What's wrong with Secondary Education in the US, and some solutions

[squatz1]

I'm going to say it straight out, the secondary education in the United States is a burden on the people that was BUILT to be a burden on the people. College didn't get magically more expensive because people were getting paid more (hint: wages haven't risen enough to even come close to percentage growth of tuition), college got more expensive for a domino effect that people didn't notice.

Government Policy
Financial aid is a great intention, yes, and it brings new minds to colleges that wouldn't ever be able to attend if they had to fund college for themselves. But the problem with spending 'other peoples money' is that you're going to stop caring about the price of something if you're not the person footing the bill in the end. If the Government pays for all or most of your education, you don't care if the school raises the rates on you and you won't stop yourself from going to the most expensive school. That sounds fine, yes, but if you were paying that all in cash and the government wasn't helping you, you'd be much more diligent about where you'd be going and trying to get the most bang for your buck.

Another issue with the government paying whatever has to be paid in financial aid is that colleges know this they're going to increase rates of tuition because they know the money is there and it's guaranteed by the government.

With this in mind, I don't think you can fully remove the blame from government officials. They might have been well intended, yes, and this is a very popular issue with the voters -- as the voters want EVERYONE to go to college -- but the only reason politicians enacted this policy was because it was popular and because they knew they could get re-elected if they supported it and continue to support it. We sometimes forget that politicians aren't these amazing people that are working so hard for us, they're working hard in order to get reelected and to keep their power.

Growth of Certain College Spending
In this millennial era or college-goers, colleges have had to change what they're spending their money on. Millennials like to feel special, unique, etc. Colleges know this, and in order to pander to this generation they spend money on certain amenities to try to get prospective students in their doors.

Whether it's the college with the nicest dorms or a college with with that one crazy amentities Certain colleges compare to some of the nicest country clubs in the amenities that they're providing in trying to attract students. Building these amenities isn't cheap, but that's not the end of it.

Not only do you have to build these amenities, but you also have to market them -- and marketing isn't cheap. The best marketers are already most likely working in the private sector, getting paid large amounts of money, so for you to bring them to your college to work for you and try to attract students - you too have to pay them the big bucks. And they do, as a large share of the increase in college, spending has gone to marketing (pretty much sales) efforts.

College may seem like a business right now to you, and in one line of thinking it is -- as colleges want to continue to grow and grow and the only way to do that is to pander to more and more students, even if it means raising the rates of tuition.

But it doesn't really matter to them if tuition rates go up, BECAUSE THE GOVERNMENT IS GUARANTEEING PAYMENTS ANYWAY. So who cares, right? (haha)

Bloated Administration
But once you have all these cool shiny new buildings, you need administrators to manage all of this. But colleges have gone overboard with management bloat because from 1975-2008 administrative positions have grown 221 percent while teaching staff has only grown by about 50 percent to accommodate the large increase in the number of students.

Administrative bloat is a real thing in every single sector of the economy businesses face this issue every single day -- some companies go overboard when they start expanding, and it's not always easy to cut back the fat. Though in business, it's done easily (or should I say, more easily) as companies are beholden to their shareholders and are there to maximize profits -- THEY MUST trim back the fat, and if they don't they might be replaced by a board that doesn't support them.

Though this isn't the case in academia, as colleges continue to hire more and more administrators with no end in sight because they see no end to the guaranteed money that the government is shoveling to them hand over fist.


Jobs Requiring College Education and College Popularity
For businesses, college degrees have become an easy way to weed out those that can deem 'uneducated' -- it's a cheap way to weed out potential employees, and it gives them an easier criteria to judge people. Some sectors (such as Tech) have gone away with this model and have been hiring people without college degrees if they're able to code, but MOST professions still require you to have a college degree to even get an interview.

That's the problem with a college degree and people saying that you 'need one' You only 'need one' because everyone else has one, there's no value in you learning in a classroom compared to what you're going to learn on the job. Every employer knows that you're going to have to give the new guy a good couple weeks to fully grasp a real 'working environment'

To employers a college degree is an easy screening process, it's nothing else than that.

Who else is making money from this?
Eh, there's a bunch more people that love our current system.

Standardized college admissions test creators (such as the College Board, and the ACT company) make a great deal of money making potential college students pay for exams in high school in an attempt to get into the school of their dreams. Just for reference, you have to pay $79 each time to take this test (either one) and then around $30 per school to send the test to the schools. Yes, taking the test in most (if not all) schools is mandatory and you must also send it to the school.

