

Higher education bubble poised to burst  - cwan
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Higher-education-bubble-poised-to-burst-720594-102180809.html

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awt
Haven't seen a lot of discussion of what a bursting "education bubble" will
mean. Anybody have some good links that talk about what will happen? Will
universities go out of business? Will people stop going to college? The
implications are not clear to me.

~~~
artsrc
Perhaps graduates with PHD's will struggle to get university teaching jobs
which pay $8.50 and hour, and never have much of a hope at the good tenured
professors jobs.

Or perhaps graduates won't get jobs at all and the tax payers or parents will
be on the hook for the student loans.

~~~
awt
Well I think that's already the case, and yet the system continues...

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astrofinch
The services a university provides are mostly not related to education.
They're related to credentialing. Like it or not, a degree is evidence that
someone is going to be a better employee for the median modern job--if nothing
else, just because they had the determination to finish.

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AlexBlom
Well, University was once selective and about refining a craft. As more people
come we develop protocols which counteract the original intent, so we made
grad school.

Grad school people earned more money, more people go to grad school, rinse &
repeat.

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achompas
Universities have a real problem: what they teach you has almost ZERO
application outside of their ivy-covered walls. For most degrees (non-
engineering, IMO), you don't learn how to add value to the economy--you just
learn to jump through academic hoops.

I know too many people who have used almost nothing from their undergraduate
degrees, and are now contemplating career changes because of it.

~~~
tkahn6
"what they teach you has almost ZERO application outside of their ivy-covered
walls"

I am of the opinion that the problem is they don't focus _enough_ on _theory_.
CS Theory classes at my university are 4000 level courses. Until then, you're
just learning 'good' OOP design with Java.

"For most degrees (non-engineering, IMO), you don't learn how to add value to
the economy--you just learn to jump through academic hoops."

Yeah, I think you've absolutely nailed it.

~~~
Qz
FWIW, Carnegie Mellon starts you on CS theory in Freshman or Sophomore year
(depending on just how new to programming you are) and never really stops.

~~~
steveklabnik
Much better than the Java School we've got going on here at Pitt.

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TomOfTTB
Over the past couple years I think I’ve come over to the point of view that
the university degree system should be abolished and that higher education
needs to be restructured.

Higher Education was born out of the need to verify applicant knowledge for
employment. Then society realized we needed institutions to instill that
knowledge. So the university system was born to disseminate knowledge.

But today we have infinitely better ways to disseminate information and the
only reason we aren’t using them is because Universities don’t want to lose
their stranglehold on education. The end result of which is an elitist system
that traps knowledge behind a very expensive paywall. So expensive that only
27% of the nation manages to actually get a degree.

I don’t have a problem with the Universities still existing. But I do think we
should make a free education available online for all people and grant degrees
based on standardized testing.

~~~
cageface
I've been working through some of the MIT OCW math courses lately. It's
actually been a better experience in many ways than my old college classes.
Instead of sitting in a room full of 100+ people with a teacher too busy to
answer questions I can sit back on my couch with a laptop and a lemonade and
take my time, pause, rewind, etc.

There is something valuable in the kind of direct interaction you get at
higher course levels in most colleges though. Any real alternative to the
current system is still going to have to employ specialized, dedicated staff
to answer questions. Crunching people through a meatgrinder of canned lectures
and standardized testing is only going to take you so far.

~~~
_delirium
There's an interesting supply issue in your example, as well. I mean, those
were _MIT courses_ after all, produced mostly by tenured faculty paid to teach
students enrolled at MIT, not DIY courses produced by freelance instructors on
the internet. Now the ratio of how many students can be taught by one
instructor does go up greatly with something like OCW, but it seems we still
need some sort of system where the people producing and updating that material
have jobs that let them do so.

(If we massively shrink higher education, we'll also need some alternate way
of paying people to do scientific research, since currently universities are
the source of a lot of that as well. But that could at least in principle be
decoupled from the education angle, at least for undergrad education.)

