NBC News: Exposing the College-is-for-Everyone "fantasy"

[Durchlässigkeitsbeiwert]

Those who get the benefits must pay the costs. Otherwise there is waste -- dollar bills burnt. We can always give money to the poor.

There are tremendous benefits for contributing to someone else's education:
maintaining [appearance of] social elevators facilitates social cohesion allowing one to save on kidnap&ransom insurance and round the clock armed guards. Giving money directly to the poor may be more expensive and politically unsustainable way of doing so.

If true, they accrue to the beneficiary. Let them pay.

Dollar for dollar, I'd much rather give to the poor. I know that few others wish to.

The problem is that such feedbacks are very hard to quantify and are more fuzzy logic than deterministic. So, individual incentives to do something are very low. Until one suddenly finds oneself on a wrong side of a transition into a self-reinforcing loop of a disintegrating state and free-fall economics (or another world war starts looking like a decent solution). This an extreme case of better safe than sorry.

[dismalist]

Those who get the benefits must pay the costs. Otherwise there is waste -- dollar bills burnt. We can always give money to the poor.

There are tremendous benefits for contributing to someone else's education:
maintaining [appearance of] social elevators facilitates social cohesion allowing one to save on kidnap&ransom insurance and round the clock armed guards. Giving money directly to the poor may be more expensive and politically unsustainable way of doing so.

If true, they accrue to the beneficiary. Let them pay.

Dollar for dollar, I'd much rather give to the poor. I know that few others wish to.

The problem is that such feedbacks are very hard to quantify and are more fuzzy logic than deterministic. So, individual incentives to do something are very low. Until one suddenly finds oneself on a wrong side of a transition into a self-reinforcing loop of a disintegrating state and free-fall economics (or another world war starts looking like a decent solution). This an extreme case of better safe than sorry.

Information itself is decentralized, so we have no real choice. We have a coordinating mechanism, too.

Centralized direction has all but disappeared. There is only Cuba and North Korea left.

No worries. :-)

[Durchlässigkeitsbeiwert]

Information itself is decentralized, so we have no real choice. We have a coordinating mechanism, too.

Centralized direction has all but disappeared. There is only Cuba and North Korea left.

No worries. :-)

And coordinating mechanism led to tertiary education subsidies you keep complaining about.

[dismalist]

Information itself is decentralized, so we have no real choice. We have a coordinating mechanism, too.

Centralized direction has all but disappeared. There is only Cuba and North Korea left.

No worries. :-)

And coordinating mechanism led to tertiary education subsidies you keep complaining about.

Piecemeal social engineering can often be improved upon. :-)

[Durchlässigkeitsbeiwert]

Information itself is decentralized, so we have no real choice. We have a coordinating mechanism, too.

Centralized direction has all but disappeared. There is only Cuba and North Korea left.

No worries. :-)

And coordinating mechanism led to tertiary education subsidies you keep complaining about.

Piecemeal social engineering can often be improved upon. :-)

Exactly.
We just disagree which way is improvement  (and what is a reasonable price of an insurance against black swan outcomes).

[dismalist]

Information itself is decentralized, so we have no real choice. We have a coordinating mechanism, too.

Centralized direction has all but disappeared. There is only Cuba and North Korea left.

No worries. :-)

And coordinating mechanism led to tertiary education subsidies you keep complaining about.

Piecemeal social engineering can often be improved upon. :-)

Exactly.
We just disagree which way is improvement  (and what is a reasonable price of an insurance against black swan outcomes).

Yes, absolutely.

I'm quite sure in which direction improvements occur in various areas. I'm not willing to pay much to insure against black swans.

People differ along many, many dimensions.

Our methods of deciding about public and private goods amongst ourselves seem to have become short of total war, so that's nice.

[marshwiggle]

This is the basis of my question about what universities offer; the idea that anything they might offer would automatically be a benefit to GDP in the long run is ridiculously optimistic at best, delusional at worst, since it would justify offering absolutely anything.

Surely trying to predict which sorts of training will have beneficial--or, optimally beneficial--effects on the GDP years or decades downstream is hopeless (not least since everyone ultimately contributes to economic activity) and undesirably inefficient and inflexible (in much the same way as centralized command-economies are).

One thing that is relatively easy is to predict who is likely to succeed, or at least who is likely to fail. The economic case for low tuition is much easier to make if admission standards are high. It's an incredible waste of resources to admit people who are virtually guaranteed to fail. (And those resources would be better spent on directing those people into some area where they are likely to succeed.)

[Caracal]

This is the basis of my question about what universities offer; the idea that anything they might offer would automatically be a benefit to GDP in the long run is ridiculously optimistic at best, delusional at worst, since it would justify offering absolutely anything.

Surely trying to predict which sorts of training will have beneficial--or, optimally beneficial--effects on the GDP years or decades downstream is hopeless (not least since everyone ultimately contributes to economic activity) and undesirably inefficient and inflexible (in much the same way as centralized comman-economies are).

Nay, it's decentralized planning. Individuals and individual institutions can and must plan, and bear risks. See what works. But this works iff the beneficiaries pay the costs. 

And the risks are insured by the welfare state.

No worries.

