Selective subsidizing of higher education - good or bad idea?

[crazy canuck]

A consultant GP (top-ranking doctor) will get £100,000 and above, I believe. A friend of mine is a newly qualified surgeon, and she gets at least £40,000/year, so it's not too shabby at the lower end of things either.

That may be a bit misleading.  If doctors there are anything like doctors here they will have multiple streams of income.

[Warspite]

Good grief that's shitty. Forty grand wouldn't even cover the insurance premiums here. Even if it were in Sterling.

I suspect that reveals more about the US system than the attractiveness of NHS employment in the UK. £40k for a 27 year old is a rather good income, and it's only going to increase with experience.

[Ideologue]

I like the notion of completely state-sponsored post-secondary education.

I also like the notion of making this retroactive through a form of loan forgiveness for those with outstanding student debt.

I have arrived at this position from my principles.

Are you questioning my moral reasoning, sir?

[crazy canuck]

I suspect that reveals more about the US system than the attractiveness of NHS employment in the UK. £40k for a 27 year old is a rather good income, and it's only going to increase with experience.

You have to remember that US med students go into considerable debt to obtain their qualifications.  At that pay level they wouldnt pay off their debt before they retired.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah that's an important difference.  I believe the NHS will more or less pay for you to become a doctor or nurse, like the army, so for the length of the degree the debt burden's not too bad.

Plus UK student debt isn't offensive.  It's not the sort that people can actually collect and it's gone pre-tax if you're working.

[Warspite]

I suspect that reveals more about the US system than the attractiveness of NHS employment in the UK. £40k for a 27 year old is a rather good income, and it's only going to increase with experience.

You have to remember that US med students go into considerable debt to obtain their qualifications.  At that pay level they wouldnt pay off their debt before they retired.

At $60,000 upon qualification and increasing thereafter they would not pay off their debt?

How does anyone afford a mortgage or a car loan in America?

[Martinus]

Don't we already have quotas in a lot of areas of higher education?

I mean - I remember people (not me of course) being put on wait lists for law school because all the spots were filled...

In part, that's a function of a professional guild attempting to restrict its monopoly. Too many lawyers = legal fees going down. 

I seem to recall the law society lobbying hard to prevent over-production of law students by law schools, at least in part for that reason ...

We address that at the bar exam level.

About 2000 lawyers are spat out of universities in Warsaw alone each year. About 300 advocates and legal advisers (roughly, the equivalent of barristers and solicitors) are made in Warsaw each year. 

[Josquius]

In Sweden the state provides "free" education, regardless of which kind. Control is by varying the number of slots provided for different types of education.

Like the infamous purposfully keeping the supply of doctors below demand....

Though I never noticed much of this on other courses.

[Martinus]

Also, I think it is more honest for the state to tell you up front "we are going to pay for a useful degree but not for the less useful one" than to give people student loans for both, say, engineering and philosophy, and then have the latter go bankrupt because he cannot find a job to pay off his loans.

At the college entry levels, at least in continental Europe, people are between 17 and 18 y.o. so I think they are not fully prepared to make that decision - so that's when the soft paternalism of the state should guide them to pick more useful studies.

[Brazen]

High-ranking employers should part-fund University courses that feed them graduates. The course as a whole, not individuals.

By this reasoning, McDonalds can pay a hefty whack towards Humanities.

I got industrial sponsorship through my course plus paid work experience in University holidays. There was no binding contract to work for them thereafter, but I gave them a good 18 months.

[Warspite]

Also, I think it is more honest for the state to tell you up front "we are going to pay for a useful degree but not for the less useful one" than to give people student loans for both, say, engineering and philosophy, and then have the latter go bankrupt because he cannot find a job to pay off his loans.

At the college entry levels, at least in continental Europe, people are between 17 and 18 y.o. so I think they are not fully prepared to make that decision - so that's when the soft paternalism of the state should guide them to pick more useful studies.

