« BACK  |  PRINT

RS

FRONT PAGE CONTRIBUTOR

“Should student loans be priced differently according to major?”

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: Oh, all right… this is perilously close to being taboo to say in this culture, but I will anyway: society is not in fact set up to permit everybody to spend their entire lives playing, and nor should it be. We have finite resources; easily sufficient ones to keep everybody fed, clothed, sheltered, literate, and numerate. And this culture is amazingly good at making sure that this happens across the board*. Particularly when it comes to historical comparisons; take a look around you, folks. Most of your distant ancestors would identify this place as being some variant of the Garden of Eden. And yes, that does include Detroit (life has really been that bad for most of history).

But the brutal truth is, not every job is created equal. Some professions are simply more valuable to society than others. Now, we live in a free society, largely because we still tend to have a reasonably free market-driven society, so we are understandably reluctant to tell somebody that they can’t be allowed to spend six years getting a graduate degree in Hyphenated-Identity Studies. But society is not under any real obligation to pretend that there’s a large call for people with that academic path. If someone can afford it on his or her own, fine. It’s their money. If they want a loan, well, that’s the bank’s money – and the bank should be allowed to take into consideration the notion that somebody with that degree is going to be an inherently greater credit risk than someone with, say, a degree in engineering. Or a certified electrician.

Because Life Is Not Fair.

PPS: What? Hold on, let me check. Nope, sorry: Life Is Still Not Fair.

*I know, I know: your college textbooks told you otherwise. Hey, remember the classes that had you read those textbooks? Exactly how good were they at getting you and keeping you a job, again?

Personal satisfaction? Ah, I see. What’s the exchange rate on that, in terms of legal tender?

COMMENTS

  • davenj1

    and establish outright grants for high need jobs for qualified students based on contractual quid pro quos. If we need more math teachers, for example, the government pays for the education. In exchange, the graduate teaches math in a school lacking in math teachers for at least three years. If they fail to live up to their end of the bargain, the grant reverts to a loan with interest with some type of fixed rate for 10 or 20 years. A perfect example is TEACH grants and ROTC programs. THEY WORK!!!!

  • veritaseequitas

    posed this question. If you are studying for a very marketable and needed profession such as doctor, lawyer, nurse, teacher – even the blue collar technical professions, you should get cheaper loans.
    If you want to spend your time studying for meaningless crap that does not even prepare you to be a hamburger flipper, do it on your own dime.
    The only thing a meaningless degree prepares you for is to be a whiner.
    Sadly, employers need to wake up to the fact that a college degree does not mean that you are going to get a good employee.

  • veritaseequitas

    will say that violates their rights somehow.

  • riverwood

    With the concept, disagree however with including lawyers, though.
    Their parasitic existence does nothing to advance society in any way. I would rather have a plumber for a neighbor than a lawyer..at least a plumber knows how to flush

  • horizon3

    Why should higher education be priced so high as to require a loan in the first place?
    According to most sources, SAT scores indicate that the value vs cost is so out of line, that you just as well stay in high school for four years.

  • davenj1

    they are not a high need profession. No offense to the lawyers out there.

  • davenj1

    the student loan system almost ensures increasing tuition rates.

  • riverwood

    And move into a career that actually will add value to our society.

  • zachv

    English majors are at a higher risk of default and joblessness, therefore they should be paying higher interest rate loans?

  • altexas

    At least on a limited scale, as it should be.

    Small remote communities sometimes fund a Medical Doctors schooling in exchange for a certain number of years of service in that community. Our military has programs to educate service members in advanced degrees like law, medicine and other fields in exchange for a certain number of years of service.

    The concept is a good one. With certain exceptions like the military example, these programs rightfully belong to the States or the people. We do not need another federal program to administer it.

    Some fields of study cost less to pursue so a market driven cost of education would work itself out, if it were market driven. Having the Federal Government controlling student loans will ensure market forces are ignored.

    Some fields of study will pay less over a lifetime than others. Teachers and law enforcement professionals should not expect to get rich. On the other hand, a degree in ‘Inuit lesbian dance’ could make the the right individual part of the “1%” Talent and genius are hard to put a price tag on.

  • caroliniasox

    what is a profession that is valuable to our society?

    that answer changes and society changes. 100 years ago (and today ) farming is valuable should someone who decideds to be a framer(and needs no further education) be given $50,000.

    and who’s to say that someone getting and “Hyphenated-Identity Studies” degree that takes that degree and shows how”Hyphenated-Identity” has taken our society down the wrong path, should have to pay more back.

    I have an idea why not make public collages and universities free for instate students(legal US citizens only), If you qualify to get in and you live in the sate that it is a public collage then you go for free, you do still have to pay for room and board and a small fee fro textbooks( this would also make it a lot harder fro professors to change textbooks, witch the in most cases write edit or are contributors to). If you live out of sate but are still a US citizen then you pay tuition. but if you are from an other country totally then you pay a much higher tuition, but in all cases the same fee for room and board and books. Maybe if we do this then there will be less professors in research only possessions and less indoctrination and more free thought, when I don’t have to worry about getting a bad grade and loosing my scholarship, grant or loan then I can disagree with the professor more readily.

  • westcoastpatriette

    whose medical degree was funded by the military in exchange for five years of service (in the military) before he was free to pursue his career in the private sector. Worked perfectly for him.

  • skorrent1

    What do you mean, grants? They have these things called “scholarships”! Both private and public colleges give them out for really important majors, like athletics and marching band. There are even a few available based on scholastic ability. You want to start a private fund for engineering scholarships, be my guest, but don’t even hint that more taxpayer money should be shoveled into the maw of “higher” education!

  • acat

    And second, if you’d understood Moe’s point that some majors just are inherently more valuable instead of trying to handwave …

    As for your proposal that all colleges be “free” – you *do* realize that makes all of those professors government employees, right?

