I’m sorry, Inquisitor, I couldn’t resist laughing when I saw that. I’m a student at GMU actually, and they have a very…interesting economics department. It’s the only time I’ve ever seen a the old Union Jack sitting on a college professor’s desk. (Note, I’m an Electrical Engineering student there, not Econ. I just had to take an econ course there, which is where I got introduced to the Libertarian movement. It’s a crying shame that the rest of the university is pretty leftist.)
Apparently the economics department there is excellent though, and on top of that it has classes in Austrian and public choice economics. When you say the rest of the university, what do you mean? Faculty, students, or…?
I would say no. I would rather see people take mom and dads $100,000 and put it in a single premium deferred annuity and retire with $2Million at the age of 65.
Because of subsidies. The old saying, the more you subsidize something, the more of it you get. We keep throwing “free” money at colleges. What would you do if you ran a business and the government offered “credits” for your product. So people would normally buy what you sell for $20, but nowold uncle scam is giving them $10 to to buy it. Now what you could do is bump the price a little. Maybe your product is now $25, since there is extra money floating around out there. Then since the price has gone up, and more people are using the grant, you will find the grants increase.
Well, there’s that, and inflation.
Very good. Not everyone NEEDS college. Take me for example. I got out of high school, worked for about six months and went in the Navy for five years as an IT with no prior computer training (Information Systems Technician is the rating in the Navy). After my five years was done I got out, now I do the same thing in the private sector, and make more than my friends who went to college. There is one friend of mine who went into a unioin (I hate unions) for an electrical trade. He moved up rapidly because he knew what he was doing. No college, just some union courses under his belt. He’s right there with me, no college for either of us, doing very well for ourselves.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not anti college. It all depends on what you want to be. For some trades, experience and certifications are more important than anything else.
See my last post. Many careers in the IT, electrical, and mechanical field, are more certification focused.
That is part of the problem I address with my first point. They just increase the amount of credits needed to graduate, to “diversify” you as an individual, making it more expensive to go. More grants means more money for the liberal arts instructors and other unnecessary classes to the various degrees.
No dude, you’ve hit the nail right on the head. Again, there are a GREAT many number of careers where you are best served by going to straight to college. Plumbing, auto-repair, Network Administrators/Engineers, electrical repair, and other like trades are very good paying jobs, very nobles jobs, that require no four year degree. In the case of my buddy the electrician, he started from the bottom as an intern, and progressed his way up very quickly (actually by leaving the union).
I’d stop worrying the problem so much. College isn’t worth the money if you want education over training. See:
Less Than Words Can Say,The Graves of Academe, The Leaning Tower of Babel, and The Gift of Fire by Richard Mitchell
and
The Underground History of American Education by John Taylor Gatto
All free on-line. Afterwards, don’t expect to value college much.
Is that BS only in US? Why?
College is subsidized by the government but not in the normal way but through “subsidized loans”. These subsidized loans increase the pool of potential customers for colleges. The colleges therefore can increase the price of their services
No, not all of them do. Often they are pressured by family, school guidance councilors or they assume they should because it is what their friends are doing.
Some countries like have far fewer “electives” required to graduate than in the . If we had a more free-marked based educational system without government subsidies or regulations we might have such options available.
In some places state and local governments may be involved but it is mostly the Federal Government that is the problem in the . Businesses that hire college graduates would have an incentive to have degrees available that are less expensive and less filled with classes that have little or nothing to do with the industry they are involved in.
But this should result in a larger supply of colleges competing for the extra money. So it cannot be the subsidized loans that have caused the price of college education to skyrocket.
My guess is it has more to do with government controls/restrictions for new colleges to open and on what current colleges must teach.
What this does is it increases the number of people with large amounts of money who do not truly understand the value of that money. They, in many cases, never worked a real job - often they never had to buy a home or raise a family. There are exceptions of course but this is the norm in the United States for a first time college student. So they have an oportunity to get a huge loan without fully understanding the MEANING of the dollar amount. Could an 17 year old with a part time fry cook job at McDonalds walk into a bank and get a loan to buy a house if it were not subsidised by the government? Usually not.
Pure conjecture. I went to college, and yes I had a full understanding of the meaning of the dollar amount.
I am not sure what this has to do with anything. Employment is not a factor in subsidized school loans.
And no, a part time cook at McDonald’s, regardless of age, could not get a loan for a home if it were not subsidized, at least not in our current statist economy.
I am going to go out on a limb here and guess that your major was economics, accounting or a related field 
If I am wrong, I am wrong, but in any case you are in a minority here.
Income, I am referring to income or availability of money. Go to your local library or college and pick up a FAFSA form. Students need to fill one out to get a subsidized student loan. Look at the questions.
FAFSA info here: http://www.fafsa.ed.gov/
Regardless, I still do not understand your point.
This goes back to my original claim that a major problem with the cost of a college education in the is the subsidized college loan. These loans are “means tested”. Means testing a grant is one thing, but this is a LOAN. This is a loan to people who often have no experience juggling such large price tags in their heads. Many would not choose this investment if they understood the meaning of that price tag - or they would be more cost-conscious.
First of all, your claim that college students are not good decision makers or that they would not choose to get a college education if they understood the cost is pure conjecture and completely unfounded. Just because you think it is not a wise investment does not mean it is not. It just means you have different values.
Second of all, as I have already pointed out, directing more money at an industry does not mean that prices will necessarily go up. What would actually happen is that supply would go up, and prices would remain pretty much constant. The only logical explanation for the high cost of education is that supply has been restricted while at the same time mandating larger quantities of it (licensing in the former and accreditation for the latter).
Faculty, a lot of the students. I could give a lot of stories to illustrate what I mean, but a lot of it’s pretty much the usual on-campus stuff. There’s a chapter of Students for Democratic Society (i.e. American Communist Party, just a different name), but no on-campus Libertarian Party, things like that. I’ve thought about trying to start an on-campus Libertarian organization, but I just don’t have the time or wherewithall to manage such a thing right now.
Edit:
As for the rest of the thread, I think the biggest problem with regards to college is two-fold. First, the public “education” system has totally failed. I see a lot of people coming into the sciences and engineering classes that never read the texts, and can’t do simple algebra without a calculator. Second, is the social emphasis on “formal” education, be it grade school, high school, whatever, and deciding that people must be “formally educated” or else that all the time they spent learning things is completely meaningless.
Interesting example. I seem to remember a certain famous libertarian organizing with SDS, and seemingly with more interest than he had in the LP.
By the way, if you think a liberal college environment is frustrating, just try a hyper-conservative college environment.