[wat0n]

Nonprofits are not businesses. If colleges were running as nonprofits they would be charged with being as frugal as possible to serve as many or as much as possible. That is NOT the charter of a college. They have become for-profit organizations in all but name only. They engage in research to benefit private industry at WAY under the market value for that research as one example. They are entertainment venues. They reduce on campus housing to aid the local real estate market.

So let me ask you a question. I know why a business has incentive to cut costs. It improves the dividend to stockholders which they are, by law, required to do. Answer these three questions:

What is a college or universities incentive to cut costs?

What is their incentive to lower tuition?

What are the negative consequences for a college or university for maintaining high tuition?

I know what they should be. What are they?

Their incentive is to be able to reinvest profits, increase the university's wealth and reach a point where it can rely on it to fund research (particularly expensive research).

It should also be noted that the successful ones at this also do provide plenty of scholarships in practice.

What I'm getting at is that nonprofits don't operate all that differently from how regular businesses do.

[Politics_Observer]

@wat0n

What I'm getting at is that nonprofits don't operate all that differently from how regular businesses do.

I agree with you 100%

@Drlee

I think wat0n helped to further illustrate my point of view with the statement I quoted from him above in this specific post in my response to him.

[B0ycey]

Most of those free universities @Tainari88 is talking about have mostly upper and upper middle class students. I see no reason to give them a free degree, except perhaps for some specific fields.

Education is a means to enhance society. Why immigrate new skills when you have the means to create them at home?

Education in the UK at least used to be free. It didn't matter on your class but your intelligence and if you were smart enough you went to university. Today we have gone backwards in the sense there is a lot of worthless degrees which will get you nowhere due to them seemingly being interesting so people enrol but not needed due to demand and any thick bastard can go to university if they know how to fill in their name on a piece of paper. How many photographers of psychologists do we need for example? And the skills we need like surgeons? Not interesting, expensive and more years. So people always choose the easier cheaper option when there is an initial cost to them. If Education was free, they choose the course that benefits them the most longterm as proven historically in the past. That isn't a joke. And something governments should consider. Education is an advancement and should be treated as such and if you penalise people they instinctively change their habits.

[Drlee]

OK. So my other questions?

[wat0n]

Education is a means to enhance society. Why immigrate new skills when you have the means to create them at home?

Education in the UK at least used to be free. It didn't matter on your class but your intelligence and if you were smart enough you went to university. Today we have gone backwards in the sense there is a lot of worthless degrees which will get you nowhere due to them seemingly being interesting so people enrol but not needed due to demand and any thick bastard can go to university if they know how to fill in their name on a piece of paper. How many photographers of psychologists do we need for example? And the skills we need like surgeons? Not interesting, expensive and more years. So people always choose the easier cheaper option when there is an initial cost to them. If Education was free, they choose the course that benefits them the most longterm as proven historically in the past. That isn't a joke. And something governments should consider. Education is an advancement and should be treated as such and if you penalise people they instinctively change their habits.

I think you're idealizing how things used to work before. For instance, enrollment used to be a lot lower prior to the 1990s:

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SE ... cations=GB

And of course students from the upper and upper middle classes were overrepresented among those who were enrolled in tertiary education, partly because they have advantages in terms of human capital accumulation from the beginning (e.g. early childhood stimulation).

@Drlee I also touched on scholarships, which are effectively tuition discounts.

[Politics_Observer]

@Drlee

You did not construct an argument for WHY colleges must be run as businesses. (As not like.)

I think there was a misunderstanding. Perhaps I should have said colleges, high schools and universities should be run like a business because they do have to generate revenue to keep the doors open and the teachers paid. No teacher or professor is going to work for free. That's a given.

How does it do this? By attracting students. If the school or university doesn't attract students (parents can home school children if they are able to in the case of education for K-12 or send them to private school if they can afford to do so), it's not going to be able to keep it's doors open. Even if it is state and federally funded, why should they keep funding them if the institution doesn't attract students because that institution doesn't provide a high quality education? A big reason (though not necessarily all the reason) why students attend an institution is because they know they will get a high quality education that is recognized as high quality by society and employers.

This quote simply maintains that the school should adopt good fiscal management and that is not what we are talking about.

As any business should adopt good fiscal management.

We are talking about running schools like profit making organizations. So consider:

High schools must practice good fiscal discipline but they do not serve to turn a profit for anyone. Universities have come to do that in a big way. As was pointed out, they are a major boon for the banking industry through trillion dollar loan placement.