    How long do you think it would be before the quality drops to that of the Department of Motor Vehicles?

    Your argument, as streiff is fond of saying, is silly on stilts. Grow up, put away the giant puppets, move out of the pup tent, and get a *job*. I hear McDonalds is hiring.

    Mew

  • commonsenseobserver

    Certainly nothing wrong with states awarding scholarships in partnership with universities, whether private or public, in return for required services.

    That doesn’t mean that we have to spend more money stuffing things up as some RINOs and Democrats seem to like. No, offset the costs by tightening eligibility for loans and grants.

    It’s not really spending more on scholarships, but rather reallocating funds.

  • uncmike

    like everything else. I think you could work up reasonable probabilities for the risk.

  • veritaseequitas

    law degrees.

  • veritaseequitas

    “In exchange, the graduate teaches math in a school lacking in math teachers for at least three years. If they fail to live up to their end of the bargain, the grant reverts to a loan with interest with some type of fixed rate for 10 or 20 years.”

  • norris

    If the schools underwrote loans that could be discharged through bankruptcy ,maybe they would do a better helping students pick useful courses . The federal government has no authority to make personal loans.

  • macbookben

    “Small remote communities sometimes fund a Medical Doctors schooling in exchange for a certain number of years of service in that community…”

    Saw that in 1992, only it was called “Northern Exposure,” a great show based on that very premise.

    In Tennessee we have a program that forgives student loan repayments for masters-prepared RNs in exchange for teaching nursing courses at a state university. So no Alaska, no cold weather, no moose. And teaching at this level is not a bad little gig, you know.

  • veritaseequitas

    someone always has to pay.
    It just annoys the tar out of me when people talk about the “government” paying for all this supposed “free” stuff when it is the taxpayers who are footing the bill.

  • The_Gadfly

    Schools don’t lack for math teachers because of an innate lack of math teachers. They lack math teachers because teacher salary’s are set with same callous disregard for the market place as student tuition is. I was fortunate to have an excellent math teacher (and I say that as someone who does not typically test well in the subject) for high school Geometry and Probability and Statistics. He left the profession because he had two kids going into college and couldn’t afford to pay their tuition on a teacher’s salary. Okay, he also left because he had too few students like me and my classmates (yeah, Prob Stat was an elective not required) and too many where he was being an overpaid babysitter. But he did enjoy teaching us, and I think he would have stuck it out if everything else was balanced.

  • The_Gadfly

    of the private sector that obscures the price signal mechanism, which is inherently bad.

  • The_Gadfly

    but never government, even at the state level.

  • The_Gadfly

    for recently graduated law students is through the roof at the moment right? And that while there are shortages of some types of doctors, there is an over abundance of certain others?

    Not questioning the principle of risk based loans, just pointing out that it is a bit more complicated than broad based assumptions allow.

  • acat

    Get government out of the way and the situation will self-correct.

    Mew

  • commonsenseobserver

    I think that the government can play a rather constructive role in education, including higher education, especially on the state and local levels. I have always believed in maintaining public schools and grants as an option, maybe because I’ve been influenced too much by Commonwealth nations.

    Of course, they should always be based on market forces and sound fiscal policies. But I’ve never really bought into that “government is inherently bad” idea. There are times when the public sector should work with the private and social sector in improving public services.

    I know my views are unusual for a conservative. :P

  • gekster

    caroliniasox isn’t, then to you is is free.
    Question to caroliniasox, do you pay income taxes?

  • commonsenseobserver

    Are you in favour of privatisation or not?

  • acat

    As in – individual banks, who had access to exactly the same data Moe cites here, would decide which students were worth the risk, and which were not. “Harry wants to be a doctor, Tom wants to be a physics professor, Larry wants to be a journalist… yes, yes, no.”

    Mew

  • commonsenseobserver

    The private and social sectors must always be the main component of any educational aid and funding system.

  • acat

    Dropped a comma.

    Blaming insufficient coffee.

    Mew

  • The_Gadfly

    but the problems are more fundamental. As I recall tuition at my alma mater went up more than 10% each year I was there, and I started attending about the time Reagan put the stake in the inflation vampire’s heart. The whole higher ed system in this country is a vast bastion of Marxist holdouts, even most of the ones who don’t think they are Marxists. I spent the first half of my uni life in the hard sciences. Frankly my atomic physics teacher from that segment was as bad a Marxists as the joker I eventually had for Asian Literature for the second half. Oh, and my loan rates were around 6%, not the piddly 4% they are complaining will double their interest rates.

  • macbookben

    Public ‘collages’? I made a poster once in 4th grade with randomly selected magazine scraps and displayed it at a community center.

    And had I not punctuated and spelled properly, I would have not have been allowed to display it at such a venue as doing so would have brought shame and scorn on the school that was supposed to teach me better.

    Marx and Engels could afford to study in London because they were products of old, inherited wealth. If Paris Hilton wants to get her act together and go back to school to major in Cultural Bitterness Studies, she should. She has the wherewithal to make that dream come true. On the other hand, if a regular Joe/Joline wants to pursue a similar path to a college degree and needs to borrow the money to do so, fine. But the loan has to be paid back, regardless of the consequences of that choice. The expectation that the risk of such circumstances ought to be offset by loan forgiveness or free tuition has to stop now.

  • macbookben

    n/t

  • gekster

    what has the government run efficiently, excluding a war or two.

    And you are right.
    Those views are unusual for a conservative,
    as conservatives don’t have those views.

  • The_Gadfly

    If the universities were at risk for the loans they might clean up their course catalogs.

  • westcoastpatriette

    Another blogger I used to read a lot was a stickler for punctuation and — to illustrate the point — used this example in his signature:

    “Let’s eat, Grandma.”

    “Let’s eat Grandma.”

  • commonsenseobserver

    I said that it could play a part. For example, providing tax incentives and encouraging private sector participation. And Conservatives are working on the state level to solve many problems, without expanding the reach of government.