Yes, to a large extent that is the point. Create a baseline level of security that allows people to take risks without having to worry that if they fail the outcome will be catastrophic. Failing means losing the money you invested and having to do something else, not being unable to afford healthcare or having no options for childcare.

[ciao_yall]

This is the basis of my question about what universities offer; the idea that anything they might offer would automatically be a benefit to GDP in the long run is ridiculously optimistic at best, delusional at worst, since it would justify offering absolutely anything.

Surely trying to predict which sorts of training will have beneficial--or, optimally beneficial--effects on the GDP years or decades downstream is hopeless (not least since everyone ultimately contributes to economic activity) and undesirably inefficient and inflexible (in much the same way as centralized comman-economies are).

Nay, it's decentralized planning. Individuals and individual institutions can and must plan, and bear risks. See what works. But this works iff the beneficiaries pay the costs. 

And the risks are insured by the welfare state.

No worries.

If that were true, we would not have any other public goods such as roads, utilities, airports, police, fire...

There is a meme going around Facebook that likens Libertarians to cats. They are disdainful and resentful of a system that they don't understand they rely upon for survival.

[marshwiggle]

There is a meme going around Facebook that likens Libertarians to cats. They are disdainful and resentful of a system that they don't understand they rely upon for survival.

That's ironic. Most progressives are that way about western democracy; i.e. they are "disdainful and resentful of a system that they don't understand they rely upon for survival."

[Parasaurolophus]

There is a meme going around Facebook that likens Libertarians to cats. They are disdainful and resentful of a system that they don't understand they rely upon for survival.

That's ironic. Most progressives are that way about western democracy; i.e. they are "disdainful and resentful of a system that they don't understand they rely upon for survival."

What's the evidence for that assertion? The fact that you don't like their position--or, indeed, that they'd like to ameliorate the system--doesn't entail that they don't understand how the system works.

[ciao_yall]

There is a meme going around Facebook that likens Libertarians to cats. They are disdainful and resentful of a system that they don't understand they rely upon for survival.

That's ironic. Most progressives are that way about western democracy; i.e. they are "disdainful and resentful of a system that they don't understand they rely upon for survival."

That is the weirdest bloody thing I have ever heard.

[dismalist]

This is the basis of my question about what universities offer; the idea that anything they might offer would automatically be a benefit to GDP in the long run is ridiculously optimistic at best, delusional at worst, since it would justify offering absolutely anything.

Surely trying to predict which sorts of training will have beneficial--or, optimally beneficial--effects on the GDP years or decades downstream is hopeless (not least since everyone ultimately contributes to economic activity) and undesirably inefficient and inflexible (in much the same way as centralized comman-economies are).

Nay, it's decentralized planning. Individuals and individual institutions can and must plan, and bear risks. See what works. But this works iff the beneficiaries pay the costs. 

And the risks are insured by the welfare state.

No worries.

If that were true, we would not have any other public goods such as roads, utilities, airports, police, fire...

There is a meme going around Facebook that likens Libertarians to cats. They are disdainful and resentful of a system that they don't understand they rely upon for survival.

Other? No, tertiary [undergraduate] education is not a public good. The benefits accrue to the educated person, not the rest of us. It is a pure private good.

[ciao_yall]

This is the basis of my question about what universities offer; the idea that anything they might offer would automatically be a benefit to GDP in the long run is ridiculously optimistic at best, delusional at worst, since it would justify offering absolutely anything.

Surely trying to predict which sorts of training will have beneficial--or, optimally beneficial--effects on the GDP years or decades downstream is hopeless (not least since everyone ultimately contributes to economic activity) and undesirably inefficient and inflexible (in much the same way as centralized comman-economies are).

Nay, it's decentralized planning. Individuals and individual institutions can and must plan, and bear risks. See what works. But this works iff the beneficiaries pay the costs. 

And the risks are insured by the welfare state.

No worries.

If that were true, we would not have any other public goods such as roads, utilities, airports, police, fire...

There is a meme going around Facebook that likens Libertarians to cats. They are disdainful and resentful of a system that they don't understand they rely upon for survival.

Other? No, tertiary [undergraduate] education is not a public good. The benefits accrue to the educated person, not the rest of us. It is a pure private good.

Really? So you don't benefit because your doctor went to medical school?

[dismalist]

This is the basis of my question about what universities offer; the idea that anything they might offer would automatically be a benefit to GDP in the long run is ridiculously optimistic at best, delusional at worst, since it would justify offering absolutely anything.

Surely trying to predict which sorts of training will have beneficial--or, optimally beneficial--effects on the GDP years or decades downstream is hopeless (not least since everyone ultimately contributes to economic activity) and undesirably inefficient and inflexible (in much the same way as centralized comman-economies are).

Nay, it's decentralized planning. Individuals and individual institutions can and must plan, and bear risks. See what works. But this works iff the beneficiaries pay the costs. 

And the risks are insured by the welfare state.

No worries.

If that were true, we would not have any other public goods such as roads, utilities, airports, police, fire...

There is a meme going around Facebook that likens Libertarians to cats. They are disdainful and resentful of a system that they don't understand they rely upon for survival.

Other? No, tertiary [undergraduate] education is not a public good. The benefits accrue to the educated person, not the rest of us. It is a pure private good.

Really? So you don't benefit because your doctor went to medical school?

I pay him for that benefit!