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

[Parasaurolophus]

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

Perhaps the more salient question is who benefits from dismalist's tertiary education. Perhaps it's The Fora?

[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."

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.

A few points indicating progressives' disdain for or misunderstanding of how the system works:

• Disdain for the rule of law- rioting, looting, and judging judicial verdicts based on public opinion, rather than trusting the weeks of presentation of evidence, jury deliberation, etc.
• Calling for "socialism", and using examples of countries which are NOT socialist; they just have more government intervention than the US.
• Disdain for merit-based hiring and promotion
• Disdain for laws forbidding discrimination on the basis of immutable physical characteristics
• Calling for censorship of all kinds of speech, despite the fact that democracy requires an informed populace to choose a government

[mleok]

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

Maybe some degrees are just for signaling purposes in the sense that the vast major of students graduating with those degrees work in jobs that just require a generic degree, but I think it's clear that not every undergraduate degree is simply signaling. In particular, degrees that prepare students for some form of state licensing examinations, which include engineering degrees that allow students to take the EIT examination as part of the process of becoming a PE. I suspect dismalist is just projecting, as most economics majors don't end up in jobs that make use of their academic preparation.

[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.

A few points indicating progressives' disdain for or misunderstanding of how the system works:

• Disdain for the rule of law- rioting, looting, and judging judicial verdicts based on public opinion, rather than trusting the weeks of presentation of evidence, jury deliberation, etc.
• Calling for "socialism", and using examples of countries which are NOT socialist; they just have more government intervention than the US.
• Disdain for merit-based hiring and promotion
• Disdain for laws forbidding discrimination on the basis of immutable physical characteristics
• Calling for censorship of all kinds of speech, despite the fact that democracy requires an informed populace to choose a government

Ooookay then. Good to know. I won't engage, because it won't be productive, but I'm starting to think that maybe I should stop applying the principle of charity to posters who refuse to apply it themselves.

[dismalist]

Oh, and progressives go for the person when they can't refute the hypothesis.

[ciao_yall]

Oh, and progressives go for the person when they can't refute the hypothesis.

Pot? Kettle?

[ciao_yall]

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

Maybe some degrees are just for signaling purposes in the sense that the vast major of students graduating with those degrees work in jobs that just require a generic degree, but I think it's clear that not every undergraduate degree is simply signaling. In particular, degrees that prepare students for some form of state licensing examinations, which include engineering degrees that allow students to take the EIT examination as part of the process of becoming a PE. I suspect dismalist is just projecting, as most economics majors don't end up in jobs that make use of their academic preparation.

Not specifically, but generally. I majored in Poli Sci/Econ and went to work as an Accountant after graduation. So my major made me aware of political and economic implications of accounting policy, which I like to think made me a better professional all around.

[Kron3007]

Oh, hell: Let's have free everything!

Sign me up!

I think we all recognize that it is not free, we are just discussing who should pay (and when). 

Perhaps I can try to speak your language.  I believe society gets a better ROI by paying for university up front (or heavily subsidizing it) to maximize future productivity and competitiveness, thereby increasing total GDP and tax revenue in the long run.  This is particularly true with a progressive tax system, where those that benefit most from the free/cheap education will end up paying more into the system.

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

You are wrong.

That's a powerful, convincing, argument.

As was yours.

[dismalist]

Must 'a struck a nerve.

[Durchlässigkeitsbeiwert]

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.

See above referenced Milton Friedman's 1955 publication.
Due to high variability in individual outcomes private markets tend to underinvest in human capital making that human capital more expensive for the society as whole. So, public investment corrects this by essentially pre-paying to have more of these educated people available making them cheaper for end user than it would otherwise be (this part is completely unrelated to whether how much educated people themselves benefit from this).

[dismalist]

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.

See above referenced Milton Friedman's 1955 publication.
Due to high variability in individual outcomes private markets tend to underinvest in human capital making that human capital more expensive for the society as whole. So, public investment corrects this by essentially pre-paying to have more of these educated people available making them cheaper for end user than it would otherwise be (this part is completely unrelated to whether how much educated people themselves benefit from this).

Ah, the capital market failure! Loans, which we have, fix this. Income contingent loans might not work.

Any reason for a subsidy is only to promote research. And PhD students are typically financed by endowments and by government. So the form of the subsidy is different, but that's OK.

I think the underinvestment has been largely remedied over the last 65 years. I'm more inclined to say that there is overinvestment in tertiary education.

[Kron3007]

Must 'a struck a nerve.

No, just becoming a circular discussion.  No point in continuing.

[marshwiggle]

Ooookay then. Good to know. I won't engage, because it won't be productive, but I'm starting to think that maybe I should stop applying the principle of charity to posters who refuse to apply it themselves.

How about a single example:

A few points indicating progressives' disdain for or misunderstanding of how the system works:

• Disdain for the rule of law- rioting, looting, and judging judicial verdicts based on public opinion, rather than trusting the weeks of presentation of evidence, jury deliberation, etc.

Given all of the progressives screaming that the Rittenhouse verdict was wrong, suppose we reverse the situation.
If the rioters were white supremacists, and the guy with the AR-15 was ANTIFA, but events played out exactly the same way, do you really think the progressives would still be claiming that the result was unjust?

Hint: The legal system is supposed to be objective, so judgements are not based on whether the jury likes, agrees with, etc. the accused.

[quasihumanist]

I think one of the factors we haven't completely considered here is that the box-checkers are comparatively cheap.

The accountants pretend that every student taking up a seat in a course costs the same amount of money (at least for that course), but that's just a fictional approximation used because there isn't an easy way to distinguish who costs more and who costs less.

In one of my large classes, a student who cares about learning the material on average takes up at least twice as much of the most valuable resource (my time) as a box-checker.  Indeed, I can teach my 100 person class the way I do because only about 30 students actually care about learning - and they get learning while the 70 box-checkers don't.

If we decided to stop caring about any reasonably accurate evaluation of who checked enough boxes, then box-checkers could be essentially free, just like people who purchase a gym membership they never use costs a gym nothing.

Yes to the accountants working under the assumption that every seat in a given course costs the university the same, it looks like my university is subsidizing the box-checkers, but I'm not sure we actually are.  Possibly the box-checkers are consuming so little in university resources that they are subsidizing the serious students.

[apl68]

Yes to the accountants working under the assumption that every seat in a given course costs the university the same, it looks like my university is subsidizing the box-checkers, but I'm not sure we actually are.  Possibly the box-checkers are consuming so little in university resources that they are subsidizing the serious students.

I don't know--judging from what I see on the "Teaching" threads, unengaged students seem to cost many teachers a huge amount of extra (and often futile) effort.  Also, a lot of what is often blamed on "administrative bloat" seems to involve various student services that try (again, often futiley) to get unengaged students pushed through the system.