You get more of what you subsidize. In the case of students, subsidies draw in more marginal students and more marginal teachers who need easier classes to survive four years. In the case of science, more marginal fields and more marginal researchers.
The solution is obvious, to me: get government out of both. It's one thing for government to pay for the R&D it needs, such as better weapons and radar and so on. It should not be funding anything else. And I do include Mars rovers, the space station, the Hubble and Jack Webb telescopes, the Antarctica stations, and everything else NASA does. The military can fund what it needs, private industry can fund what it needs. Why is NASA paying for research into making supersonic business and passenger planes quieter? Or more to the point, why am I paying for all those things?
Every time I read of studies about Peruvian hookers or some Kazakhstan caterpillar, I wonder who thinks anyone should be paying for that, let alone taxpayers.
That's the problem. If you want to voluntarily pay for those, go ahead, and you'll get more bang for your buck without the inefficiency of taxes. Why should you have any say on where my money goes?
Remember when everyone thought MOOCs would take over higher education, and everyone would have free/low-priced access to the highest quality teachers? Funny how that never happened.
A resounding YES from my perch. 50 years ago, I was that kid that didn't see the sense in university, and I went into a trade. That trade eventually led to a small remodeling business, which eventually led to a very tidy little business doing consulting and analysis on buildings that were falling apart for one reason or another, but approximately 7 times out of 10 it was water intrusion in all its forms. These were/are buildings designed by high end architects that didn't know how to build, and they tapped my expertise because I'd spent a couple decades actually doing the work and knew what they didn't teach in architectural school.
The whole system is entirely out of whack, and your ideas are spot on.
I've also been amazed how often water intrusion comes up a major reason some construction or renovation project is going overtime and overbudget. There was clearly a lot of bad building in the past, but when one tries to discuss why all one gets from other people is that it's obviously the fault of their designated bad guys who are always to blame for everything.
The state (government) is the fundamental problem with higher education (as it is with everything else it interferes with). The solution is simply for it to leave higher education completely alone.
Whenever AK mentions the need for a more diverse, market-oriented educational establishment, I am reminded of what's occurring in India. In modern India, since its move toward more classical liberal values, there are many mouths to feed, people to educate, and health concerns to address, so much so that the government in recent times, rather than retain proprietorship in these endeavors, encourages private innovation to help meet the fast-growing needs that government alone cannot fully address. The gradual rise of the middle and upper classes has increased demand for quality education and English instruction resulting in a blossoming of private schooling, to the point where it now is estimated to comprise upwards to half of all schooling and the majority of higher education.
Substack is acting up and won't let me expand on my previous comment or reply to it (the "Reply" button gets hidden by the next comment). So here is my addendum.
As for why all these subsidies turn academia into such a cesspool of political drama, that too seems obvious, to me. It's not fair to say only STEM fields matter, but as far as research goes, it's a good first approximation. I have no problem with teaching literature, languages, and other fields which have no natural research fields. History, archaeology, anthropology, and many other "soft" sciences have useful things to research.
But all those marginal students and teachers in those marginal fields know they are marginal. They have nothing to research and the teaching is mostly regurgitating their own fantasies, whether ideological or nonsensical (usually both). They are the ones most dependent on subsidies and handouts. The easiest route to those is government, the simplest political divide is between statists and individualists, and voila! you get statists driving academia leftwards.
My wonkish alternative is $10k per undergrad, rather than $100k, but starting with a high limit compromise would make it easier, politically. Many of the top colleges are offering tuition free for avg & below avg students.
At any rate, education is not listed among the central governments enumerated powers. States need to step up, as many have, and pursue reform at their level. One proposal for states that I have not seen implemented is to attempt to level the asymmetric information problem where parents have less information than schools about their children’s attainment of substantive skills and knowledge. Education is in many ways a trust good. States might consider ways to offer a learning outcomes evaluation service separate and apart from the schools and the teaching function. Perhaps states could offer parents AI applications to test their children to ensure that their attainment of math and reading skills is advancing at an acceptable pace? Alternately, perhaps private businesses in the tutoring field could offer testing services that would allow parents to verify their children’s progress? Having reliable outcomes data would hopefully improve parent’s ability to make informed decisions schooling choice.