    Always felt closer to Thatcher and Burke than Goldwater, actually. :P

  • ohiohistorian

    Even Desert Storm was not run efficiently, just more efficiently than the other side.

  • davenj1

    as in bull#$*!. Less than half of the math teachers in America have a major or even a minor in math. Yes- they compete with the private sector and one could make more money working for Goldman-Sachs than being a teacher in a public school. But wouldn’t it make sense to let that math major who opts for teaching leave college with no debt? It addresses a need for math teachers. And that is but one example. And as concerns teacher pay, I give a rat’s ass how much they make a year IF THEY ARE QUALIFIED, but not every teacher was created equal!
    You could pay for GRANTS, incidentally, if the federal government gets out of K-12 education funding and all the crap that goes with it.

  • commonsenseobserver

    Are you actually suggesting that we privatise the military?

  • gekster

  • http://908StraightSt.wordpress.com/ mbecker908

    Neither should teachers or doctors.

    Oh heck, nobody should. At least not the federally subsidized and guaranteed kind.

    Let colleges underwrite loans if they’re such an important thing. Or, let colleges enter into an agreement with students that they’ll provide an education in return for a percentage of the student’s income over 20 years.

    Put the schools on the hook to produce a quality product that will benefit the student and as a result, benefit the college.

  • gekster
  • ohiohistorian

    But I guess that teachers’ unions have not decided that math teachers should make more than “enrichment studies” teachers. Same for science. Unfortunately, the union model is that teaching is teaching, and good math teachers=bad study hall teachers as long as both are similarly “tenured”. A lot of this is even true at the college level, that a chemical engineering professor makes about the same as a black studies professor. This is the public influence on education, and is a good reason for the government to get OUT of education.

  • davenj1

    they pay 100% of a doctor’s medical education. In exchange, they are placed in government run clinics where they are paid the US equivalent of $55,000 per year for four or five years after which they are free to go into private practice and earn whatever they want. While receiving that $55K/year, they are not subject to the onerous French payroll taxes so it is almost $55,000 tax free. It works in getting doctors to where they are needed at relatively low cost.

  • davenj1

    I got a B+

  • davenj1

    n/t

  • davenj1

    I believe that ROTC programs are a great template for reform of higher education. That works perfectly with my idea of contractual quid pro quos regarding grants for high need professions like doctors (especially general practitioners), certain types of teachers, engineers, etc.
    Its a win-win-win situation.

  • ohiohistorian

    Did I suggest privatize? Our Constitution lets us raise armies and navies (but I guess Ron Paul would say the Air Force is not in it:)) I just don’t want anyone to think that DOD is a model of efficiency. I personally agree that there are large swaths of funds that can come out of their budget, but that the reduced budget then cannot be used to fly the Sec Defense home on weekends, nor the Speaker of the House and her entourage, nor any other such use. And I believe that if the military pays for a Congressional junket, it should only pay for the outbound trip.

    A model might be the Israeli military, but I don’t know enough to recommend that either.

  • commonsenseobserver

    And I agree.

  • http://www.timothy-bladel.com/ center77

    So that is an outcome we have to be very careful from keeping from happening. If low income people cannot afford to go to school for the higher skilled jobs, they will go to the rich, and immigrants who come from countries that can send their people here to get educated.

  • commonsenseobserver

    I believe in equality of opportunity. Whether this can be implemented in practice is another matter. School vouchers may help for basic education, but ultimately the private and social sectors will have to play a big role.

    Paying for low income students’ higher education brings many points of contention. For example, perhaps we should provide them with allowances as well…?

    How do you think we should approach this issue?

  • davenj1

    ideas like affirmative action into the equation. If higher education is so important, then we should be ensuring our best and brightest regardless of color or ethnicity get that education. There should not be remedial courses in colleges…period! If you need remedial courses, you don’t deserve to be there in the first place. We can ensure a quality education at the lower levels (K-12) by getting the federal government out of it. That is where things started to stagnate or go downhill. Since 1969, what has the federal government’s investment in K-12 education bought us?

  • davenj1

    If an Asian practically right off the boat can excel in a school, why can’t certain native groups? I see it everyday. Not to sound racist, but I see a Chen or a Dao getting straight A’s while the Jones’ and Smiths pulls C’s and D’s being taught the same thing in the same way by the same person in something rather objective like math.

  • commonsenseobserver

    Yet another problem. But I think we’re more worried about students who do reasonably well, but have low incomes. Local governments should be able to play a role in helping these students by ensuring that they have access to financial assistance from other public sources.

    I agree about K-12 education.

  • http://www.rightspeak.net/search/label/-Right%20Wingnut rightwingnut2

    They’re far more motivated to realize the “American Dream” than native groups. The same thing applies to those from non-Asian countries as well. Look at the high number of Russian m illionaires living in the US as an example.

  • commonsenseobserver

    Any chance of trying this on the state level?

    Assisted Places Scheme

  • http://pocketchangeproductions.net/ anotherindyfilmguy

    and being held accountable for their decisions..
    Radicalism at it’s finest…

  • http://www.timothy-bladel.com/ center77

    we can get rid of grants and up the loan amount to accommodate the difference, but I do not want to see anybody denied the opportunity to reach for a dream. Regardless of previous mistakes they may have made.

  • http://www.timothy-bladel.com/ center77

    I’m a student, and I work my butt off. I have a 4.0 after three years, and I see it all the time.

  • http://www.timothy-bladel.com/ center77

    if the private sector can do it without screwing everyone, then great. But businesses tend to drive up profits, which is passed to the student. I’m not sure trusting the Romney’s of the word to drive down education cost is a great idea.

  • http://www.timothy-bladel.com/ center77

    such as California.

  • http://www.rightspeak.net/search/label/-Right%20Wingnut rightwingnut2

    ….on prices.