~~~
cageface
An interesting corollary is that something like OCW might eventually mean that
we need a small group of highly-paid, extremely talented instructors but far
fewer average instructors. Or maybe all the average instructors can stop
giving lectures and instead offer their services as tutors?

~~~
Miserlou57
I'm working on something a lot like this right now...

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xentronium
Everyone detects bubbles these days.

Noteworthy:

> They aren't taught the basics of literature, history or science. ACTA
> reports that most schools don't require a foreign language, hardly any
> require economics, American history and government "are badly neglected" and
> schools "have much to do" on math and science.

If anyone's interested, here in Russia, we do have history of science,
philosophy and other non-technical mandatory courses even for technical
specialists. The main drawback is that student out of the university is a
"Jack of all trades, master of none" kind, you got to teach him all the
specifics in the workplace.

~~~
Qz
Most people in the US still have to learn the specifics in the workplace as
well.

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lr
There is so much wrong with this article, I don't know where to begin... At
the beginning he writes:

"My American Enterprise Institute colleague Charles Murray has called for the
abolition of college for almost all students. Save it for genuine scholars, he
says, and let others qualify for jobs by standardized national tests, as
accountants already do."

Then, a little later, he writes:

"The American Council of Alumni and Trustees concluded, after a survey of 714
colleges and universities, 'by and large, higher education has abandoned a
coherent content-rich general education curriculum.'"

One of the biggest problems with education in this country, and not just in
colleges, is that people only learn what they need to learn for the test (New
York State's Regents Exams are a massive testament to this). So, if we need to
return to a "content-rich general education curriculum", how does that jive
with just studying to pass a standardized national test?

I would argue in favor of the more "content-rich general education curriculum"
approach, but what he fails to mention is why curricula have changed so
dramatically: Big businesses want people who can "hit the ground running." It
is why so many CS departments have abandoned teaching fundamentals, over
teaching students how to use version control, for instance. Businesses do not
want to spend time teaching people things they "should have learned in
college," like version control. Ok, learning version control, which was not
part of most CS curricula 20 years ago, should now be part of a CS degree
today? So this new class should replace what...? And if not replace a CS
class, maybe replace...an English class...? The beginning of a slippery slope.

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seanmcq
I don't see any economic forces that would trigger a burst. In fact, I see
most entry-level jobs demanding _more_ education now than ever before.

People aren't getting jobs because they didn't get enough education, not
because they got too much.

~~~
ant5
_I don't see any economic forces that would trigger a burst. In fact, I see
most entry-level jobs demanding more education now than ever before._

A college degree, if required, has _always_ been a -soft- requirement for most
professional jobs. It is sometimes used as a first-pass filter, but it's
unlikely that the reviewer will make it down to your "Education" section if
the "Skills" and "Experience" sections are sufficiently impressive.

 _People aren't getting jobs because they didn't get enough education, not
because they got too much._

No, people aren't getting professional jobs because they don't have any
experience or novel qualifications that set them apart from their competition.

~~~
seanmcq
Really, you think the all-time high unemployment rate among recent graduates
is because they, as a group, are somehow uniquely unqualified?

I wish I were that arrogant.

~~~
ant5
The majority of recent graduates just spent 4 years in college instead of
gaining relevant experience, so, yes. The economy is tough, they don't stack
up to the competition, and adding more schooling wouldn't improve matters.

Their competition probably spent the last 4 years working.

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goalieca
The same must be doubly true with respect to graduate school. There are around
400 students at the graduate level in electrical engineering at my university.
WTF!