Student Loan Financers - The people that are able to loan out money to students while being guaranteed by the full faith and credit by the US government LOVE THIS, they're getting paid a gross amount of money to have the least risky loan in the entire country. Crazy system, but that's what lobbying can do for you.

What can we do to fix this issue?
My idea - Lower the pressure on the financial aid and loans faucet. Quite literally this means stop being so generous with the amount of aid that you're willing to dole out. Make colleges accountable, and force them to lower their tuition rates by only paying 3/4 of the current financial aid amount (or any amount really)

With this sort of pressure, colleges are going to be forced to lower prices and cut the fat -- if they know a good deal of American students aren't going to be able to go their school that they need to fill, they're going to work something out.


What are your thoughts and your ideas on the subject?

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[theymos]

Most people shouldn't even go to 4-year universities. From my anecdotal experience, it seems that almost everyone goes into higher education just because their high schools made them think that they basically had to. Then a lot drop out after a year or two, which is an unbelievable waste of time/money, and those who graduate often end up with not-so-useful degrees because they picked a final career path very late and not in a rational way. Furthermore, I know several people who basically ended up "trapped in academia" because they didn't have any marketable skills at the end of 4 years, and so they became seemingly-perpetual graduate students who are also employed by their universities -- it reminds me of Scientology...

If you're dedicated to some academic field such as chemistry, mathematics, or even philosophy, to the point where you value knowledge more than income, then university is a great idea. Universities were originally designed for that kind of thing. But if you're aimless, which it seems almost everyone who goes to university actually is, or if you just want a decent, well-paying job, then you should either get a job (or become an entrepreneur) immediately and self-study interesting things on the side, or go to a trade school. The whole idea of "you must get a bachelor's degree immediately after high school" is broken. I'm pleased that there does seem to be growing cultural and political momentum away from 4-year universities, even if some other people are talking about free-college-for-all.

(Most high schools are also a big waste of time for most people, being designed primarily for babysitting and indoctrination, not useful education.)

Whether it's the college with the nicest dorms or a college with with that one crazy amentities Certain colleges compare to some of the nicest country clubs in the amenities that they're providing in trying to attract students. Building these amenities isn't cheap, but that's not the end of it.

It's disgusting that people are often culturally pushed into lifelong massive debt just in order to have a few years of fun, with hardly any consideration given to knowledge or return on investment.

I agree that subsidies have massively inflated the price of tuition. Paying $40k/year is madness; you're very unlikely to get a worthwhile return on that investment.

For businesses, college degrees have become an easy way to weed out those that can deem 'uneducated' -- it's a cheap way to weed out potential employees, and it gives them an easier criteria to judge people. Some sectors (such as Tech) have gone away with this model and have been hiring people without college degrees if they're able to code, but MOST professions still require you to have a college degree to even get an interview.

With the tight job market, I've heard that businesses in all sectors are increasingly being forced to give up on requiring degrees. In reality, it's not that much of a differentiator anyway.

Also, any job which would require a degree is not a job that you'd ideally want IMO. It's a very impersonal and lazy way of screening people. It'd be better for people to find career prospects through networking or by making a name for themselves via side projects. A lot of people seem to want a well-defined and guaranteed career path from birth to death, but to the extent that this can be even partially delivered, it leads to mediocre outcomes.

[squatz1]

Most people shouldn't even go to 4-year universities. From my anecdotal experience, it seems that almost everyone goes into higher education just because their high schools made them think that they basically had to. Then a lot drop out after a year or two, which is an unbelievable waste of time/money, and those who graduate often end up with not-so-useful degrees because they picked a final career path very late and not in a rational way. Furthermore, I know several people who basically ended up "trapped in academia" because they didn't have any marketable skills at the end of 4 years, and so they became seemingly-perpetual graduate students who are also employed by their universities -- it reminds me of Scientology...

Without a doubt true, a good deal of people are pushed into college because 'that's what works for most, so it should work for you' It's a horrible system to push people into, and the people that are doing it really couldn't care less because all they're trying to do is make the high school look better. There's little to no accountability in a system like this, because once the kids leave and are done with the HS there's nothing that can be done to ensure the advice given by staff and faculty was the right advice for that particular child.