  • Ausonius

    I believe the U.S. Army at the beginning of the Civil War had under 20,000 men, which is why the state militias were so important.

    This caused many problems, of course, without e.g. centralized training standards, common weaponry, etc.

    Decentralizing and trimming the Pentagon, despite such an historical objection, are still quite possible of course. I would assume that the National Guard could be expanded even more, given modern technology and communications.

  • montani

    Sandy Baum and Saul Schwartz agree with you.

    http://professionals.collegeboard.com/profdownload/pdf/06-0869.DebtPpr060420.pdf

    In fact on Table 10 they list the maximum recommended debt as a function of income:

    Income Student Loan
    $10,000 $0
    $20,000 $7,680
    $30,000 $22,160
    $40,000 $36,640
    $50,000 $51,120
    $75,000 $87,330
    $100,000 $123,540
    $150,000 $195,950

  • CrabCakes

    If you get into any program worth attending, then your tuition is covered along with a (relatively meager) stipend to live on.

  • massachusettsdemocrat

    In particular, the tech industry claims that if only they had more computer science and engineer graduates they wouldn’t need to import as many H1-B Indians that they can work like dogs and deport if they strike. What if instead of getting more H1-Bs, they instead gave math tests to high school graduates and then gave them grants to go to college to study engineering?

    It’s a commonsense solution that’s not politically correct because it’s merit-based instead of whining-based.

  • massachusettsdemocrat

    I’m in favor of what works. Student loans are half-nationalized bullshit, and subsidize expensive production of worthless degrees.

  • massachusettsdemocrat

    pretty saturated. An undergrad going for a physics or math degree is likely to work on something else.

    Also, maybe people should submit SAT scores to the bank. I don’t know how much it correlates, but it wouldn’t hurt to put it in the computer and crunch the numbers.

  • drfredc

    Rather than adjust loans to the marketability of any particular subject of study, perhaps it would make more sense to adjust the cost of schooling in any particular subject according to it’s need in the marketplace. Stuff that is needed (like science, engineering, healthcare) is priced lower, stuff that’s not (like women’s studies) is priced higher.

  • massachusettsdemocrat

    You know, the one thing the people in Castro’s Cuba have going for them is they have more doctors per capita than any other country. Look at where they stand in global health statistics.

    There’s also an argument for subsidizing teachers, and even engineers. Not much reason to subsidize lawyers, though.

  • CrabCakes

    .

  • Next93

    It’s been more than 30 years since l was in college (a brutally difficult engineering program I made it through with less-than-flying colors).

    While I certainly am not absolving myself of *any* of the blame for my solidly mediocre (at best) perfomrance as a student, the fact is that the number of good teachers I ran into in my private college was no greater (and possibly lower) than the number of good teachers I ran into in my public high schools. That includes one inner-city urban school and one middle-to-upper middle class suburban school.

    This is one of the things that irritates me so much about the rise in college tuition that’s been going on since at least the Nixon administration; the colleges (like the public schools) keep increasing per-student costs, but are failing to show any improvement in the quality of ther product. In fact, there’s a few tens of thousands of home-schoolers who think that it’s been going in the opposite direction.

  • Viet71

    OK, screw lawyers. Where do we stop screwing?

    Our society has jobs for liberal arts majors if they have talent and know where to look for jobs.

    The real issue is the cost of quality higher public education.

    Smart kids from Sparta, Illinois can get into the engineering college at the University of Illinois at about $16,000 a year. World class education.

    Kids who are adept at a language can pay their way.

  • Next93

    Every student on a scholarship is living off of the tuition money of every other student in the school. If you’ve got a fellowship to study the racism of marketing menthol cigarettes, your $45,000 or so a year is simply being spread across all of the undergrads who are at the bottom of the Ponzi scheme that the US higher ed system has become.

  • CrabCakes

    With regard to:

    1) The number of graduate students allowed per department at most schools is contingent upon the number of undergraduate majors the department has. In return, graduate students typically do things like grade papers and teach intro level classes, which ultimately keeps costs down as graduate students are cheaper than extra faculty.

    2) Eccentric rich people give large sums of money to fund research in areas in which they happen to be interested. Departments use the interest on these gifts to fund graduate students among other things.

  • Next93

    A few years ago, the brilliant minds of the General College at the U of M came up with the idea that the students in the Intitute of Technology should be paying more in tuition.

    As background, the General College was basically advanced high school (though that might be an insult to high schools), and the IT really was a world-class research organization that was graduating engineers and scientists who were actually US citizens (most grad school students in technology are from abroad).

    At the time, the governor of the state was a republican, and had done a pretty good job of holding the line on increases in state funding to the U. Of course, the U wasn’t going to let its plans for more hyphenated-studies departments be daunted by something as trivial as reality, so they did the expected, they increased tuition.

    Naturally, the students and the faculty complained, none louder than the faculty of the General College, who had a very large axe to grind with the Institute of Technology; they apparently viewed the teaching of something that might be useful in holding down a job as being something that a true intellectual should never do.

    So, thier brilliant idea was, instead of an across-the-board tuition increase, the cost of credists from the Institute of Technology should be raised. The reasoning, which was actually printed in the college newspaper, was that since the I/T grads were probably going to gert good-paying jobs while the G/C grads were, well.., NOT, it was only “fair” that the I/T students subsidize the tuition of the G/C students.

  • http://moelane.com/ Moe Lane

    Signed,

    Moe Lane (BA, English)

  • http://moelane.com/ Moe Lane

    I’m stealing this.

  • http://moelane.com/ Moe Lane

    When I was doing grad work in Library Studies in the 1990s at Rutgers (and it was a good program) I had to take out loans. Nobody wanted to finance the generation of new librarians.

    I know: plural of anecdote is not data, and all that.