At the federal level, it would be nice to see Joni Ernst or Rick Scott who, being on the Senate Armed Services Committee and in the DOGE Caucus, step up and repeal the statutory authority for the military academies and the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. These are luxuries that do not promote war fighting ability in any substantive way and which are no longer affordable in an era of $2 trillion annual budget deficits.
And it would be nice to see DOGE or Education Secretary nominee McMahon step up and pledge to repeal authorization for the plethora of pointless-give away programs listed at title 20, United States Code:
3. Smithsonian Institution, National Museums and Art Galleries
4.National Zoological Park
5.Government Collections and Institutions for Research, and Material for Educational Institutions
6.American Printing House for the Blind
6A.Vending Facilities for Blind in Federal Buildings
7.Instruction as to Nature and Effect of Alcoholic Drinks and Narcotics
8.Howard University
9.National Training School for Boys
10.National Training School for Girls
11.National Arboretum
12.Foreign and Exchange Students
14.School Construction in Areas Affected by Federal Activities [Transferred to Chapter 19]
23.Training and Fellowship Programs for Community Development
24.Grants for Educational Materials, Facilities and Services, and Strengthening of Educational Agencies [Omitted, Repealed, or Transferred]
25.Pay and Personnel Program for Overseas Teachers
25A.Overseas Defense Dependents' Education
26.Support and Scholarship in Humanities and Arts; Museum Services
26A.Indemnity for Exhibitions of Arts and Artifacts
28.Higher Education Resources and Student Assistance
78.Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, and Critical Foreign Language Education
79.STEM-Training Grant Program
80.State Fiscal Stabilization Fund
If Trump is serious about moving responsibility for education back to the states, the bare minimum we ought to be able to expect to see are statutory repeal and rescission of funding across a majority of the provisions listed.
One idea is to separate education from awarding degrees. Businesses which do nothing but test and award degrees would tend to reduce grade inflation, since individual results could be compared to the business averages and industry averages. It would make it easier to award degrees to on the job training and homeschooling. Some businesses would value reputations for being tough and stingy, others for suggesting what is lacking and how to improve the deficiencies.
“The ultimate use of incentives was suggested by Adam Smith in his magisterial Wealth of Nations over 240 years ago: have students directly pay professors for their services. Extending Smith's analysis, the professors, in turn, could contract with packagers of courses to create degrees, either through traditional universities or other providers. These packagers of degrees can provide administrative and other services (e.g, classroom rental) necessary to ultimately providing a diploma certifying the student has attained a reasonably high level of competence.“
“Does this sounds like a good idea? To have students directly pay professors. As we do here on Substack. What’s stopping people from teaching courses on Substack right now? What’s stopping “packagers of Substack courses” to create degrees certifying that students have attained a reasonably high level of competence?”
I'm certainly one of those "people who think that higher ed will be less parasitical on society if institutions were forced to hire more conservative professors."
Like a 30% quota on Dems & Rep professors & trustees in order to qualify for tax exemptions.
But a reduction in the number of student loans would be good -- until the delinquent rate on student loans is lower than the rate of mortgage forclosures (over the past 3 years).
Plus, more funding for alternatives. And more strings on those students who ask for a loan, like an agreement go into a Jr. Military service if they become delinquent.
Govt itself should be requiring ai-based certification testing without college, for all jobs. And they should prioritize hiring over 55s (over 60s?) to have folk who are more experienced in life, and who are likely to "serve the public" (ha!) for fewer years, even without an 8 year term limit. Govt certificate testing can be created for each major subject from the top schools.
Insofar as upward mobility is heavily on the Ivy +, and recently "top 38" (US News?), those top colleges should be MORE interfered with by the govt. I'd say more objectively those with top 100 endowments, which is far more objective. And a larger govt tax exemption subsidy.