That's sad to see too because one adult's negligence to even care about what's happening with these kids instead of just sending them into the same system that everyone else is going to just because 'it works for some' can set a kid up for a life of debt and failure.

You'd hope that the 'professionals' you're trusting to guide your child can guide them, instead of stamping them off to the next stop in the EDU mill.

It's disgusting that people are often culturally pushed into lifelong massive debt just in order to have a few years of fun, with hardly any consideration given to knowledge or return on investment.

I agree that subsidies have massively inflated the price of tuition. Paying $40k/year is madness; you're very unlikely to get a worthwhile return on that investment.

I can tell you from my personal experience that the big reason some of my friends went to the schools they went to was so childish that it irked me. They would go to a school for the parties, or the football program (or any sports for that matter), or for this or for that non-career related stuff.

I don't get it; you can go to a state school and get the same education as some to these insanely overpriced places and not land yourself or your parents in a gross amount of debt. Even going to this school while fully knowing that you're only doing it to party and piss away your parent's money is such a selfish thing to do it's disgusting.

With the tight job market, I've heard that businesses in all sectors are increasingly being forced to give up on requiring degrees. In reality, it's not that much of a differentiator anyway.

Also, any job which would require a degree is not a job that you'd ideally want IMO. It's a very impersonal and lazy way of screening people. It'd be better for people to find career prospects through networking or by making a name for themselves via side projects. A lot of people seem to want a well-defined and guaranteed career path from birth to death, but to the extent that this can be even partially delivered, it leads to mediocre outcomes.

Without a doubt, there are certain sectors that have been forced into doing it, because their potential employee pool is even smaller than the pool that is present right now (which is crazily small, in the case of tech)

But I do think there are entire sectors that you'd have to be lucky to get in a job in without a formal secondary education because that's what you need to get licensed -- think of CPA (Accounting), CFP (Financial Planners), etc. You're required to go to school to get those licenses, and while it's not required to be licensed to work in those fields, you're probably going to want to get those licenses in order to make some 'real money'

[TECSHARE]

I agree completely. You did briefly mention what I conclude to be the primary cause of most of these issues, federal subsidies. I don't think even most people who agree with that statement truly understand WHY these subsidies cause so many problems.

One of the main requirements of receiving federal funding for these schools is they have to maintain a certain minimum percent of private funds to qualify for federal dollars. As the subsidized students increase, the tuition must rise to compensate not only for the expended resources, but as a direct attempt to meet the minimum amount of private funding to be maintained.

Naturally there will be less privately funded students than federally subsidized students. As a result the more total students there are, the higher the tuition must be in order to maintain the required minimal percentage of private funds. Since most students are federally subsidized, it makes less of a difference to them as they are spending other people's money anyway. As a result of this continual dynamic the prices keep rising, the quality keeps dropping, the bureaucracy gets more bloated, and any remaining privately funded students are astronomically over paying for an inferior product.

Then of course there is the whole student loan debt scheme angle... 2008's answer to the housing bubble crash.

[jackg]

I think this can be applied to the UK too. A lot of the exam boards don't do very well at making specifications thst test someone's applications of what they've learnt and instead just test how well they can retain and rewrite what they've been taught.

I feel charging a base of about 3k per year is a good place to start for universities. The rest sure can be funded by the government but it means more people will have to either pay for themselves or have to seek funding from elsewhere which is a good thing to try to promote (they'll need those skills for a PhD anyway).

It also seems that exam boards are all run by  the universities here as well which means that more government money is going into the universities and not into where it could be (such as making exam boards run by teachers, quite a few of mine had PhDs for example so they're no more qualified than those who set the exams).

In a lot of cases some degrees are made in order to fund others too at universities which is bad practice imo. There should be other sources of funding for science degrees than an arts student who wants a degree or an international student that will pay greatly for an education in this country to an extent where it costs them 7x more than it would at their home school.

There also seem to be a lot of lecturers trying to kill themselves on the jobs at many universities (cases of lecturers jumping out of their offices into busy streets below). Though they're being paid £100k+ they still dont get paid enough for their work. I've seen some do 12+ hour shifts a day 5 days a week which is a lot to work. Doctors only work 3 days a week in comparison when they have 12 hour shifts (afaik).

It's rumored that employers look more for people who get a 2:1 rather than a first because it means your a social person, I first don't understand why we are celebrating extraverted and egotistical people and why it's necessary to socialise in conditions that you won't be doing in work. This may have just been something made up by college majors who knew they were going to fail so are sabataging other people's degrees because they like to club and drink alcohol too much..