Right, but as I said earlier, I don't think the state can actually really tell what is a truly useful degree. After all, wealth-producing activity (the kind that generates tax revenue to pay for these subsidies) is not just doctors and engineers. And it is wrong for the state to overly subsidise a degree that will generate the best private return to the graduate. It is not hard for the 17 year old, at least in the UK, to pick up a guide to graduate salaries and discover that chemical engineers have the highest average starting salary of any graduate profession.

Anyway, it's purely anecdotal but none of my acquaintances who studied philosophy are anywhere near bankrupt. Whereas BAE just laid off 3,000 people in its aircraft division yesterday. I bet a lot of them were engineering graduates.

[Grey Fox]

I suspect that reveals more about the US system than the attractiveness of NHS employment in the UK. £40k for a 27 year old is a rather good income, and it's only going to increase with experience.

You have to remember that US med students go into considerable debt to obtain their qualifications.  At that pay level they wouldnt pay off their debt before they retired.

At $60,000 upon qualification and increasing thereafter they would not pay off their debt?

How does anyone afford a mortgage or a car loan in America?

Interests on them are tax deductible.

[Martinus]

Also, I think it is more honest for the state to tell you up front "we are going to pay for a useful degree but not for the less useful one" than to give people student loans for both, say, engineering and philosophy, and then have the latter go bankrupt because he cannot find a job to pay off his loans.

At the college entry levels, at least in continental Europe, people are between 17 and 18 y.o. so I think they are not fully prepared to make that decision - so that's when the soft paternalism of the state should guide them to pick more useful studies.

Right, but as I said earlier, I don't think the state can actually really tell what is a truly useful degree. After all, wealth-producing activity (the kind that generates tax revenue to pay for these subsidies) is not just doctors and engineers. And it is wrong for the state to overly subsidise a degree that will generate the best private return to the graduate. It is not hard for the 17 year old, at least in the UK, to pick up a guide to graduate salaries and discover that chemical engineers have the highest average starting salary of any graduate profession.

Anyway, it's purely anecdotal but none of my acquaintances who studied philosophy are anywhere near bankrupt. Whereas BAE just laid off 3,000 people in its aircraft division yesterday. I bet a lot of them were engineering graduates.

You don't get it. It's not about whether they are bankrupt or not. It's about whether they work in their learned profession. If they don't, then the investment into their education was wasted, and as such should not be subsidized with the taxpayer money.

Edit: Also, how many of your acquitances are not from privileged backgrounds?

[Warspite]

You don't get it. It's not about whether they are bankrupt or not. It's about whether they work in their learned profession. If they don't, then the investment into their education was wasted, and as such should not be subsidized with the taxpayer money.

That's an odd view of the worth of education. I don't work as an economic historian, but I use the general skills and intellectual honing that my joint degree gave me every day to create value in the economy.

It's very hard to work as a philosopher, but it's a very valuable skill to be able to bring rigorous logic and linguistic precision to the table for many employers.

Edit: Also, how many of your acquitances are not from privileged backgrounds?

Not sure how this is relevant. They work very hard for a living and are financially independent. These days, connections can open a door for you, but you'll get booted out sharpish if you're not up to scratch.

[Martinus]

Your post perfectly illustrates why the state should not subsidize the education you and your friends received. People who do not come from privileged backgrounds usually go into education that can pay the bills/gives a profession, not something to "hone their general skills and intellect", or get "rigorous logic or linguistic precision" because without connections/"cultural capital" they know this will not be enough to land them a decent job.

The tax payer should not pay for the likes of you. Sorry. Of course nothing wrong with your parents paying for you getting that. But that shouldn't be the state's burden. This money can be much better spent elsewhere.

Edit: And this also perfectly illustrates why "free higher education for everyone" really serves the rich much better than the poor - because unless the state pumps really huge amounts of cash into it, only the rich will be able to afford spending 4-5 productive years of their life getting vaguely relevant skills and knowledge (while living off their parents) - and at the same time this further inflates the need for a degree for the lower and middle classes to even get a job of a secretary or a receptionist.