What the top colleges can't do, and shouldn't be asked to do, is to educate avg SAT scorers to the same level as high SAT scorers. A bit unlike IQ, and even more "g", the SAT is tuned towards academics and nothing is better (SAT & ACT).
Another govt requirement I'd like is for all professors at schools receiving more than $10k govt benefits per undergrad student (10k students ~~ $100 million) be required to videotape each lecture, to be kept in the Library of Congress. Even better than the textbook, but related.
And such lecture be available for any govt funded college student to look at, for some small $1 (one dollar) fee.
Future colleges might have more lower paid TAs teaching to the best lectures. And studying which lectures are the best, and why. For smart & not-quite-as-smart folk, thinking is work. Often hard work (not like these comments, so much, tho they're also not nothing). A big part of college is practice in thinking, training one's brain to think.
It should not be mostly, or even heavily, just "signalling" -- the SAT or IQ scores could do that.
And the govt should legalize IQ testing of job applicants, even tho some groups have lower IQ averages. NGOs should be working harder to find out how to increase those low IQs -- or more honestly admitting that there is so much genetic influence, & epigenetic, that less poverty is not enough. (Probably married mothers & fathers are required to max 18 yr old IQs)
There will remain yuuuuuuge political push to get more folk into college. Or the same percentage. As Arnold says, we already have too many going -- but as Freddie de Boer says, there is a Cult of Smart which society should be trying to change. And as D. Brooks did not say, but should have said, IQ superiority does NOT mean moral superiority, and is often against good morals thru rationalizing, smartly, immoral behavior.
Too much micromanagement. Why do student loans need to be different from all other consumer loans? Leave it to banks, schools, and anybody else who wants to. Let them figure out the right collateral. Let standard bankruptcy rules apply.
The bigger problem with government """loans""" is that the authorizing legislation is always drafted so as to allow the government to forgive them, at least in part, and outside of a normal bankruptcy proceeding. It's a sneaky way to cover for what are in reality giant giveaways, but ones with opportunities for reviewers of the applications to play favorites. This creates the incentive for politicians to get as many people as deeply in debt as possible, and then later dangle the prospect of forgiveness as a way to win votes. It's not just the fact that student loans exist, but that Obama changed the law to practically eliminate the possibility of getting those loans from the private sector.
PLSF is a big machine for employing leftists to promote more leftism. It's surprising that the self-licking ice cream cone isn't even larger than it is. The institutional, duly-authorized loan forgiveness system is a lot more powerful and could in theory scale up much more than the proposed Biden ad hoc forgiveness.
“…we need many more alternatives: trade schools, apprenticeships, online education, innovative teaching models, and even far-out ideas like a network university.” - Amen. A great post aimed at a serious problem.
I think one band aid could be required class / tests on economics. Students graduating high school should understand how our economy works, which would go a long way to halting the Long March imo. Once you read Basic Economics you become immune to the common arguments and rationales for socialism.
Krugman is a good counter argument to the idea that some economics education immunizes students against wrong think. It would help, that's all. You can lead a student to knowledge, but you can't force them to learn.
"I believe that we need many fewer people going to college"
I gave blood yesterday and the young girl who drew it finished high school last spring. She wants to be a nurse but is worried it will be too hard getting an RN. When I mentioned options with less training she dismissed them because she wanted the bigger income of an RN. You would deny her that?
Maybe we can agree that an RN license shouldn't require a bachelors degree but I don't think that really changes anything in that case.
If we can agree the marginal student will be better off with a degree, I would argue what your position truly implies is that you know better than the prospective student whether they should go to college and you know better than the market who employers should hire and promote at what salary.
"In the case of higher education, supply is restricted by requiring schools to be accredited, and then turning the accreditation process over to the incumbent institutions. Naturally, this leads to a strong barriers to entry."
If accreditation is the issue why don't new entrants take over a closing college? Do you think small colleges are going bankrupt or otherwise failing because they can't meet accreditation requirements?
Back in 1942, Joseph Schumpeter observed there were already enough college educated individuals that certain white collar jobs paid less than some skilled trades.