[DireWolfM14]

The education system in the US has made several mistakes, but one of the most significant is a abandoning the trades.  Trade schools don't get the recognition or the assistance that other "higher education"  institutions receive.  As a nation we've been lead to believe that the only way to succeed is to get a college degree, but if you're only getting a degree in one the humanities fields, you're just another over-educated, under-experienced risk from any potential employers' perspective.

[KingScorpio]

why does world has to care about secondary education in the us?

its bad enough that usa centrered capitalism is basically dominating the world, and draining its ressources

[BADecker]

For a long time, now, students entering college directly after high school, have to be taught all the things they were supposed to learn in high school, but weren't taught. They should have skipped high school, and gone directly into college from elementary school.

The trouble with colleges is, they force you to take all kinds of classes, and learn all kinds of junk, that you don't need or want for your vocation.

Trade schools need to change a little, so they offer better options for students than both high school or college. OR, we should go back to trades altogether, where the family has a trade... son takes up the trade after father. Or, the apprenticeship type program.

Of course, colleges have been a social thing for all those fun-loving kids... spring break, etc.

[squatz1]

The education system in the US has made several mistakes, but one of the most significant is a abandoning the trades.  Trade schools don't get the recognition or the assistance that other "higher education"  institutions receive.  As a nation we've been lead to believe that the only way to succeed is to get a college degree, but if you're only getting a degree in one the humanities fields, you're just another over-educated, under-experienced risk from any potential employers' perspective.

Abandoning trade has been one of the worst things that the US education system has done, they've failed their students by not giving them the opportunities that they could take advantage of. I can tell you right now that the plumbers, electricians, etc in my area make some really good money -- it's because it's a dying field that has less and less people entering it. We should take advantage of that, and promote trade schools and trade opportunities while you're in highschool.

It's sad to see because people dismiss these VITAL trades as useless, or low paying, or something along those lines when they're most obviously misinformed. There is a lot of money to be made in plumbing, electrical work, woodworking, etc. I just found an article in the Atlantic saying that a boy was expected to go to college (which I think is a pretty horrible thing to simply expect, because you should really just try to guide a child and not force them into a role) He was adamant about going into woodwork and went into trade school without his fathers approval.

Here's a good quote from the article, I'll link it below as well

He says pursuing custom woodworking as his lifelong trade was disappointing to his father, but Reesman stood firm in his decision, and became a cabinetmaker. He says his father is now proud and supportive, but breaking with family expectations in order to pursue his passion was a difficult choice for Reesman—one that many young people are facing in the changing job market.

[TECSHARE]

Abandoning trade schools and manufacturing wasn't a mistake. It was a plan. This was purposely done to create systems of global interdependence and put the USA in a vulnerable state in preparation for its harvest and stripping of resources, and the roll out for global government. In order to do this our manufacturing capability first had to be gutted. This also conveniently served to create lots of student debt the banker class can leech off of and rehypothecate in the process.

[KingScorpio]

Abandoning trade schools and manufacturing wasn't a mistake. It was a plan. This was purposely done to create systems of global interdependence and put the USA in a vulnerable state in preparation for its harvest and stripping of resources, and the roll out for global government. In order to do this our manufacturing capability first had to be gutted. This also conveniently served to create lots of student debt the banker class can leech off of and rehypothecate in the process.

well printing money and having fun was to seductive for americans wasnt it? why work and manufacture things, when you can just print money pretend to be a state and buy from the surpressed germans/japanese...

[TECSHARE]

Abandoning trade schools and manufacturing wasn't a mistake. It was a plan. This was purposely done to create systems of global interdependence and put the USA in a vulnerable state in preparation for its harvest and stripping of resources, and the roll out for global government. In order to do this our manufacturing capability first had to be gutted. This also conveniently served to create lots of student debt the banker class can leech off of and rehypothecate in the process.

well printing money and having fun was to seductive for americans wasnt it? why work and manufacture things, when you can just print money pretend to be a state and buy from the surpressed germans/japanese...

First of all you should be addressing the last generation, not mine. I inherited debt, not the easy living the last gen did. Second, this is SOP for pretty much every nation now so, I dunno what your focus on America is for. The people behind this don't care about any nation or peoples.