    Moe Lane

    PS: Nobody also wanted to actually pay librarians anything, either. I was shocked to discover that not finishing my MLS ended up netting me 10K more a year than finishing the degree would have;

  • Kyle-MI

    as a function of both college and major. That is how the market place determines what colleges and majors are useful.

  • zachv

    English is kinda the default bashing degree. :/

  • APA Guy

    Conservative on an IU campus…speaking the truth was a pleasure surrounded by flaming liberals :)

  • CrabCakes

    I might be mistaken, but I’d consider and MLS a “professional degree,” i.e. a degree that is designed to train you to do a job. A “graduate degree” trains you to know a bunch about a topic and to be able to do original research on that topic. The only career for which a graduate degree trains you is to make more academics, and you’d be a fool to get a graduate degree with the primary goal of landing a job in academia.

    Most professional degrees involve debt, but most (decent) graduate degrees don’t. Up until the mid-to-late 90s lots of graduate programs were accepting students without funding them. That led to very dysfunctional departments with funded students looking down on unfunded students and unfunded students hating funded students, which in turn led to only accepting as many students as the department could afford to fund.

    In short, yes, librarians go into debt to get trained to work as librarians (perhaps foolishly). Quebecois-Studies graduate students typically do not. We dirty hippy humanities graduate students might be blowing a decade or so of our own potential, but we aren’t doing so at everyone else’s expense.

  • PowerToThePeople

    but should be based on worthiness of the study and the grades of the student.

    If they are taking worthy courses and are working hard at them, the cost can be lower. If they are in school taking the nonsense courses, and we all know what those are, jack the prices up so much that no one wants to take them. Lastly, jack the price up on the students who use college as a party place or a never ending sex shop rather than busting open the books.

    This will not only clear up a lot of seats at most schools, it will allow schools to cut back on unneeded staff that will no longer be utilized for “teaching” students how to meditate. It will also force our students to either actually study and learn, or get out clearing up room for worthy students as well.

    That and get government out of the school loan business.

  • CrabCakes

    The issue that seems to go unnoticed here is that students are the consumers and that they set the market rate for a degree in a given major. Since most (but not all) students pick their major based largely on how much money they’ll make when they graduate, the lucrative majors see lots of students, their departments grow, their faculty make more money, etc.

    The less lucrative majors, however, tend to wither on the vine, which is why classics departments are shrinking, or even closing, left and right.

    If we let the market do its business, then the price of less lucrative majors would *drop*, not rise, thanks to simple supply and demand. Instead, though, universities keep tuition rates constant regardless of major, which leads less desirable departments to disappear instead of becoming cheaper.

    What drfredc suggests is that we manipulate the market even more, artificially jacking up the cost of less lucrative majors to discourage students from majoring in things that *we* think are bad for them, instead of letting them decide what’s best for them.

    (Regarding the suggestion of the original post that loan rates be indexed to major, I’d be fine with that if we let the cost of college shift depending on major and if it weren’t almost impossible to get out from under student loans, thereby essentially guaranteeing banks that their investment is risk-free.)

  • http://moelane.com/ Moe Lane

    I fully duplicated Spider Robinson’s sudden revelation when he got his degree in English: But… I don’t want to drive a cab. :)

  • thx1138v2

    I really find it hard to believe this discussion id on Red State, The article makes the point that banks make the loans. So maybe the banks should use good old risk analysis and co-signers. Otherwise, we’re just building another subprime market.

    The major problem with education in America today is that the institutions are more interested in teaching student what to think rather than how to think. When the government gets involved in anything sooner or later there are strings attached. So how long is it until the government backed loans only go to students who go to institutions teaching the governments ideology?

    It’s not a long step from there to telling students with government loans what they may study. Now ask yourself what’s the difference between that and the USSR’s education system?

    That’s cradle to grave control considering today’s education costs. What would happen to education costs if you got the government and tax payers’ dollars out of the education system?

    The left is this country has gone so far left that the “center” is now between socialism and communism. That’s the only explanation I can come up with for the author’s opinion.

  • checkmate2012

    rate of tuition would drop dramatically. It’s fine on a state and local level to give out scholarships, but I agree that the minute the fed gov’t steps in, the schools see it as a slush fund.

    I agree that institutions are mostly intererested in teaching what to think and not how to think, but in the end, it’s purely financial; when the gov’t gives subsidies for students, the colleges raise rates accordingly. One stat I’ve seen is that tuition has gone up about 439% in the last 10 years, A pure example of cause and effect that happens everytime gov’t gets involved in a free-market principle.

    Don’t forget O’care and the Dems are responsible for the current student loan takeover and interest rate rise and I’m waiting for the prez to say it’s Republican’s fault for not having enough Pell Grant money….we have short memories and here is the proof of the Dem’s plan:

    This excerpt from USA today on 3/19/10, http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2010-03-19-IHE-student-loan-measures-in-health-bill19_ST_N.htm

    titled: “Revamped student loan bill tucked into massive health bill”

    “In the end, to satisfy budget requirements and win over skeptical deficit hawks in their own party, Democratic leaders wound up directing a total of $19 billion (of the $61 billion in revenues that the student loan shift would produce over 10 years) to reduce the deficit and help pay for the health care portion of the legislation.

    What’s been cut

    Stripped entirely from the final version of the legislation were billions of dollars to extend a cut in the student loan interest rate past 2012, $8 billion for early childhood education, and an overhaul and expansion of the Perkins Loan Program that was designed to reward institutions for their success in graduating low-income students.

    The measure also lowers the sights of the administration’s plan to create a new $3 billion College Access and Completion Fund to prod states and institutions to innovate; instead, it would put $750 million toward the existing College Access Challenge Grant Program.

    And even the administration’s top higher education priority ? increasing the Pell Grant ? took a serious hit. While the version of the legislation that the House passed last fall would have increased the maximum Pell Grant to $6,900 by 2019 and tied future increases in the grants to inflation plus 1 percentage point, the compromise measure would set the maximum grant to $5,975 in 2019 and provide for no increase in four of the next 10 years. ($36 billion doesn’t go as far as it used to.)