You get more of what you subsidize. In the case of students, subsidies draw in more marginal students and more marginal teachers who need easier classes to survive four years. In the case of science, more marginal fields and more marginal researchers.
The solution is obvious, to me: get government out of both. It's one thing for government to pay for the R&D it needs, such as better weapons and radar and so on. It should not be funding anything else. And I do include Mars rovers, the space station, the Hubble and Jack Webb telescopes, the Antarctica stations, and everything else NASA does. The military can fund what it needs, private industry can fund what it needs. Why is NASA paying for research into making supersonic business and passenger planes quieter? Or more to the point, why am I paying for all those things?
Every time I read of studies about Peruvian hookers or some Kazakhstan caterpillar, I wonder who thinks anyone should be paying for that, let alone taxpayers.
I'm not saying everything is perfect but I'm glad it's not your decision.
So more Peruvian hookers?
That's the problem. If you want to voluntarily pay for those, go ahead, and you'll get more bang for your buck without the inefficiency of taxes. Why should you have any say on where my money goes?
“Why should you have any say on where my money goes?“ Step 1: make unregulated encryption a norm
Step 2: conduct all trades, payments and transfers in encrypted format
Step 3: keep all of your liquid wealth and financial information in encrypted format accept when in use
Step 4: make this a norm so that most people are doing it
Now if Stu refuses to keep his hands off your money, what will he do about it?
Remember when everyone thought MOOCs would take over higher education, and everyone would have free/low-priced access to the highest quality teachers? Funny how that never happened.
It worked just fine for me 🤷
MOOCs are great for STEM. Not so much for writing and critical thinking.
But they also expose that 90% of traditional education is pointless checking boxes (can you show up on time?)
How many undergrads are actually good writers, critical thinkers, analysts, debaters, or salespeople?
Not sure about MOOCs but distance learning is alive and healthy. A decent way to earn a bachelors or masters degree.
A resounding YES from my perch. 50 years ago, I was that kid that didn't see the sense in university, and I went into a trade. That trade eventually led to a small remodeling business, which eventually led to a very tidy little business doing consulting and analysis on buildings that were falling apart for one reason or another, but approximately 7 times out of 10 it was water intrusion in all its forms. These were/are buildings designed by high end architects that didn't know how to build, and they tapped my expertise because I'd spent a couple decades actually doing the work and knew what they didn't teach in architectural school.
The whole system is entirely out of whack, and your ideas are spot on.
I've also been amazed how often water intrusion comes up a major reason some construction or renovation project is going overtime and overbudget. There was clearly a lot of bad building in the past, but when one tries to discuss why all one gets from other people is that it's obviously the fault of their designated bad guys who are always to blame for everything.
The state (government) is the fundamental problem with higher education (as it is with everything else it interferes with). The solution is simply for it to leave higher education completely alone.
https://jclester.substack.com/p/the-augean-stables-of-academe
Whenever AK mentions the need for a more diverse, market-oriented educational establishment, I am reminded of what's occurring in India. In modern India, since its move toward more classical liberal values, there are many mouths to feed, people to educate, and health concerns to address, so much so that the government in recent times, rather than retain proprietorship in these endeavors, encourages private innovation to help meet the fast-growing needs that government alone cannot fully address. The gradual rise of the middle and upper classes has increased demand for quality education and English instruction resulting in a blossoming of private schooling, to the point where it now is estimated to comprise upwards to half of all schooling and the majority of higher education.
https://educationforallinindia.com/public-vs-private-understanding-the-shifting-landscape-of-indian-education-2024/
Thanks for the link. Storing for later use. Keep us updated if you learn more.
Substack is acting up and won't let me expand on my previous comment or reply to it (the "Reply" button gets hidden by the next comment). So here is my addendum.
As for why all these subsidies turn academia into such a cesspool of political drama, that too seems obvious, to me. It's not fair to say only STEM fields matter, but as far as research goes, it's a good first approximation. I have no problem with teaching literature, languages, and other fields which have no natural research fields. History, archaeology, anthropology, and many other "soft" sciences have useful things to research.