[KingScorpio]

Abandoning trade schools and manufacturing wasn't a mistake. It was a plan. This was purposely done to create systems of global interdependence and put the USA in a vulnerable state in preparation for its harvest and stripping of resources, and the roll out for global government. In order to do this our manufacturing capability first had to be gutted. This also conveniently served to create lots of student debt the banker class can leech off of and rehypothecate in the process.

well printing money and having fun was to seductive for americans wasnt it? why work and manufacture things, when you can just print money pretend to be a state and buy from the surpressed germans/japanese...

First of all you should be addressing the last generation, not mine. I inherited debt, not the easy living the last gen did. Second, this is SOP for pretty much every nation now so, I dunno what your focus on America is for. The people behind this don't care about any nation or peoples.

you cant escape the past, here you are:

foreign debt

import dependent.

no ability to run an industrialised economy without help of foreigners.

result:

spamming foreign ICO project groups in telegram with american icos.

the issue about the foreign trade deficit of americans was warned since decades by top american economists.

[TECSHARE]

you cant escape the past, here you are:

foreign debt

import dependent.

no ability to run an industrialised economy without help of foreigners.

result:

spamming foreign ICO project groups in telegram with american icos.

the issue about the foreign trade deficit of americans was warned since decades by top american economists.

This is probably the most legally restrictive place on the planet to run an ICO, so I don't know what you are rambling about. Of course it was warned about years ago, and ignored, because as I stated it was the plan to create vulnerability. All you are doing is repeating back to me what I just said, ignoring the key implications and inserting your own.

[KingScorpio]

you cant escape the past, here you are:

foreign debt

import dependent.

no ability to run an industrialised economy without help of foreigners.

result:

spamming foreign ICO project groups in telegram with american icos.

the issue about the foreign trade deficit of americans was warned since decades by top american economists.

This is probably the most legally restrictive place on the planet to run an ICO, so I don't know what you are rambling about. Of course it was warned about years ago, and ignored, because as I stated it was the plan to create vulnerability. All you are doing is repeating back to me what I just said, ignoring the key implications and inserting your own.

i am not rambling,

you have created that vulnerability for hedonoistic reasons because you believed it wouldnt pop one day and that the federal reserve would dominate rest of the world indefinately as money printing bank.

its actually much easier to print money and scam others, than work yourself and hope the financial system over you doesn't scam you systematically.

[TECSHARE]

i am not rambling,

you have created that vulnerability for hedonoistic reasons because you believed it wouldnt pop one day and that the federal reserve would dominate rest of the world indefinately as money printing bank.

its actually much easier to print money and scam others, than work yourself and hope the financial system over you doesn't scam you systematically.

I have? That's news to me. Also if you don't know the federal reserve fiat system was designed to fail eventually you are even more stupid than you look with your rambling.

http://www.alt-market.com/articles/3686-the-global-economic-reset-begins-with-an-engineered-crash

[KingScorpio]

i am not rambling,

you have created that vulnerability for hedonoistic reasons because you believed it wouldnt pop one day and that the federal reserve would dominate rest of the world indefinately as money printing bank.

its actually much easier to print money and scam others, than work yourself and hope the financial system over you doesn't scam you systematically.

I have? That's news to me. Also if you don't know the federal reserve fiat system was designed to fail eventually you are even more stupid than you look with your rambling.

http://www.alt-market.com/articles/3686-the-global-economic-reset-begins-with-an-engineered-crash

there will never be everyone satisfied with the US education system, because what the people actually want is financial freedom. they want others to do stuff for them.

you can get in equity usa financial freedom only with two ways

1. controlling the financial system (unlimited financial freedom almost impossible)

2. aquering equity (passive income sources)

everyone else is money earning cattle that is supposed to dream the american dream. people dream less the american dream the less they are white, and the less they are anglican christian.

the us education system seeks to force the people to learn what they are supposed to learn, to do the respective caste system jobs that the market shouts out the most.

worst part for americans is that it is increasingly from a humanist point of view dependent on foreign powers influencing keeping it together (like russia/EU)

if they would end the usa will become basically an american equivalent of communist russia. with a bunch of cryptoscammers in it.

