college, which I had no desire to do.

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hugh3
I don't get it. Unless the total cost of college was more than you're planning
to make over your entire career (which I doubt) then how are you 70% away from
affording it?

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dkarl
Being able to pay for something eventually is not a reasonable way to decide
what you can afford. Try a mortgage calculator and see how much you can
"afford" by that definition. It's insane. Nobody should dedicate half their
life to paying off college unless the whole purpose of college for them is to
land a high-paying job afterwards. $120k (fifteen years ago) might be a
reasonable fee for meeting a bunch of rich people and getting insane
management or banking job offers afterwards, but I wasn't interested in that.

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hugh3
Fair enough, but it still seems to fall into the category of "more than I'm
willing to pay" rather than "more than I can afford".

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gaius
This is interesting:

 _GW students’ average SAT scores increased by 200 points_

So, this strategy really did improve the quality of the school, it wasn't
merely perception.

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mebassett
perhaps more affluent students have more time and money to spend on SAT prep
material and classes, and thus have higher averages?

(On the flip side, and to agree with you, I think the strength of a school is
really tied to the strength of the students, since it's one's peers that make
a great educational experience, IMHO. Any strategy that gets a school to climb
the rankings will likely get the school more ambitious applicants.)

~~~
yummyfajitas
Or, perhaps more affluent students are smarter, more conscientious and better
prepared for academic work on average, and thus have higher average test
scores?

I don't know why everyone assumes that children of the affluent get high SAT
scores due solely to test prep. If that were the case, you would expect them
to underperform once they reach college, which doesn't occur as far as I know.

Incidentally, at least according to one independent study (as opposed to a
study by Kaplan), test prep doesn't help much (30 points on the old 1600 point
SAT).

<http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124278685697537839.html>

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jbooth
Did you just relate native intelligence to parental income level?

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yummyfajitas
Intelligence is both heritable and correlated with wealth. So yes, parental
intelligence can _cause_ both wealth and child intelligence, leading to a
_correlation_ between parental wealth and child intelligence.

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barrkel
Genetic determinism isn't so clear, unfortunately. Humans having two legs is
highly genetically determined, but that doesn't mean that variance in the
number of legs is explained by genes; it's more likely to be environmental
factors, like injuries.

Another factor is reversion to the mean. Two bright people are likely to have
children dumber than them.

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nostrademons
He said correlation, not determinism. It's quite possible for wealthy parents
to have smart children _on average_ and yet for any given child of smart
parents to be spectacularly dumb. (I know a couple myself, FWIW.)

Something with two legs is far more likely to be human than insect, for
example, even if you do have the odd human with only one leg.

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randyr
Prediction on Higher Education (a couple of years from now):

Students no longer drive to class early in the morning. Nor do students have
to work around class schedules. Instead, students view prerecorded lectures
from their laptops/I-Phones. Gone are the days of live teachers and live
students.

These video lectures were recorded many years ago. The university pays the
original "recorded" professor a small royalty for each class. This royalty fee
costs a fraction of a live lecture. This allows the university to pay for a
top notch professor to lecture/record one semester, then reuse that recorded
lecture in subsequent semesters. One-time cost.

Student questions are posted to message boards which a professor actively
monitors and responds to. Students never ask the same question twice since all
previous questions are searchable online. Professor responsiveness is very
quick (usually in 1-2 hours). The professor answering questions is a full time
professor (which may not be the same person as the original recorded
professor). This full-time professor is able to handle four times as many
classes due to automation etc.

The need for college dorms is marginalized since they are no longer necessary.
Because of this, dormitories with excess capacity are demolished since their
operating costs are fixed and become a resource drain if not filled to
capacity. OR, students get single rooms all to themselves!

Tuition prices plummet due to a surplus of pre-recorded lectures on the
market. New industries develop that specialize in creating top-notch video
lectures for colleges and handling student questions on message boards (24/7
rapid response student support). Local colleges contract with these new
companies (again at significantly lower costs).

International students also benefit (lower tuition/more accessible classes
etc). The reach of the US education system now permeates every continent. This
has other benefits to their local economies with a higher skilled workforce.
Traveling to the US for one semester may be required (for lab classes which
require a live teacher).

Tuition for all students is now affordable (and continues to drop as time goes
on). Student loans are minuscule.

In the end, higher education is commoditized. Prices plummet, quality
increases.