But all those marginal students and teachers in those marginal fields know they are marginal. They have nothing to research and the teaching is mostly regurgitating their own fantasies, whether ideological or nonsensical (usually both). They are the ones most dependent on subsidies and handouts. The easiest route to those is government, the simplest political divide is between statists and individualists, and voila! you get statists driving academia leftwards.
Michael Huemer’s new book Woke Myths has at least two great chapters on the origins and dynamics of woke in higher education.
https://scottgibb.substack.com/p/where-does-woke-ideology-come-from
What about starting by eliminating all aid to students attending universities with endowments over say $1 billion.
My wonkish alternative is $10k per undergrad, rather than $100k, but starting with a high limit compromise would make it easier, politically. Many of the top colleges are offering tuition free for avg & below avg students.
Exactly Church and State should be separated, those aren’t schools.
I couldn’t agree more with Dr. Kling’s education proposals. Unfortunately, the Trump education agenda (https://www.donaldjtrump.com/agenda47/agenda47-president-trumps-ten-principles-for-great-schools-leading-to-great-jobs, https://www.donaldjtrump.com/agenda47/agenda47-the-american-academy , https://www.donaldjtrump.com/agenda47/agenda47-protecting-students-from-the-radical-left-and-marxist-maniacs and https://www.thecollegefix.com/heres-everything-trump-promised-regarding-higher-ed-reform-during-his-campaign/ ), while harmonious in many ways, seems conflicted about the need to reduce state and federal funding for higher education. Trump seems to want to use the threat of reduced subsidies. I am not clear how you abolish the Department of Education yet still hold out continued subsidies to Big Ed as a carrot?
At any rate, education is not listed among the central governments enumerated powers. States need to step up, as many have, and pursue reform at their level. One proposal for states that I have not seen implemented is to attempt to level the asymmetric information problem where parents have less information than schools about their children’s attainment of substantive skills and knowledge. Education is in many ways a trust good. States might consider ways to offer a learning outcomes evaluation service separate and apart from the schools and the teaching function. Perhaps states could offer parents AI applications to test their children to ensure that their attainment of math and reading skills is advancing at an acceptable pace? Alternately, perhaps private businesses in the tutoring field could offer testing services that would allow parents to verify their children’s progress? Having reliable outcomes data would hopefully improve parent’s ability to make informed decisions schooling choice.
At the federal level, it would be nice to see Joni Ernst or Rick Scott who, being on the Senate Armed Services Committee and in the DOGE Caucus, step up and repeal the statutory authority for the military academies and the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. These are luxuries that do not promote war fighting ability in any substantive way and which are no longer affordable in an era of $2 trillion annual budget deficits.
And it would be nice to see DOGE or Education Secretary nominee McMahon step up and pledge to repeal authorization for the plethora of pointless-give away programs listed at title 20, United States Code:
3. Smithsonian Institution, National Museums and Art Galleries
4.National Zoological Park
5.Government Collections and Institutions for Research, and Material for Educational Institutions
6.American Printing House for the Blind
6A.Vending Facilities for Blind in Federal Buildings
7.Instruction as to Nature and Effect of Alcoholic Drinks and Narcotics
8.Howard University
9.National Training School for Boys
10.National Training School for Girls
11.National Arboretum
12.Foreign and Exchange Students
14.School Construction in Areas Affected by Federal Activities [Transferred to Chapter 19]
23.Training and Fellowship Programs for Community Development
24.Grants for Educational Materials, Facilities and Services, and Strengthening of Educational Agencies [Omitted, Repealed, or Transferred]
25.Pay and Personnel Program for Overseas Teachers
25A.Overseas Defense Dependents' Education
26.Support and Scholarship in Humanities and Arts; Museum Services
26A.Indemnity for Exhibitions of Arts and Artifacts
28.Higher Education Resources and Student Assistance
31.General Provisions Concerning Education
33.Education of Individuals With Disabilities
37.Assignment or Transportation of Students
38.Discrimination Based on Sex or Blindness
39.Equal Educational Opportunities and Transportation of Students