    Because so many more students have applied and qualified for the grants as a result of of swelling enrollments and Americans’ worsening financial situations, the Pell Grant Program faces a $19 billion shortfall in 2009-10 and 2010-11, and lawmakers felt pressed to set aside $13.5 billion of the money from the budget bill to pay down about two-thirds of that total. Congressional appropriators will have to find the rest of that money in the coming months.”

    Tell me the government isn’t responsible for this tuition mess….

  • garfieldjl

    I think the Federal Government should be removed from the student loan system.

    What you are suggesting in my opinion is the government telling us what we have to be.

    I’m not exactly a libertarian, but I feel given the example we have seen from the Democrats of late, I don’t think Government can be trusted with this kind of power, especially since there is no reason for them to have this power.

    Colleges already charge different amounts based on the area of study, I really don’t see why the Feds should be involved in student loans.

    While we want to see more people going into Math and Science, the issue is we don’t really have anything that attracts kids to those fields.

    We need groups like NASA to be devoted to science and exploration once again instead of being political toys for politicians. Everyone claims that we are in a budget crunch, and while that is true, the objective behind NASA needs to be something that gets children interested in Math and Science.

    What we are currently seeing is the lack of anything for children to aspire to.

  • Raven

    The process becomes corrupt and impossibly inefficient. We already have government provided “scholarships.” Too many times have they only proven to be granted to friends and family of the government bureaucrats who handle them.

  • SoFiMil

    If we’re going to do this at all, it *should* be in education. At least when setting up a preference system for loans, it won’t effect if someone lives or dies.

  • checkmate2012

    And in usual fashion, derided a program before we had a continuity plan:

    -Kill coal and fossil fuels before green energy & algea are ready (if ever)
    -Remove the troops in Afghan, compromise with Taliban, set a date certain before we can declare victory (a word that is not in his vocabulary)
    -Pretend the Constitution doesn’t exist and declare SCOTUS & Congress as barriers that he has to work around

    And the list goes on….but gov’t can’t force or decide what degree a student should get and what its worth is to them or society. The easiest solution is NO gov’t influence. Period.

  • checkmate2012

    is the UT case at the Supreme Court regarding reverse discrimination. At a time, TX allowed admission to the top 10% of high school grads regardless of any other criteria. So their GPA may be lower than say a student that took AP (advanced) courses but won’t get into UT since only so many slots are alloted.

    How is this fair to students that worked really hard but are eliminated for admission because a student from a substandard school with a bell curve got a slot and flunked out in the 1st semester at UT? Colleges should set criteria on grades and not gov’t subsidies that tend to favor outside influences.

  • mikefromny

    Consider the weeks after 9/11. The FBI/CIA didn’t have (and still doesn’t have) enough Arabic speaking people to help decode/work for them. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/september-11-attacks/8775550/US-spy-agencies-struggle-with-post-911-languages.html)

    It’s entirely plausible Arabic Studies would have been classified with Womens Studies pre-9/11. We don’t know what’s coming next. A broad collections of opinions and methods of observing the world is valuable.

  • http://908StraightSt.wordpress.com/ mbecker908

    What you end up with is bloated administration in higher ed, and tons of administrators at the federal level to make sure minorities get their unfair share of subsidies. That leads to lowering entrance standards and social graduation.

    Again, let the universities make a contract with their students and graduates pay back over their working life.

    The LAST people who should be subsidized are teachers and, as a graduate engineer, they don’t need subsidies.

    What we need is a financing regime that put the onus on the college/university to deliver a high quality education and if their graduates aren’t productive members of society they should close. And just so I’m clear, degree programs that focus on employment by government are NOT productive and should be either eliminated or downsized. Not only do we not need more lawyers, we don’t need more government employees either.

    If you’re fond of Cuba, move there. You won’t be missed.

  • SoFiMil

    The left will howl at well-thought-out proposals like Moe’s and cry that it’s ‘not fair!” Seems fair to me.

    Yet what’s outrageous and not fair is healthcare being tied to how many more “productive years” one has left to *give* to the community.

  • littlehouse18

    and the rules said I had to retain that rate for my entire education, even though rates dropped for new students during that time. It stunk. So I have no pity for these folks today.

  • thephoenix13

    First, this system would require the students entering college to know exactly what job they are going to pursue after they graduate. As a college student I can tell you, nobody has a clue. And if they think they do, they usually end up being wrong. This is not Europe. We are free to choose what we study and what we do with our degree. Some philosophy or Feminist Studies majors become rich lawyers. Some pre-med or Engineering majors become poor pre-school teachers.

    So then what will banks do if you tell them you plan to do one thing when you graduate, then you do something else? Presumably there would be some sort of financial punishment. Assuming that punishment is severe enough, many students would end up being pushed into a career that they realized they didn’t want anymore. Then you end up with more severely dissatisfied and likely unproductive people in the workforce.

    Second, you’re talking about judging the loans off of the career’s value to society. Who is going to judge that? The Government? The banks? The colleges? RedState? No one is qualified to do this.

  • checkmate2012

    I know I changed by degree a couple of times and changed colleges once and ended up with a double major. What person knows where they fit into society or what career they desire at 17 or whenever they start college? Not many as you stated. Why should they know for certain after high school when the world is their oyster?

    Great points and yet another sound argument in the debate for NO gov’t subsidies.

  • http://MichaelHarrington.org Michael Harrington

    A Democrat posting here, lol.

    First to say that the UN life expectancy tables are wrong is an understatement.

    Most nations count babies that die within 5 days of birth as Still Born.

    The United States does not… when a breathing or moving baby leaves the womb it is considered alive.

    The United States also leads in the area of premature birth.

