Ouster of UVa's President and the Future of Public Higher Ed

Schools like Harvard and Stanford are largely immune from any external financial pressure because, as you pointed out, people with the money to do so will always (within reason) overpay to send their kids to "better" schools.

My issue is with the average state school. Take my alma mater (not Va. Tech). In-state tuition has increased from $840 per semester, which is what I paid as a freshman in 1988, to its current $6,000 per semester.

Even adjusting for inflation, I find it difficult to believe a 500 percent increase over a 24-year period would've occurred if the federal government wasn't issuing guarantees of student loans with taxpayer funds. Banks would have to be much more circumspect in issuing these loans and most colleges/universities would be forced to respond by decreasing tuition rates to remain competitive in the higher ed marketplace.

 

Corporatists want to starve public funding because they want to cut government and retool universities for the 21st/22nd Century.

Don't blame them; they're doing their usual scorpion routine.

Blame the wastoid college kids and their parents who don't demand a superior education from their university. The "rite of passage" now costs a shit-ton. Families gotta get their heads out of their asses. For $100,000, you do <i>not</i> go to college to have a good time. You go there to knock it out of the park and be a thinker/leader. It had better be an investment that pays off big. It is not something you go there to do.

You want to get wasted and blow stuff off, you can do that working at CostCo during the day and taking an online Phoenix class for 9 minutes when you get home before drinking all night. That's what a lot of kids want to do, and should. And maybe later go to college.

 

These number nearly mirror those of the UC system in California. The increase in the UC system is NOT driven by loans, its being driven by the fact that the state government has utterly failed to keep the funding at the levels that it was in the '70's and 80's. Its the pathetic failure of the politicians to recognize higher education as a priority in California. Some will call that the cut back of "public subsidies" for higher education, but for the son of immigrants, it a necessary commitment if you want an educated citizenry.

The plight of UVA does appear to be a microcosm of the continual attacks on public education. The states need to recommit themselves to funding for public higher education. Please, let's stop citing Stanford and Harvard. They (along with the other elites) admit what 1,000 a year? They have endowments which reach into the billions that will perpetually fund the university into the next millenium without any worries. UC Berkeley admits close to 8,000 a year alone

 

Looking at universities and/or their separate colleges as "profit" centers is simply wrong. Higher education is not a bottom line equation, its an investment into the youth of our society and the education of our society.

 

Correlation=/=causation. Especially given tuition is not really set at a market-bearing rate--schools don't admit everyone that wants in--it easily could have been artificially low. The rise could simply be attributed to the school/state taking surplus that once would have gone to consumers.

 

Wow, that is some cruel ideology that jerk has.

 

I want every youth who can get a college education to get one. And I don't need anyone telling me that if they do the things young people do growing up -- party, fuck, fart in public -- that they aren't worthy of a college education.

 

I think Alma's saying that if that's all a young person is going to do - without studying or learning or otherwise participating in the educational component of a college education - why go to college to do it?

 

Well, I believe some fields, like engineering, require more "hands on" learning, but you're right. For nearly every field, a system of apprenticeships and proficiency exams would suffice.

Let's be honest, requirements necessary to join certain professional fields are nothing more than barriers of entry, intended to reduce competition for those currently practicing said profession. (And, journalism is a perfect example of what happens to the value of a degree, when it's not necessary to join a field. The supply surges, and the price/salary drops.)

Who granted Brunelleschi a degree? He joined a silk merchants guild. Michelangelo apprenticed under Ghirlandaio. No school ever conferred a law degree upon Abraham Lincoln.

The marketplace determined their value.

Well, sure it does. And, dance, song, sculpture, and drawing also all predate the written word. Understanding these endeavors helps us to understand various cultures.

But, just because something is worthy of "systematic understanding and storage" doesn't mean it's necessary that the State fund or coordinate it.

When you want to spend "other people's money" then everyone should have a say. If the general public doesn't value poetry enough, then the people do value poetry, should and can support it.

And, in a smaller government, lower tax society, people would have more money to support the things they do value.

As it stands now, we end up with Federal dollars sponsoring Cowboy Poetry Festivals in Nevada. Is that in the Federal interest?

Should the public be forced to fund Piss Christ or Ofili's The Holy Virgin Mary?

 

I think you unilaterally softened his point by about 57 percent.

 

Let's say that's true. What's the return on our "investment" in supporting a Poetry Department?

 

Well sure, I think the vast majority of people across the spectrum would agree with you in principle. The trouble is that nice little sentiment gives you no guidance on limits. Surely you would agree that, at some point, an additional dollar spent on education might better be spent elsewhere. How do you find that point?