42.Harry S Truman Memorial Scholarships
43.American Folklife Preservation
44.Career and Technical Education
45.Career Education and Career Development
49.Asbestos School Hazard Detection and Control
50.National Center for the Study of Afro-American History and Culture
52.Education for Economic Security
55.Education of the Deaf
56.American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian Culture and Art Development
57.James Madison Memorial Fellowship Program
59.Barry Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Program
63.Eisenhower Exchange Fellowship Program
65.National Environmental Education
66.Morris K. Udall and Stewart L. Udall Foundation
68.National Education Reform
69.School-to-Work Opportunities [Omitted]
70.Strengthening and Improvement of Elementary and Secondary Schools
72.Museum and Library Services
74.Troops-to-Teachers Program
75.Early Learning Opportunities
76.Education Research, Statistics, Evaluation, Information, and Dissemination
77.Financial Literacy and Education Improvement
78.Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, and Critical Foreign Language Education
79.STEM-Training Grant Program
80.State Fiscal Stabilization Fund
If Trump is serious about moving responsibility for education back to the states, the bare minimum we ought to be able to expect to see are statutory repeal and rescission of funding across a majority of the provisions listed.
One idea is to separate education from awarding degrees. Businesses which do nothing but test and award degrees would tend to reduce grade inflation, since individual results could be compared to the business averages and industry averages. It would make it easier to award degrees to on the job training and homeschooling. Some businesses would value reputations for being tough and stingy, others for suggesting what is lacking and how to improve the deficiencies.
But I've never thought it through in any detail.
“The ultimate use of incentives was suggested by Adam Smith in his magisterial Wealth of Nations over 240 years ago: have students directly pay professors for their services. Extending Smith's analysis, the professors, in turn, could contract with packagers of courses to create degrees, either through traditional universities or other providers. These packagers of degrees can provide administrative and other services (e.g, classroom rental) necessary to ultimately providing a diploma certifying the student has attained a reasonably high level of competence.“
https://substack.com/@scottgibb/p-152187930
“Does this sounds like a good idea? To have students directly pay professors. As we do here on Substack. What’s stopping people from teaching courses on Substack right now? What’s stopping “packagers of Substack courses” to create degrees certifying that students have attained a reasonably high level of competence?”
I think I recognize your “voice.”
I'm certainly one of those "people who think that higher ed will be less parasitical on society if institutions were forced to hire more conservative professors."
Like a 30% quota on Dems & Rep professors & trustees in order to qualify for tax exemptions.
But a reduction in the number of student loans would be good -- until the delinquent rate on student loans is lower than the rate of mortgage forclosures (over the past 3 years).
Plus, more funding for alternatives. And more strings on those students who ask for a loan, like an agreement go into a Jr. Military service if they become delinquent.
Govt itself should be requiring ai-based certification testing without college, for all jobs. And they should prioritize hiring over 55s (over 60s?) to have folk who are more experienced in life, and who are likely to "serve the public" (ha!) for fewer years, even without an 8 year term limit. Govt certificate testing can be created for each major subject from the top schools.
Insofar as upward mobility is heavily on the Ivy +, and recently "top 38" (US News?), those top colleges should be MORE interfered with by the govt. I'd say more objectively those with top 100 endowments, which is far more objective. And a larger govt tax exemption subsidy.
What the top colleges can't do, and shouldn't be asked to do, is to educate avg SAT scorers to the same level as high SAT scorers. A bit unlike IQ, and even more "g", the SAT is tuned towards academics and nothing is better (SAT & ACT).
Another govt requirement I'd like is for all professors at schools receiving more than $10k govt benefits per undergrad student (10k students ~~ $100 million) be required to videotape each lecture, to be kept in the Library of Congress. Even better than the textbook, but related.
And such lecture be available for any govt funded college student to look at, for some small $1 (one dollar) fee.