    Those two facts, if turned on their head, upset the longevity claims.

    But I want to hit while the anvil is hot… certain groups have higher risk factors due to genetics. Some Israeli’s have a gene that reduces the length of their life but increases their intelligence, black men are more likely to suffer heart disease.

    Heck family genetics for me makes it likely I will have cancer or live to my late ninties. Maybe both thanks to modern medicine. When my son was born he was the 6th generation alive at that point.

    The facilities we have access to, the tech, the expertise, is second to none!

    We do not need a socialist in tervention in health care.

    It is very likely you will outlive, on a per capita basis, the Cubans born in the same year as you by at least five years if not a decade.

    P.S. there is statistics, damned statistics, and outright lies. As a statistics hobbyist I will tell you the longevity reports fall into the last category.

  • NRPax

    Major in Radio/Television, focus on Television, trained to be an engineer and editor. Cards on the table now, please. :-D

  • NRPax

    What was the end result of that idea?

  • APA Guy

    nt

  • davenj1

    with the Cuba example, although I think choosing Michael Moore’s choice of health care is not particularly appealing. Getting back to the subject of education and higher ed grants for high need positions, no one is asserting that the resulting doctor or engineer has to work for the government. A private sector engineer can is needed in private industry as much as working for the government. No one is asserting that the doctor be paid by the government in my original example. They could work for a private hospital in a rural under-served area as a general practitioner (or whatever). The public school teacher, of course, would be paid by the school district. I don’t want to get into education reform- I already wrote about that.
    I DO like the idea of colleges “granting” money and recuperating it from graduates. Then they would be more apt to engage in partnerships with private industry and job placement because otherwise they aren’t getting repaid. We might also get more engineering majors and such and fewer African American Lesbian Literature Majors.

  • NRPax

    I did receive technical training in addition to things like setting up programming schedules and script writing. Never used any of it and now I work as a contractor.

  • Duke

    Charge students for tuition and books based on what it actually costs to “produce” a class in a given subject? These costs should include the price of the professor, TA, books and fixed costs for the operation of the classroom’s portion of the fixed plant cost of the college or university. Subtract the prorated revenues from government grants and tax levy contributions, and divide the remaining net expense by the number of students taking that class for the current semester.

    Supply and Demand: The inconvenient truth in action in education. I wonder how many students would pony-up the money when colleges were treated like our energy supply – making the cost of your education, “…necessarily skyrocket.”

  • funwithknives

    a lesson {or 4 ,or 5} in real time, using real money, and real people?
    A lesson that once taught, will never, ever be forgotten and looked back at for life?
    Plus, will illustrate what the oft-mangled word ‘reform’ really means? That kinda lesson?
    That just makes entirely too much sense.
    You are hereby nominated to be *Secretary of Smarts, First Class*.

    Need a Sargeant-at -Arms? T’would be fun……

  • funwithknives

    Entering into a contract and making school an interested first party?
    Incentives and everything?

    Now, we have a winner!!!

    This proposal would have an interesting side-effect. We could see in black and white, up-close and personal just how vapid and shallow, teachers and their Unions really are.
    We’d all get a lesson, now wouldn’t we? And the educators would be doing their jobs, for all to see.
    Like-n this one, more each minute……..

  • funwithknives

    to study Econ,#101 ??

    Sounds like mebbe it did……

  • funwithknives

    are most likely, killer.
    T V ads? Let’s see what you got.
    You know you wanna……

  • funwithknives

    …bringing us those forgotten little enjoyments in life :
    *Kissing, of a sort.
    *Various wines and spirits.
    *Lafayette.
    *Bastiat
    *Luc Besson {see: “The Fifth Element.’ Twice }
    * Historical lessons : Gaining your freedom, only to throw it away……
    *Bistros.{I just love the word. ‘Bistro’…}

  • NRPax

    Nah. The last time I stood in the production booth was back in 94 and the only ads I ever did was for a friend who ran the sales department at an Oregon radio station. Had I known at the ease with which things could get out to the world, I probably would have stayed in the field.

  • The_Gadfly

    are not limited to positions at universities. Law students by definition pretty much go into lawyering, or politics, which of late seems to be just another form of lawyering.

    But then given you were flacking that “Castro has a better healthcare system than the USA” piece of communist propaganda in another thread, I have my doubts about your ability to accept real facts and reason from them.

