Colleges in Dire Financial Straits

[Hegemony]

Most of the benefit of vaccination accrues to the person receiving it. The increased protection to anyone else is infinitesimal, until the vaccination rate is close to 100%, at which point every individual has received the private good of the vaccination.

Yeah, that's not true at all. Once the vaccination rate has reached a certain point, which has been regularly reached for most diseases in the U.S. for decades, the benefits are enormous for everyone. Vaccination not only protects individuals, it suppresses transmission. Part of the reason you haven't suffered from measles is because you're vaccinated (I assume) against measles; but the other part is that you're never exposed to measles, because transmission rates and therefore occurrence rates are very low, because a sufficient percentage of the population is vaccinated against measles.

The vaccination rate is even more important for the people who can't get vaccinated — infants, people with compromised immune systems, and so on. They depend on the suppression of transmission alone for their protection.

And measles is nothing to laugh about. For one thing, it hobbles the immune system, so after you've had the measles, you'll be more vulnerable to everything else that comes down the pike for a good long time. The measles fatality rate developing countries, with low vaccination rates, can be as high as 15%. And surviving measles doesn't mean you're home free — I know someone who is deaf because he had measles as a child, before the measles vaccine was widespread.

[marshwiggle]

Most of the benefit of vaccination accrues to the person receiving it. The increased protection to anyone else is infinitesimal, until the vaccination rate is close to 100%, at which point every individual has received the private good of the vaccination.

Yeah, that's not true at all. Once the vaccination rate has reached a certain point, which has been regularly reached for most diseases in the U.S. for decades, the benefits are enormous for everyone. Vaccination not only protects individuals, it suppresses transmission. Part of the reason you haven't suffered from measles is because you're vaccinated (I assume) against measles; but the other part is that you're never exposed to measles, because transmission rates and therefore occurrence rates are very low, because a sufficient percentage of the population is vaccinated against measles.

The vaccination rate is even more important for the people who can't get vaccinated — infants, people with compromised immune systems, and so on. They depend on the suppression of transmission alone for their protection.

And measles is nothing to laugh about. For one thing, it hobbles the immune system, so after you've had the measles, you'll be more vulnerable to everything else that comes down the pike for a good long time. The measles fatality rate developing countries, with low vaccination rates, can be as high as 15%. And surviving measles doesn't mean you're home free — I know someone who is deaf because he had measles as a child, before the measles vaccine was widespread.

I agree with all that. I'm just surprised that dismalist is so willing to call vaccination a public good, while ( I think) dismissing something like providing housing for homeless people so that there isn't an encampment in a public park which reduces everyone else's enjoyment of it.

The point I was making is that in countries with more social programs and spending than the U.S., most people would probably say that having public spaces without visible poverty, homelessness, drug use, etc. is definitely a public good, because it makes it increases peoples' enjoyment of their public spaces.

Different people (and different societies) may place different monetary values on that, but I don't see how it's any less "real" than the value of vaccinations. (In case it's not obvious, I am very much in favour of vaccinations.)

[ciao_yall]

I don't equivocate. :-)

It's not the nurse that' of interest, it's what she's producing. She could treat my arm one hour, producing a private good, and give vaccines the next hour, producing a public good.

Nurse training is always private because the nurse receives the extra cash due to her higher productivity. What the nurse does is what determines whether a public or private good is produced. The public good production is financed by the government.

To an economist, a good is a service is a good is a service! :-) The distinction doesn't matter here.

As I said, there's a middle ground, where the good or service production is capacity constrained. But the market can handle that.

So... should kindergarten be privately financed because learning the alphabet only benefits the 5-year-old?

[dismalist]

I don't equivocate. :-)

It's not the nurse that' of interest, it's what she's producing. She could treat my arm one hour, producing a private good, and give vaccines the next hour, producing a public good.

Nurse training is always private because the nurse receives the extra cash due to her higher productivity. What the nurse does is what determines whether a public or private good is produced. The public good production is financed by the government.

To an economist, a good is a service is a good is a service! :-) The distinction doesn't matter here.

As I said, there's a middle ground, where the good or service production is capacity constrained. But the market can handle that.

So... should kindergarten be privately financed because learning the alphabet only benefits the 5-year-old?

Yes, of course! Learning the alphabet pays so much in the workforce compared to illiteracy that it'd be fine for parents to borrow to send their kiddies kindergarten. At least as significant, kindergarten is simultaneously day care, which is a consumption good. Why should I pay for somebody else's daycare. I can't consume somebody else's daycare.

I hope kindergarten is not compulsory.

[selecter]

Where am I?

[jimbogumbo]

Where am I?

We are all in the Twilight Zone.

[FishProf]

Where am I?

We are all in the Twilight Zone.

FTFY

[kaysixteen]

Not so much the Twilight Zone, but rather a disgustingly dystopian Ayn Rand nightmare.

[dismalist]

Not so much the Twilight Zone, but rather a disgustingly dystopian Ayn Rand nightmare.

Not at all, and nothing to do with me. Rand promoted egoism. Somebody might want to give to charity. Nothing wrong with that. My shtick is efficiency, not egoism.

I observe that an analysis of public goods goes in a direction virtually no one likes, because it doesn't support their previously formed conclusions, which were formed on other grounds. Such a discussion is about pure rhetoric, and not substance. One can have fun with that, I suppose.

[polly_mer]

Drake University is cutting programs: https://iowacapitaldispatch.com/2024/03/04/drake-university-recommends-cutting-academic-programs-positions/

Connecticut state has some choices to make: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/government/state-policy/2024/03/06/lawmakers-college-leaders-clash-over-replacing-federal

[kaysixteen]

Perhaps because no one else here agrees with you wrt the definition of 'public good'.

[spork]

A public good is generally non-excludable. It is completely different from "the public good."

Drake University is cutting programs: https://iowacapitaldispatch.com/2024/03/04/drake-university-recommends-cutting-academic-programs-positions/

Connecticut state has some choices to make: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/government/state-policy/2024/03/06/lawmakers-college-leaders-clash-over-replacing-federal

The problems facing Connecticut's universities stem from the effect of changes to the state's tax base:

Connecticut's city problem.

[apl68]

Drake University is cutting programs: https://iowacapitaldispatch.com/2024/03/04/drake-university-recommends-cutting-academic-programs-positions/

Connecticut state has some choices to make: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/government/state-policy/2024/03/06/lawmakers-college-leaders-clash-over-replacing-federal

No cuts to English, History, and arts at Drake?  Wonder if that means they've already eliminated most of those faculty and majors?

I noticed in looking at recent reports on the CSU situation that they're apparently losing nursing students due to cuts, bad living conditions in dorms, etc., all at a time when there's a growing shortage of nurses.  Miserly state legislatures have apparently figured they could run state higher education systems cheap if they'd just get rid of all those useless humanities profs and majors who were draining down the colleges' finances.  Now those are mostly gone, and they're finding that the deficits are only getting worse.  It's not your (usually starvation cheap) humanities people who are causing your deficits, it's relentlessly rising costs, declining student numbers, and the cumulative effects of decades of underinvestment.

[selecter]

Thank you, Polly for bringing us back to this earth.

Along those same lines, at Valpo:
https://www.highereddive.com/news/valparaiso-university-to-weigh-cuts-28-programs/709227/

[Cheerful]

University of Toledo will suspend admissions and prepare to close a bunch of undergrad and grad programs next academic year:
https://www.utoledo.edu/offices/provost/prioritization/

They assert: "While there may be some immediate cost savings, the goals of this effort are more focused on growth as UToledo's student enrollment, retention and graduation rates improve as the University becomes more competitive."