[franky1]

the inner workings of 'financial aid' is not that big a hit on the treasury. so yea governments and colleges dont care. due to the way that banks can offer loans and how treasury bonds work to the create the loan allowances. its not a big treasury bite.

however i feel many colleges in many countries have the same problem of doing courses for stupid subjects that dont apply to real work place requirements.

there are other things like offering courses that are only 2-3 days a week or half days 4-5 days a week. but then spread it over 2 years to ensure colleges get 2 years of value out of a course that should only take 1 year full time.

this kind of spreading things apart is so that a full time tutor/lecturer gets paid, if you do the math double for their time. which some people think that lecturers wages have not increased. but in actual fact by making one half of the day/week year one. and then other half year 2.. then they are teaching twice the students and getting twice the income for the same time

so actually making students do full time 9am-5pm 5 days a week so they can get qualified faster helps the students, both be work ready and less debt

the real fix is not to force colleges into not accepting 25% of financial aid. because that just forces impoverished kids to not afford to live/feed themselves because the other 25% they have to pay to complete the tuition fee has to come from somewhere.
25% reduction in financial aid wont reduce fee's it will just prioritise students that can take out loans or self finance

instead its better to concentrate on offering topics that directly link to employment prospects and then get the potential employers to foot the bill.

coming back to the subject of useful subjects to teach. offering more work experience/apprenticeships would be more beneficial than just classroom literature. because by the time the literature it researched. then wrote out and then formed into a sylibus the information is out dated. take bitcoin. doing a course in blockchains would take a year to develop a course and another few months to get the lecturers set up ready to teach it. and by the time the students start learning it and ready for final exams.. the information is out dated.

by this i mean actually give students in-work experience plus a little bit of income associated with it. so they can actually have something more useful and relevant on their resume's and they can keep up with the latest information because they are actually using the up to date stuff that real workplaces are using at the time.

for instance about the income. student athletes have sports companies 'sponsor'/offer scholarships to colleges but the students do alot of on-work experience but without pay, without healthcare and without other employment benefits.

college should be set up to get people into work. and not just a but-on-seat method for the college to make profit by offering stupid courses and not able to promise employment at the end of it

[KingScorpio]

I'm going to say it straight out, the secondary education in the United States is a burden on the people that was BUILT to be a burden on the people. College didn't get magically more expensive because people were getting paid more (hint: wages haven't risen enough to even come close to percentage growth of tuition), college got more expensive for a domino effect that people didn't notice.

Government Policy
Financial aid is a great intention, yes, and it brings new minds to colleges that wouldn't ever be able to attend if they had to fund college for themselves. But the problem with spending 'other peoples money' is that you're going to stop caring about the price of something if you're not the person footing the bill in the end. If the Government pays for all or most of your education, you don't care if the school raises the rates on you and you won't stop yourself from going to the most expensive school. That sounds fine, yes, but if you were paying that all in cash and the government wasn't helping you, you'd be much more diligent about where you'd be going and trying to get the most bang for your buck.

Another issue with the government paying whatever has to be paid in financial aid is that colleges know this they're going to increase rates of tuition because they know the money is there and it's guaranteed by the government.

With this in mind, I don't think you can fully remove the blame from government officials. They might have been well intended, yes, and this is a very popular issue with the voters -- as the voters want EVERYONE to go to college -- but the only reason politicians enacted this policy was because it was popular and because they knew they could get re-elected if they supported it and continue to support it. We sometimes forget that politicians aren't these amazing people that are working so hard for us, they're working hard in order to get reelected and to keep their power.

Growth of Certain College Spending
In this millennial era or college-goers, colleges have had to change what they're spending their money on. Millennials like to feel special, unique, etc. Colleges know this, and in order to pander to this generation they spend money on certain amenities to try to get prospective students in their doors.

Whether it's the college with the nicest dorms or a college with with that one crazy amentities Certain colleges compare to some of the nicest country clubs in the amenities that they're providing in trying to attract students. Building these amenities isn't cheap, but that's not the end of it.

Not only do you have to build these amenities, but you also have to market them -- and marketing isn't cheap. The best marketers are already most likely working in the private sector, getting paid large amounts of money, so for you to bring them to your college to work for you and try to attract students - you too have to pay them the big bucks. And they do, as a large share of the increase in college, spending has gone to marketing (pretty much sales) efforts.

College may seem like a business right now to you, and in one line of thinking it is -- as colleges want to continue to grow and grow and the only way to do that is to pander to more and more students, even if it means raising the rates of tuition.

