Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Free tuition at US public Universities?

While I agree that many US English departments have gone off the rails (and that many of the education departments were never even on the rails to begin with), I also think that suggesting that no tax dollars be used to subsidize education is punishing all students as a way to show disapproval for dodgy ideas among a minority of faculty.

Dude was right; our society is being penny wise and pound foolish. Though our university problem isn't limited to the costs of education. Research is also a relatively low priority in the federal government. By this I mean that too few grants are funded, indirect costs (free money to universities) are way too high (e.g. 70% of the total given to a researcher is added on for Harvard), and giant million+ dollar grants restrict what's available for the investigator-led grants that used to be the cornerstone of innovation in the US. And then there is the insanity of the federal government paying salaries of principal investigators via grants. In all but the smallest organizations, the universities should be paying their salaries. Okay, rant off, but this approach is killing innovation in this country.

http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=66
National Center for Education Statistics
That is $153K over 12 years, for the majority, not just the "best and brightest".

It's not clear that efforts to increase the college attendance and graduation rates of low-SES students improves their overall welfare:

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/04/can-upward-mobility-cost-you-your-health/
Can Upward Mobility Cost You Your Health?
By GREGORY E. MILLER, EDITH CHEN and GENE H. BRODY
New York Times
January 4, 2014

...

Among American children there are wide socioeconomic gaps on many dimensions of well-being: school achievement, mental health, drug use, teenage pregnancy and juvenile incarceration, to name just a few. Despite the risks that lower-income children face, we also know that a significant minority beat the odds. They perform admirably in school, avoid drugs and go on to college.

Psychologists refer to these children as resilient, because they achieve positive outcomes in adverse circumstances. They do so in part by cultivating a kind of determined persistence. Often with nurturing from a parent, relative or mentor, they set goals for the future, work diligently toward them, navigate setbacks, stay focused on the long term and resist temptations that might knock them off the ladder to success.

Several years ago, we began studying these resilient young people, trying to find out if their success stories also translated into physical health benefits. We reasoned that, if disadvantaged children were succeeding academically and emotionally, they might also be protected from health problems that were more common in lower-income youth. As it turned out, the exact opposite was true. These young people were achieving success by all conventional markers: doing well academically, staying out of trouble, making friends and developing a positive sense of self. Underneath, however, their physical health was deteriorating.

Our first hints of this pattern came from a study of 489 rural African-American young people in Georgia, whom one of us, Gene Brody, has been tracking for more than 15 years. Most came from families who were working but poor. In 2010, their average family income was about $12,000 a year; about half lived below the poverty line. We found a subgroup of resilient children who, despite these obstacles, were rated, at age 11, by their teachers as being diligent, focused, patient, academically successful and strong in social skills.

We followed these young people until they were 19 and studied their mental and physical health, focusing on depression, drug use, aggression and criminal behavior. As in past studies, those who were rated positively at age 11 had relatively few of these problems when they were 19. When we looked beneath the surface, though, these apparently resilient young people were not faring well. Compared with others in the study, they were more obese, had higher blood pressure and produced more stress hormones (like cortisol, adrenaline and noradrenaline). Remarkably, their health was even worse than peers who, at age 11, had been rated by teachers as aggressive, difficult and isolated. They were at substantial risk for developing diabetes or hypertension down the line.

Err...you're off-topic on both counts there. The thread is about tuition at US public universities, not public school expenditures or the health of low SES people who went to college.

Bostonian, thank you for posting and sharing this WSJ op ed. This underscores a debate which has been ongoing for decades: the value of liberal arts education (sometimes called classical education) -vs- career-oriented education (sometimes called vocational training or vocational education). Over time, the lines may have become blurred.

Some have said the classical education takes the long view and teaches a commonality throughout the centuries. Vocational education may be more specialized to the issues and economy of a particular time and place. Both are needed, but to supplant the classical with the vocational, terming career prep content as liberal arts is the concern.

While another poster shared that their education had furnished them with debate skills, their summative response that they are not dead does not seem to answer or debate any point previously presented.

Lovemydd, yes I observe what you do in the US. Intelligence may not be highly regarded. On the surface intelligence may be denigrated, while the underlying sentiment may be fear of loss of control over those with unusually high intelligence. Breaking a horse comes to mind.

In thinking deeply about the OP's article on free tuition at US public universities, when viewed from many perspectives we are left wondering what has spurred the rapid increase in tuition? Funding research? Shifting costs to some students in order to subsidize others? Paying out lifetime retirement benefits? The most effective answers to controlling costs of higher education may be in identifying the areas of cost growth, prior to considering how growing costs might be financed. As with gifted students, each institution may have a unique profile, and therefore a unique approach, rather than a one-size-fits-all policy.

Yes, exactly.


The easy availability of student loans has been one driver you didn't mention. They raise the price because they can.

When I started college in the mid 1980s, they told us that tuition "didn't begin to cover the costs of your education." This problem was supposed to justify annual increases that were much greater than increases in the cost of living. Thirty years later, they're still saying the same thing. I stopped believing them a long time ago.

As a little thought experiment about costs, a full load of classes is usually 4 per semester. At, say, Harvard, tuition is almost $39,000 this year, which means that a student is paying almost $4,900 per class.* This is a pretty standard price at many private colleges. I find it hard to believe that it really costs more than $240,000 to run introductory biology or chemistry for 50 students. And any class not requiring a lab is going to cost even less.

*Yes, many students get financial aid, but loans are a big part of financial aid, and they go straight into the university's coffers. But even if we knock half of the big number I quoted, I still doubt that a college or university is really spending that much on a single class.

And here I thought we were talking about college...

Naturally. Education is one potential investment that can solve the problems associated with low SES, but it's a wasted effort if the beneficiaries are still struggling with needs much further down Maslow's hierarchy.

Countries with stronger social safety nets yield very different results than those you cite. This country prefers to direct its entitlements and safety nets to the upper class instead.

With the oft-stated goal of US education through high school being the creation of students who are "college and career ready"...

and with previous non-US posters sharing the sense of meritocracy in continuing higher education in their area...

and with other posters comparing incarceration costs to educational costs...

I personally DO see the connection between Bostonian's most recent post and the OP's article...

as well as a strong connection between that post and the overall flow of conversation, addressing concerns raised by several posters...

The US *is* investing in the education of all individuals.

Exactly. A lot of people enter college lacking the basic skills they need to get a degree. These skills are a lot more than just academic skills (which are often also not furnished by the schools).

Our society encourages everyone to go to college, yet many aren't ready for college. We say that we're trying to help them find a better future, but we're really just yoking a lot of them to debt. This is wrong, and damages not just individuals, but the country as a whole.