The Supersizing of American Colleges

Taibbi had a good article on this last month: <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/ripping-off-young-america-the-college-loan-scandal-20130815" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.rollingstone.com&#x2F;politics&#x2F;news&#x2F;ripping-off-young-...</a><p>&quot;Carey talks about how colleges spend a lot of energy on what he calls &quot;gilding&quot; – pouring money into superficial symbols of prestige, everything from new buildings to celebrity professors, as part of a &quot;never-ending race for positional status.&quot; &quot;What you see is that spending on education hasn&#x27;t really gone up all that much,&quot; he says. &quot;It&#x27;s spending on things like buildings and administration. .&quot;<p>One reason they do the gilding is to increase their ranking - which itself has problems. Rankings are primarily based on selectivity and prestige, which is sort of like judging that a hospital is better because of how healthy the patients are when they get there, not how much healthier they got while they were there: <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/02/14/110214fa_fact_gladwell" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.newyorker.com&#x2F;reporting&#x2F;2011&#x2F;02&#x2F;14&#x2F;110214fa_fact_...</a>

To add to this article, I&#x27;ve written a lot on this topic and its relation to startups:<p>* Types of Graduate Degree Programs, <a href="http://notonlyluck.com/2013/06/23/types-of-degree-programs/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;notonlyluck.com&#x2F;2013&#x2F;06&#x2F;23&#x2F;types-of-degree-programs&#x2F;</a><p>* When to Drop Out of School?, <a href="http://notonlyluck.com/2013/01/31/when-to-drop-out-of-school/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;notonlyluck.com&#x2F;2013&#x2F;01&#x2F;31&#x2F;when-to-drop-out-of-school...</a><p>* Lifelong Learning as a Substitute for School, <a href="http://notonlyluck.com/2013/02/01/lifelong-learning-as-a-substitute-for-school/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;notonlyluck.com&#x2F;2013&#x2F;02&#x2F;01&#x2F;lifelong-learning-as-a-sub...</a>

The glaring issue can be summed up in one statement. College roi is detached from student roi in the near and mid term.<p>If these were strongly linked by design, the magnitude of the problem would be substantially diminished.

&gt; <i>even humanities faculty would go elsewhere if not compensated at the growing rate of their education bracket</i><p>But where would they go? Journalism??

&gt;College is without a doubt a worthwhile investment that pays off over time in increased earnings and a better quality of life. If anything, a college degree may be getting even more valuable.<p>&quot;Without a doubt&quot;, eh? I have doubts. Are we that sure the causality arrow goes that direction? If I had to bet money I&#x27;d say it goes the other way - college is more likely to attract people who will have higher earnings and a better quality of life.

&gt; College is without a doubt a worthwhile investment that pays off over time in increased earnings and a better quality of life. If anything, a college degree may be getting even more valuable.<p>Should it surprise anyone that it is expensive to buy an investment product whose returns get better and better-known?

Previously submitted, but died: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6372933" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=6372933</a>

what happened in 1981, when the price of college became unhinged from the CPI?

Can we agree there is a distinct and dramatic difference between public and private colleges? Should we even be talking about them in the same context? This seems to be much more of a private college bubble.

Dear Priceonomics:<p>Please use a responsive design for your blog. I rarely get to read them because they are difficult to read on the phone, but they are fantastic and would be great to read on the go.

I think we shall see a break between the desire for universal education, the public good of strong research and the pandering to powerful middle class votes.<p>100 years ago universal education ended between 12 and 14 years old and only the rich or the brilliant went on to further education. Now we are heading to a situation where further education is seen as the minimum universal education. (Something like 50 % of students are expected to attend college)<p>this effectively reduces most colleges and courses to an extended High School, with the expected ROI of the same.<p>whereas as a society we want to have only the most brilliant and motivated working on pushing out boundaries of knowledge - basically please invent the future for us.<p>and this will lead to two tier colleges - one that act as schools and one that act as universities.<p>we cannot allow the universities to be contaminated by rich idiots, or pushing research out with floods of high schoolers<p>so ... we should look to soviet Russia - who simply took the best minds and put them in college. publically funded, strict entrance criteria.<p>everyone else - publically funded colleges that manage to push the ROI down to zero.

For what it&#x27;s worth, most of the data in these charts is false and&#x2F;or misleading. If you read the actual primary sources that this post purports to use, you&#x27;ll see the situation isn&#x27;t actually nearly as bad as presented. It is somewhat more difficult to pay for college than it was in, say, 1970, but the &#x27;statistics&#x27; here are wildly exaggerated.<p>The weak job market is a much bigger issue than the increased cost of college.

It&#x27;s ironic (or maybe it&#x27;s just me) that the previous post before this on the HN front page is a rant against &quot;disruption&quot; ( <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6386989" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=6386989</a>)<p>Ironic because typically there would be many opinions about how MOOCs would &quot;disrupt&quot; traditional college education.

It seems as though the problem is more acute in private colleges. Public colleges just don&#x27;t seem to be growing in price as much as private colleges. It seems like one solution to the issue of rising college costs is for us as a society to place less emphasis on pricey private colleges.

Here is some stats perspective on the size of student loans:<p><a href="http://statspotting.com/outstanding-student-loans-in-the-us-is-more-than-chinas-total-external-debt/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;statspotting.com&#x2F;outstanding-student-loans-in-the-us-...</a>

No discussion of interest rates?<p>Its all in the supply and demand.<p>Bubba can afford a $700&#x2F;mo loan payment. In 1980 at 20% interest that means he&#x27;s going to pay the university $30K. There&#x27;s no way they&#x27;re charging a penny less than he&#x27;s capable of paying. Now run the numbers in 2010 at 3% and at $700&#x2F;mo there&#x27;s no way the university is going to charge a penny less than $150K. Either way its the same monthly payment, so what does Bubba care?<p>Works pretty much as interest rates steadily smoothly collapse to a multi-generational low. Not so much fun for the big players as interest rates revert to historical norms (or spike up to just as high of an unusual outlier)<p>A long term loan is a long term loan. Doesn&#x27;t matter if we&#x27;re talking about school or house.