But high schools and universities have stake holders and must provide something in return to their stakeholders much like for profit businesses must provide profit in return to it's stakeholders. Otherwise, why have them?

They perform as entertainment venues through sports. They serve industry by providing essentially free research. The are a boon to real estate investors as they move away from competing with them by providing dorm rooms. In other words, unlike high schools which get all of their money from taxes, universities fund this stuff, at least in large part, by charging students for what may be an entry into a lowish paying job.

But many public and non-profit universities do get federal funding and public universities get some level of state funding too. Now, I think public universities should get more federal and state funding to make the cost of education to the less privileged more accessible. However, this doesn't change the fact that these same universities still have to be run like a business and have stakeholders that they have to provide something of value in return.

Mind you, I am not saying they provide a dividend check in return as like a for profit business does. But these same universities must provide something of value in return and deliver to keep it's doors open, otherwise, why should society have them around? Their job is provide a high quality education to their students and to members of society.

Setting aside private colleges for a moment...College tuition has increased nearly 30% in public schools in the past decade. Why PO? Tell me how your business model justifies this? My guess is that you can't. We are not talking an improved product. I have posted this before. This is a real number.

In a three semester hour, 300 level course with which I am associated, students pay, after grants and aid, an average of $630.00 per semester hour to attend based upon a semester of 15 yours. YMMV.

I don't know what the acronym YMMV stands for.

The class I am working with enrolls 80 students each getting 3 hours of credit. Do the math. In what world does one class, requiring one paid faculty, once a week three hours, no supplies to speak of other than photocopying, no textbook, need to generate $151,000.00? That is outrageous especially if you consider what they are paying the adjunct to teach it. And what does the student get? I would like to think a life-changing look at an important societal issue but at the end of the day they get three hours of 300 level credit in the college of sociology. The online MBA program, as another example, costs over $1100.00 per hour. And this is a state school ostensibly funded, at least in part, by tax money.

Every college or university have different numbers to do the math with because not all colleges and universities charge the same amount to their students. For example, public community colleges are much cheaper to attend and you can get a high quality education and then you can move on to a public 4 year institution that is reasonably priced. That way, the student doesn't have to go into too much student loan debt and gets good value in return.

No PO this is a national scandal. Even in less expensive schools the costs are absurd. Cut the per semester hour cost for this class to 1/3rd and tell me how much better you feel about the ripoff. Now I get that this is an expensive school as state schools go. (54% above the national average for state schools.)

Tell me something PO. If this school is owned by the state, and is generating this much money for each semester hour, why is it not a profit center for the state. Instead of paying the university, why is the university not paying the state its profits? And, oh by the way, let's not even consider the amount of money these same students pour into the local economy in the form of taxes and economic activity.

I am not going to argue you with you that college has gotten outrageously expensive. I can agree with you on that. I am arguing that colleges and businesses have to be run very similar to a business and though they might not provide money paying dividend checks to their stakeholders, they do have stakeholders and do must provide something of value in return to their stakeholders justify their existence to society. Society can be a stakeholder or students who attend the university can be a stake holder. Shareholders pay money to buy shares of stock and they want a return on their investment just as students pay for semester hours to earn get a high quality education in return, which hopefully lands them a good paying job too.

[B0ycey]

I think you're idealizing how things used to work before. For instance, enrollment used to be a lot lower prior to the 1990s:

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SE ... cations=GB

And of course students from the upper and upper middle classes were overrepresented among those who were enrolled in tertiary education, partly because they have advantages in terms of human capital accumulation from the beginning (e.g. early childhood stimulation).

School education in the UK isn't discriminative given it is offered to all. There is of course advantages given to higher classes over the lower classes in society such as resources at home, but if you are smart enough you will still get the grade which is all I ask for in a society - opportunity. That isn't the case for a university degree which you have to pay for, regardless of how smart you are, this all comes down to wealth of the individual and that should be addressed given it is unfair. But even so, that isn't my argument for free education anyway. My argument is that universities now work as a business, lowering the entry level and providing more useless courses in order to maximise their profits because those courses are desirable and people want to enrol on them. When higher education was free people chose the best course for their long term benefit given cost was not an issue to them and only the smartest people went onto those courses meaning the rest learnt trade skills. And if a course was 7 years, it was 7 years, no biggy. 7 years now in education is like £70,000 of debt, so biggy. So we don't educate our own surgeons now when before we did. We immigrate them instead. Which is ironic because the best surgeons are those who have nimble fingers and a delicate touch. Artists as it happens. Yet art courses are full and useless, but cheap and only three years whereas surgeons courses are expensive and long. So people change their habits, which overall is bad for society. Education should be regarded as a tool to advance society, not a tool for profit. And we are worse off since charging for education given that.