  • Pingback: gsdfghsdkflhgksdfl

  • Pingback: Blog

  • Pingback: sexy lady

  • Pingback: wholesale nike air jordans

  • Pingback: Magnetic Tags Remover

  • Pingback: Watch Hotel Transylvania online

  • Pingback: https://www.ai-digu.com/?p=924

  • Pingback: website

  • Pingback: supplements

  • Pingback: jak szybko schudnac

  • Pingback: How to fight

  • Pingback: Extreme weight loss diet

  • Pingback: about yoga

  • Pingback: Make money online

  • Pingback: Organo Gold Scam

  • Pingback: crafts

  • Pingback: Marketing Digital

  • Pingback: where to buy phen375

  • Pingback: adult webcam

  • Pingback: cheap viagra

  • Pingback: tile denver

  • Pingback: m�rke solbriller

  • Pingback: Download Autocad Softwares

  • Pingback: Nikon 1 V2

  • Pingback: make money fast

  • Pingback: How To Make Youtube Videos

  • Pingback: best spinner

  • Pingback: Mini Guitar

  • Pingback: Chilli Seeds

  • Pingback: botezuri

  • Pingback: temperature

  • Pingback: Fusevision.com.sg seo tools

  • Pingback: Fusevision.com.sg search engine optimization singapore

  • Pingback: read more

  • Pingback: I thought about this

  • Pingback: watch this video

  • Pingback: wykonczenia wnetrz

  • Pingback: mulberry alexa handbag

  • Pingback: slipper chairs

  • Pingback: paleo recipe book

  • Pingback: Universitas Terbaik

  • Pingback: cardio workouts

  • Pingback: Read This

  • Pingback: canon 6d

  • Pingback: swissdent

  • Pingback: listen to this podcast

  • Pingback: Lainaa

  • Pingback: what is google sniper and does it work

  • Pingback: ugg boots pas cher

  • Pingback: pond 5 promo code

  • Pingback: Darnell Muray

  • Pingback: acheter casque beat

  • Pingback: sushi catering boston

  • Pingback: Colette Nii

  • Pingback: Tanner Acoba

  • Pingback: seofabrik

  • Pingback: Isidra Mamoran

  • Pingback: stables

  • Pingback: dubai properties group

  • Pingback: paleo bread recipe

  • Pingback: website designer

  • Pingback: legal steroids

  • Pingback: click here

  • Pingback: the best legal steroids

  • Pingback: majorg33k

  • Pingback: best legal steroids

  • Pingback: visit this site

  • Pingback: Markus Stancombe

  • Pingback: http://www.aboutlapbandsurgeryonline.com/forms-of-girls-add-ons-and-why-every-last-fashionable-girl-should-opt-for-them/

  • Pingback: spybubble free

  • Pingback: Lovetta Chisler

  • Pingback: web design barrow

  • Pingback: umrah 2013

  • Pingback: sony adapter

  • Pingback: Carie Bazan

  • Pingback: Lower Abdominal Pain

  • Pingback: astral projection quick

  • Pingback: rv warranty

  • Pingback: estate agents glasgow

  • Pingback: cam girls webcam girls

  • Pingback: check out this

  • Pingback: obe guided meditation

  • Pingback: Terrell Schlick

  • Pingback: Web Site

  • Pingback: escorts leeds.

  • Pingback: click the up coming website page

  • Pingback: supply chain risk management

  • Pingback: escorts leeds.

  • Pingback: gutters tampa florida

  • Pingback: rv warranty

  • Pingback: Website

  • Pingback: buy green coffee bean max

  • Pingback: steam showers

  • Pingback: steam showers

  • Pingback: people search

  • Pingback: people search,

  • Pingback: rv warranty

  • Pingback: Tycoon World war Warcraft Gold Addon Review

  • Pingback: rv warranty

  • Pingback: charger uk

  • Pingback: swissdent

  • Pingback: Laquanda Demchak

  • Pingback: Zina Digby

  • Pingback: jeux,

  • Pingback: jeuxjeuxjeux

  • Pingback: american mortgage help

  • Pingback: PPI Claims

  • Pingback: PPI Claims

  • Pingback: Danica Patrick

  • Pingback: PPI Claim

  • Pingback: PPI Claim

  • Pingback: PPI Claim

  • Pingback: toronto plumbing

  • Pingback: Read More Here

  • Pingback: Brokerage bonus

  • Pingback: tartamudez tratamiento fonoaudiologico

  • Pingback: PPI Claim

  • Pingback: PPI Claim

  • Pingback: Fuck you

  • Pingback: Fuck you.

  • Pingback: Fuck you.

  • Pingback: Nikon v2

  • Pingback: velkoborsky

  • Pingback: velkoborsky.

  • Pingback: Make Money Youtube

  • Pingback: NHL news

  • Pingback: tas branded murah

  • Pingback: Jim Dannatt

  • Pingback: garage doors melbourne

  • Pingback: garage doors melbourne

  • Pingback: garage doors perth

  • Pingback: garage doors perth.

  • Pingback: gryphon garage doors

  • Pingback: gryphon garage doors

  • Pingback: the stables towneley park,

  • Pingback: casino

  • Pingback: casino,

  • Pingback: noclegi roztocze

  • Pingback: amarillo tree

  • Pingback: amarillo tree.

  • Pingback: Tessa Krakowiak

  • Pingback: viagra

  • Pingback: verificagru

  • Pingback: Quinn Kehr

  • Pingback: amarillo tree

  • Pingback: amarillo tree.

  • Pingback: viagra

  • Pingback: Keshia Coache

  • Pingback: porn

  • Pingback: ipage affiliate

  • Pingback: porn

  • Pingback: gambling

  • Pingback: mold testing services

  • Pingback: Rottweiler

  • Pingback: buy active instagram followers

  • Pingback: ipage domain

  • Pingback: abc blinds

  • Pingback: mls inmobiliarias

  • Pingback: browse around this site

  • Pingback: Deliver my Dumpster

  • Pingback: weight loss diet

  • Pingback: startoptions

  • Pingback: startoption

  • Pingback: banque Bordier

  • Pingback: startoption

  • Pingback: galaxy s3

  • Pingback: Cristy Scarff

  • Pingback: annual free credit report

  • Pingback: junk car towing milwaukee

  • Pingback: land of nod coupon

  • Pingback: target baby shower registry

  • Pingback: bear grylls messer

  • Pingback: pirater facebook

  • Pingback: pirater facebook

  • Pingback: pirater facebook

  • Pingback: cheapest car insurance quotes

  • Pingback: pc dial.

  • Pingback: pc dial

  • Pingback: chaise eames

  • Pingback: Dario Harthorne

  • Pingback: Grant Mckenty

  • Pingback: Georgie Fitzsimons

  • Pingback: Alba Amezaga

  • Pingback: Medical Practice Marketing

  • Pingback: Bryce Paz

  • Pingback: cheap games

  • Pingback: natural depersonalization treatment

  • Pingback: ldlhdlcholesterollevels.org

  • Pingback: Iliana Kreis

  • Pingback: watch this video

  • Pingback: http://voicelessharbin48.blinkweb.com/1/2012/11/ponte-vedra-cheap-real-estate-366e9/

  • Pingback: Going Here

  • Pingback: Hisako Rozar

  • Pingback: snel afvallen

  • Pingback: pirater facebook

  • Pingback: Gale Abbey