Haven't had a debt thread in a while

[Tonitrus]

You expect private companies and the government to pay for four years of binge drinking, toga parties, and rampant sex? 

[garbon]

Crazy idea:

Students are no longer allowed to pay for higher education, and in order to hire anyone, employers--private, gub'mint, charitable, whatever--must pay for their new employee's training, ; crucially, schools only get paid when they produce hireable graduates.

This requires schools to actually vet and educate their matriculants, and leaves students with either a guaranteed job or only out opportunity cost.

It would also destroy all but the essential college degrees, as I expect businesses would suddenly realize that, hey, you don't need a B.A. to answer a fucking telephone.

All of that sounds awful.

[Ideologue]

Boo-hoo.

Indeed.  It will be quite sad when this bubble also pops and the economy suffers again.

Habby's a Republican.  They live for this shit.

[Ideologue]

You expect private companies and the government to pay for four years of binge drinking, toga parties, and rampant sex? 

How aren't they already?  Where do account-current student loan payments come from, then?  Where do the funds for IBR and deferment come from?  The ether?

Besides, forcing schools to march to the beat of private business--i.e., actually having them face market pressure--will turn schools into training programs for careers, rather than small cities where everyone somehow has money but no one has a fucking job.  Besides, binge drinking, toga parties, and rampant sex costs, at most, $150 a week, and can be easily purchased with part-time employment.

[garbon]

Why exactly do we want higher education to be completely enslaved to capitalism?

[Ideologue]

It's not.  The government can still send people to school if it wishes.

[garbon]

It's not.  The government can still send people to school if it wishes.

Now that's comforting...

[Ideologue]

And like I said, a perfectly fine alternative would simply be significantly greater state intervention.  What I just can't abide are these half-measures; it's stuff like that that gives socialism a bad rap, because "it doesn't work," and more insidiously, it creates niche spaces where predatory capitalism thrives ("Wait, they guarantee the loans?  Fuck yes!").

[Iormlund]

I like the idea. The first one, that is.


The second is dreadful. "Free" high education is what we have here and it doesn't work. It only results in severe degree inflation.

[Ideologue]

It's not.  The government can still send people to school if it wishes.

Now that's comforting...

The existence of the public sector discomforts you?

Which is the spectre haunting you, gabs, enslavement to capitalism or the possibility that such enslavement may be regulated?

[garbon]

It's not.  The government can still send people to school if it wishes.

Now that's comforting...

The existence of the public sector discomforts you?

Which is the spectre haunting you, gabs, enslavement to capitalism or the possibility that such enslavement may be regulated?

Can I choose both, Alex?

[Ideologue]

I like the idea. The first one, that is.

The second is dreadful. "Free" high education is what we have here and it doesn't work. It only results in severe degree inflation.

Well, degree inflation in itself isn't necessarily an evil, unless it puts to waste a great deal of resources.  It certainly does under the current system, because it imposes the costs of higher education on kids as individuals and then provides them with high school returns on investment.  And there's a huge generational gap in inputs and outcomes, to the extent that a lot of Boomers don't realize what a bill of goods they've sold their children, nor that the cost of the investment has something like dectupled, if that's a word, over the past three decades, even as returns have gone down--even as they, as hiring authorities, treat the very same college degrees they received thirty years ago as worthless today because of their overproduction.

Arguably, even if that cost was borne by a nation as a whole, instead of by individuals, four years more schooling after K-12 (o lo que tienen en Espana) would still be a waste, but it probably has some upsides to it, too (as noted, subsidizing young men in their most robust years; also, even shitty programs like history probably do manage to educate people and make them marginally better for it, even if there is no strictly economic ROI; and perhaps such schooling could pay for itself as a "last chance" sorting mechanism for people who aren't stupid but were late bloomers and are worth either sending to real school for real training, or hiring outright).

[Ideologue]

It's not.  The government can still send people to school if it wishes.

Now that's comforting...

The existence of the public sector discomforts you?

Which is the spectre haunting you, gabs, enslavement to capitalism or the possibility that such enslavement may be regulated?

Can I choose both, Alex?

No.  How do you expect to escape enslavement by capitalism without the government?  Do you think there's some invisible left hand of fairness and egalitarianism that rescues people from being crushed in the grip of the invisible right hand of free markets and profit-maximization?  I mean, yeah, they usually come in pairs, but it's a metaphor, dude.

[Jaron]

One problem that I fear must be addressed is the high ratio of useless degrees being offered. A lot of people take loans, shell out thousands of dollars to earn a degree that doesn't teach them how to DO anything. They graduate, go to job interviews and are asked what they can DO and they've got NOTHING.

I spent a year in school studying secondary education, for example - I learned a lot of theories but very little practical application. I studied history in my undergrad years and that certainly hasn't helped me find work except for the fact it tells people I have a degree. I could tell you oodles about French and English history or the Roman Empire, but that hasn't really helped me. I rely more on my work history than my so called higher education.

Compare that to the experience of some of my friends in the sciences who were learning lab work and how to actually do things. They graduate and jump into high paying jobs that help justify their expenses for school.

We need to discourage people from studying anthropology, history, sociology, philosophy and the rest of that Socratic crap. They can take night enrichment classes at the community college if that interests them. We should be firmer in just saying "If this is what you want to study, you don't need to attend a university."

We should encourage those seeking higher education into sciences and skill oriented degrees like sciences and technology.

[Martinus]

Stop telling young people they need to go to college to succeed. In most cases, it's a waste of fucking time and resources. But since colleges are now in the business of selling degrees, it is a vicious circle.