Future colleges might have more lower paid TAs teaching to the best lectures. And studying which lectures are the best, and why. For smart & not-quite-as-smart folk, thinking is work. Often hard work (not like these comments, so much, tho they're also not nothing). A big part of college is practice in thinking, training one's brain to think.
It should not be mostly, or even heavily, just "signalling" -- the SAT or IQ scores could do that.
And the govt should legalize IQ testing of job applicants, even tho some groups have lower IQ averages. NGOs should be working harder to find out how to increase those low IQs -- or more honestly admitting that there is so much genetic influence, & epigenetic, that less poverty is not enough. (Probably married mothers & fathers are required to max 18 yr old IQs)
There will remain yuuuuuuge political push to get more folk into college. Or the same percentage. As Arnold says, we already have too many going -- but as Freddie de Boer says, there is a Cult of Smart which society should be trying to change. And as D. Brooks did not say, but should have said, IQ superiority does NOT mean moral superiority, and is often against good morals thru rationalizing, smartly, immoral behavior.
Too much micromanagement. Why do student loans need to be different from all other consumer loans? Leave it to banks, schools, and anybody else who wants to. Let them figure out the right collateral. Let standard bankruptcy rules apply.
The bigger problem with government """loans""" is that the authorizing legislation is always drafted so as to allow the government to forgive them, at least in part, and outside of a normal bankruptcy proceeding. It's a sneaky way to cover for what are in reality giant giveaways, but ones with opportunities for reviewers of the applications to play favorites. This creates the incentive for politicians to get as many people as deeply in debt as possible, and then later dangle the prospect of forgiveness as a way to win votes. It's not just the fact that student loans exist, but that Obama changed the law to practically eliminate the possibility of getting those loans from the private sector.
And Obama created legislation to make life very difficult for for-profit colleges.
PLSF is a big machine for employing leftists to promote more leftism. It's surprising that the self-licking ice cream cone isn't even larger than it is. The institutional, duly-authorized loan forgiveness system is a lot more powerful and could in theory scale up much more than the proposed Biden ad hoc forgiveness.
“…we need many more alternatives: trade schools, apprenticeships, online education, innovative teaching models, and even far-out ideas like a network university.” - Amen. A great post aimed at a serious problem.
Great post, though I would prefer a tinge more libertarian crank. Just a tinge though.
For example: “education is not listed among the central governments enumerated powers.”
See cleisthenes‘ comment.
I think one band aid could be required class / tests on economics. Students graduating high school should understand how our economy works, which would go a long way to halting the Long March imo. Once you read Basic Economics you become immune to the common arguments and rationales for socialism.
Krugman is a good counter argument to the idea that some economics education immunizes students against wrong think. It would help, that's all. You can lead a student to knowledge, but you can't force them to learn.
Required reading
Capitalist Manifesto by J Norberg
Basic Economics by Sowell
The left can’t survive public informed about relevant history and theory.
"I believe that we need many fewer people going to college"
I gave blood yesterday and the young girl who drew it finished high school last spring. She wants to be a nurse but is worried it will be too hard getting an RN. When I mentioned options with less training she dismissed them because she wanted the bigger income of an RN. You would deny her that?
Maybe we can agree that an RN license shouldn't require a bachelors degree but I don't think that really changes anything in that case.
If we can agree the marginal student will be better off with a degree, I would argue what your position truly implies is that you know better than the prospective student whether they should go to college and you know better than the market who employers should hire and promote at what salary.
No one is saying stop students from getting an education. But stop using tax dollars for nonsense degrees that can't begin to pay back the cost.
Suggested edit: But stop using my dollars for some other family’s degrees.
"In the case of higher education, supply is restricted by requiring schools to be accredited, and then turning the accreditation process over to the incumbent institutions. Naturally, this leads to a strong barriers to entry."
If accreditation is the issue why don't new entrants take over a closing college? Do you think small colleges are going bankrupt or otherwise failing because they can't meet accreditation requirements?
A more fundamental question: what purpose does accreditation serve?
Back in 1942, Joseph Schumpeter observed there were already enough college educated individuals that certain white collar jobs paid less than some skilled trades.