How will (US) higher education evolve to be affordable?

Something I posted over on the bar.

Another interesting analysis story on PBS Newshour.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/educatio ... transcript

Second paragraph of the transcript:

Quote
A new report from the College Board, the group that owns the SAT test, finds
costs at four-year public schools posted the smallest increase in more than
30 years, up 2.9 percent -- the bad news, federal aid for undergraduates
declined by 9 percent over a two-year period.
End Quote

I found it to be very thought provoking in about 20 different ways. Some of the comments are interesting as well. A lot of those thoughts revolved around my sig line.

Enjoy,
T2M

Let me know what you think,
T2M

I wonder T2M if the two are not directly related? Higher costs of college and higher federal subsidies.

thinkstoomuch wrote:Something I posted over on the bar.

Another interesting analysis story on PBS Newshour.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/educatio ... transcript

Second paragraph of the transcript:

Quote
A new report from the College Board, the group that owns the SAT test, finds
costs at four-year public schools posted the smallest increase in more than
30 years, up 2.9 percent -- the bad news, federal aid for undergraduates
declined by 9 percent over a two-year period.
End Quote

I found it to be very thought provoking in about 20 different ways. Some of the comments are interesting as well. A lot of those thoughts revolved around my sig line.

Enjoy,
T2M

Let me know what you think,
T2M

I wonder T2M if the two are not directly related? Higher costs of college and higher federal subsidies.

There have been any number of articles linking the 2. The basic theory is that in the past the Federal subsidies have been insulating families from the true cost of higher education, allowing colleges to raise tuition excessively without consumer penalty. Of course recently with the subsidies declining, the student loan burden expanding etc, people are starting to ask the question "Just what have you been doing with all the money???" The answer seems to be spending a small % on actual student education, spending most of it on administrative salaries etc.

biochem wrote:

I wonder T2M if the two are not directly related? Higher costs of college and higher federal subsidies.

There have been any number of articles linking the 2. The basic theory is that in the past the Federal subsidies have been insulating families from the true cost of higher education, allowing colleges to raise tuition excessively without consumer penalty. Of course recently with the subsidies declining, the student loan burden expanding etc, people are starting to ask the question "Just what have you been doing with all the money???" The answer seems to be spending a small % on actual student education, spending most of it on administrative salaries etc.

I thought so. I have a child starting college next year. Let me tell you we shopped the best combination price/reputation we could find. We can manage to fund this without student loans assuming she picks up her ACT by 2 points.

Seems like more people are shopping pretty hard.

Oregon has come up with an interesting plan. I have some questions about the funding and how it will actually work out in the end but it's a very different direction from what has been done in the past.

http://business.time.com/2013/07/17/oregons-pay-it-forward-program-imagine-college-with-no-tuition-no-loans-no-debt/print/

(I used the print link so it's easier for the bandwidth limited people to read it)

thinkstoomuch wrote:Something I posted over on the bar.

Another interesting analysis story on PBS Newshour.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/educatio ... transcript

Second paragraph of the transcript:

Quote
A new report from the College Board, the group that owns the SAT test, finds
costs at four-year public schools posted the smallest increase in more than
30 years, up 2.9 percent -- the bad news, federal aid for undergraduates
declined by 9 percent over a two-year period.
End Quote

I found it to be very thought provoking in about 20 different ways. Some of the comments are interesting as well. A lot of those thoughts revolved around my sig line.

Enjoy,
T2M

Let me know what you think,
T2M

Thank you for the low bandwidth link.

Interesting concept and I kind of like it. But I wonder about stuff.

It does encourage personal responsibility which I like. Go to college wage garnishment for the next 20 years. How will it be affected by a person filing for bankruptcy?

Or a guy gets an anthropology degree and then ends up working as a garbage man. Is this going to be a good return of investment? For either party?

I can already hear people screaming but that won't happen. PBS did a news segment where this precise thing did happen and implied it is fairly regular occurrence.

Thank you for posting this.

T2M

Donnachaidh wrote:Oregon has come up with an interesting plan. I have some questions about the funding and how it will actually work out in the end but it's a very different direction from what has been done in the past.

...snip just for brevity...

The personal responsibility aspect of it is part of why I like it too. Dealing with the...shall we say less useful degrees is one of the challenges.

I'd imagine bankruptcy would be handled the same way it is now with student loans, bankruptcy doesn't really get you out of them it just extends the repayment time to reduce the monthly cost. The other thing is it is really hard to actually have debt eliminated through personal bankruptcy, the credit card companies pushed that through years ago. You might get some of it reduced but usually you just get a court mandated payment plan (at least that's what my business law professor told us, though hearing a former lawyer explain debt collection and bankruptcy will really get you to be careful about debt if you aren't already, whether or not it's true.).

thinkstoomuch wrote:Thank you for the low bandwidth link.

Interesting concept and I kind of like it. But I wonder about stuff.

It does encourage personal responsibility which I like. Go to college wage garnishment for the next 20 years. How will it be affected by a person filing for bankruptcy?

Or a guy gets an anthropology degree and then ends up working as a garbage man. Is this going to be a good return of investment? For either party?

I can already hear people screaming but that won't happen. PBS did a news segment where this precise thing did happen and implied it is fairly regular occurrence.

Thank you for posting this.

T2M

Under current federal law student loans (unlike virtually every other type of debt) cannot be dissolved or written off in a bankruptcy. This includes both public loans from the government and PRIVATE loans from banks. On the public side there is pressure from the electorate etc to keep loan rate somewhat reasonable. Plus there are income based repayment options etc that help some. Private student loans have a variable interest rates, which can result in significant sticker shock since students take years to repay the money. The protection from bankruptcy makes this a sweet deal for the banks.