But it doesn't really matter to them if tuition rates go up, BECAUSE THE GOVERNMENT IS GUARANTEEING PAYMENTS ANYWAY. So who cares, right? (haha)

Bloated Administration
But once you have all these cool shiny new buildings, you need administrators to manage all of this. But colleges have gone overboard with management bloat because from 1975-2008 administrative positions have grown 221 percent while teaching staff has only grown by about 50 percent to accommodate the large increase in the number of students.

Administrative bloat is a real thing in every single sector of the economy businesses face this issue every single day -- some companies go overboard when they start expanding, and it's not always easy to cut back the fat. Though in business, it's done easily (or should I say, more easily) as companies are beholden to their shareholders and are there to maximize profits -- THEY MUST trim back the fat, and if they don't they might be replaced by a board that doesn't support them.

Though this isn't the case in academia, as colleges continue to hire more and more administrators with no end in sight because they see no end to the guaranteed money that the government is shoveling to them hand over fist.


Jobs Requiring College Education and College Popularity
For businesses, college degrees have become an easy way to weed out those that can deem 'uneducated' -- it's a cheap way to weed out potential employees, and it gives them an easier criteria to judge people. Some sectors (such as Tech) have gone away with this model and have been hiring people without college degrees if they're able to code, but MOST professions still require you to have a college degree to even get an interview.

That's the problem with a college degree and people saying that you 'need one' You only 'need one' because everyone else has one, there's no value in you learning in a classroom compared to what you're going to learn on the job. Every employer knows that you're going to have to give the new guy a good couple weeks to fully grasp a real 'working environment'

To employers a college degree is an easy screening process, it's nothing else than that.

Who else is making money from this?
Eh, there's a bunch more people that love our current system.

Standardized college admissions test creators (such as the College Board, and the ACT company) make a great deal of money making potential college students pay for exams in high school in an attempt to get into the school of their dreams. Just for reference, you have to pay $79 each time to take this test (either one) and then around $30 per school to send the test to the schools. Yes, taking the test in most (if not all) schools is mandatory and you must also send it to the school.

Student Loan Financers - The people that are able to loan out money to students while being guaranteed by the full faith and credit by the US government LOVE THIS, they're getting paid a gross amount of money to have the least risky loan in the entire country. Crazy system, but that's what lobbying can do for you.

What can we do to fix this issue?
My idea - Lower the pressure on the financial aid and loans faucet. Quite literally this means stop being so generous with the amount of aid that you're willing to dole out. Make colleges accountable, and force them to lower their tuition rates by only paying 3/4 of the current financial aid amount (or any amount really)

With this sort of pressure, colleges are going to be forced to lower prices and cut the fat -- if they know a good deal of American students aren't going to be able to go their school that they need to fill, they're going to work something out.


What are your thoughts and your ideas on the subject?

capitalist education is bigotted and corrupt anyway, scrap it, and end up a taliban state. good call. if the population is not educated and it laughs about its own elites, then it will be ruled by foreigners

[ChiBitCTy]

That's the problem with a college degree and people saying that you 'need one' You only 'need one' because everyone else has one, there's no value in you learning in a classroom compared to what you're going to learn on the job. Every employer knows that you're going to have to give the new guy a good couple weeks to fully grasp a real 'working environment'

I absolutely agree that you don't need college to be a highly intelligent/excellent worker, but that doesn't apply to all job professions in the slightest. Many go to college for degrees that have everything to do with their careers and are essential..in fact more degrees than not are essential for many careers.  MUCH can be learned in a classroom that is essential for many jobs. You seem to forget too that many classes have "sub classes " ( I forget the exact name ) where you're actually "out in the field" doing real world research/testing/performing job functions etc.  To say there's no value learning in a classroom is ludicrous and utter nonsense.

You have to realize many jobs have a ridiculous amount of applicants and they need a way to weed people out somehow. College degrees show ones willingness to work hard, willingness to not give up on difficult tasks, and a certain level of intelligence.  That's not saying you're  intelligent if you graduated college or you're dumb if you didn't, or you're lazy if you didn't go to college...it just helps narrow down what's usually very long lists.

College are overpriced as a whole and college lending is often a load of bs designed to sink people in debt for years on end. BUT ..here's what everyone seemingly fails to ever mention.   IT DOESNT HAVE TO BE THIS WAY.  Go to a community college for two years, then an in-state university for the remaining two years. This is a way to have very manageable debt when leaving school.  It's not about where you got your degree but what you do with it.  

Edit: I will agree though that getting a Masters is almost always a load of shit and very unnecessary.