~~~
sliverstorm
Relevant question: 400 students compared to how many undergrads? If you have
4,000 EE undergrads, that's not a whole lot.

~~~
goalieca
Roughly the same amount of undergrads.. well within a factor of 2 for sure.

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korch
If you compare the cost of inflation to the cost of higher education over the
past 40 years, sure, it's probably in a bubble now. And especially if you
compare the number of "free riders" decades ago(people who got their college
fully paid for by someone else, mostly the gov't) to the number of kids taking
on non-gov't backed loans from banks today, then it's not a pretty picture.

How can a bubble like this even pop? Kids aren't just going to stop going to
college en mass. Universities are not going to drop their tuition rates back
to 1975 levels, and instead live off their massive endowment funds for a
period of austerity.

The bubble that will pop is the sea of minority, non-traditional, vocational,
low-income college dropouts who can't pay back their loans. Granted, the for-
profit colleges got a bit too greedy in signing kids up(thanks US gov't for
providing subsidies to encourage them!), while the banks, as is typical of
their particular species of shark, were only too happy to over-extend cheap
credit to kids. I would be interested in knowing the total amount of
outstanding private loans at for-profit colleges. Because whatever that amount
is, Wall St. better prepare for all of it to be written off as losses without
the need for Federal bailouts and financial shennanigans.

Let's forecast: America has the weakest labor market since the Great
Depression, record unemployment, with no end in sight. Like an article I saw
just yesterday, right now, today, America would need to add 270,000 new jobs
per month, every month, until the end of Obama's 2nd term in office for the
employment levels to return to what was normal pre-2008. And that just ain't
going to happen, no matter how much _Hopium_ you're smoking, and no matter
what fairy-tale of cognitive-dissonance that you've chosen to believe in.

Unemployment for those under-25 is at a historic high. Wages are probably not
rising. The entire business market is now stuck moving sideways, and it's
going to be that way for at least a decade(the US is the new Japan). At least
50% of all college kids never even graduate, and the rate is higher for kids
attending for-profit colleges.

So where are all these kids going to be working when they either graduate or
drop out? They won't be able to pay back the loans. _And that is going to
trigger the popping of the bubble._ And much like the way the housing market
explosion threw off a ton of shrapnel and hit targets nobody even thought were
in the line-of-fire, a similar thing will happen here. Most of these college
loans have co-signers, who are mostly the parents. So it's not going to be a
bunch of bankrupt kids—it's going to take down the lower-middle-class with it.

The true tragedy becomes apparent when you compare America to Europe and Latin
American nations where the idea of paying for college is as foreign as the
idea of paying for health care. Education costs are simply built into the
society through taxes, instead of being externalized into a sociopathic,
inhumane, capitalist _tragedy of the commons_ extraction of profits like we
have in the US. Instead, the US chooses to piss away its wealth on military
spending and Wall St. gambling.

 _tl;dr version: The banks are continuing to wage a covert war against the
middle and lower class, exploiting them into permanent poverty through loans
that simply can't ever be paid back. The banks have the law, the gov't, and
armies of finely suited lawyers and scary storm troopers packing guns on their
side, the poor have well, nothing. The class divide in America is about to
widen even more starkly. If you're already rich, or your parents are rich
alumni, or you're in the top 85% percentile of income, or in a white collar
profession, you won't even see this bubble nor its popping. If you are on the
other end of the economic spectrum, it's going to wipe out you and a lot of
families like you. And it sure is a great thing that these poor families are
likely already underwater on a home mortgage loan._

~~~
thrill
Let me get this straight - the banks are predatory for agreeing to make loans
to a supposedly thinking adults (they are thinking adults, right? - I mean,
they're college material ...), but said adults are not the ones at fault for
delaying their entry into productive society, and should not be held liable
for taking such loans, but those who are productive members of society should
have to fess up and pay these predatory bank loans off for these adults.

~~~
korch
First, _college material_ is only ~25% of society. The banks would cry
screaming to their congress-critters if suddenly loans and credit were only
allowed to college grads. What's next, only those holding degrees in econ are
allowed to receive loans? Second, most folks getting loans by definition won't
be college material. Third, there's then a required level of _protection from
themselves_ that must be in place in any _Decent Society._

In the Randroid Universe, sure, every adult is logical, educated in accounting
& finance, has a grasp of the market economy, is not socially nor financially
desperate, and possesses enough self-restraint to not ever make such a blunder
of a decision and accept a loan that is too big for them to ever pay off.

But here in the real world, we have extensive laws and regulations to stop
just that from happening. Why? Because if those laws didn't exist, the banks
would just steal everything that isn't nailed down, and turn everyone into a
nation of debtors. This isn't the first time it happened in history either—I
recommend reading some history about the economics behind the expansion of the
rail roads and their collusion with banks in America just around the time of
the closing of the Western frontier.

~~~
thrill
"there's then a required level of protection from themselves that must be in
place in any Decent Society"

Bullshit. Strong words to follow.

~~~
lsc
eh, really, bankruptcy is the single most important "protection" - bankruptcy
discourages banks from loaning to people who likely won't be able to pay off
those loans, and it allows the high risk folks, the entrepreneurs, to have
more than one go at things.

Of course, student loans already subvert those protections, and really,
compared to bankruptcy, I don't think the rest of the 'protect (dumb|trusting)
people from (predatory banks|themselves)' laws are worth jack.