[wat0n]

School education in the UK isn't discriminative given it is offered to all. There is of course advantages given to higher classes over the lower classes in society such as resources at home, but if you are smart enough you will still get the grade which is all I ask for in a society - opportunity. That isn't the case for a university degree which you have to pay for, regardless of how smart you are, this all comes down to wealth of the individual and that should be addressed given it is unfair. But even so, that isn't my argument for free education anyway. My argument is that universities now work as a business, lowering the entry level and providing more useless courses in order to maximise their profits because those courses are desirable and people want to enrol on them. When higher education was free people chose the best course for their long term benefit given cost was not an issue to them and only the smartest people went onto those courses meaning the rest learnt trade skills. And if a course was 7 years, it was 7 years, no biggy. 7 years now in education is like £70,000 of debt, so biggy. So we don't educate our own surgeons now when before we did. We immigrate them instead. Which is ironic because the best surgeons are those who have nimble fingers and a delicate touch. Artists as it happens. Yet art courses are full and useless, but cheap and only three years whereas surgeons courses are expensive and long. So people change their habits, which overall is bad for society. Education should be regarded as a tool to advance society, not a tool for profit. And we are worse off since charging for education given that.

The problem is that, in practice, wealthier people will have a greater chance of admission. It would make more sense to make tuition means tested than free for all in that case, particularly for degrees that may not pay well individually but are very useful for society as a whole.

If I posted that series of enrollment was to highlight this, which likely left the upper classes even more overrepresented in practice.

[Drlee]

Perhaps I should have said colleges, high schools and universities should be run like a business because they do have to generate revenue to keep the doors open and the teachers paid. No teacher or professor is going to work for free. That's a given.

Come on guy. Get into the details. This is bullshit. Of course professors should be paid and paid well in my opinion. But there is absolutely no incentive for colleges to be frugal in hiring. THAT is what I am talking about.

How does it do this? By attracting students. If the school or university doesn't attract students (parents can home school children if they are able to in the case of education for K-12 or send them to private school if they can afford to do so), it's not going to be able to keep it's doors open. Even if it is state and federally funded, why should they keep funding them if the institution doesn't attract students because that institution doesn't provide a high quality education? A big reason (though not necessarily all the reason) why students attend an institution is because they know they will get a high quality education that is recognized as high quality by society and employers.

And this is bullshit. I will grant that there are departments within schools that can attract students. But at the end of the day, every school can fill every seat. Your argument would hold water except we are seeing no seats go unfilled. Even junior colleges are full.

But high schools and universities have stake holders and must provide something in return to their stakeholders much like for profit businesses must provide profit in return to it's stakeholders. Otherwise, why have them?

Wrong again. I wish it was true. Colleges have no stakeholders. Students are not stakeholders. They are not even customers. You are just spouting buzz words. Stop that.

But many public and non-profit universities do get federal funding and public universities get some level of state funding too. Now, I think public universities should get more federal and state funding to make the cost of education to the less privileged more accessible. However, this doesn't change the fact that these same universities still have to be run like a business and have stakeholders that they have to provide something of value in return.

Beyond basic accreditation there are absolutely no standards on what they provide. The federal government cares about how many minority students they take in but does not even track how well they do. There are some minimal standards to receive student loans but we can all see that they are pathetically low. Besides. When a university starts to graduate too few they simply graduate more.

What they provide "of value" is a piece of paper claiming that the individual completed some requirements. Requirements set, by the way, largely by the school itself. The student "knows" it has an education because it is "told" it has an education. Industry sometimes chimes in but in the overwhelming majority of jobs just wants a xerox of the paper.

Every college or university have different numbers to do the math with because not all colleges and universities charge the same amount to their students. For example, public community colleges are much cheaper to attend and you can get a high quality education and then you can move on to a public 4 year institution that is reasonably priced. That way, the student doesn't have to go into too much student loan debt and gets good value in return.

Nope. You can't get away with that. First of all you did not respond to the $150K in revenue generated by my class. Do you admit that it is an absurd amount of money for a 300 level sociology class? This is a state school. Not Harvard.

Move to another school? Really? Pay out of state tuition? Pay for living expenses out of town? Asking a college freshman to carefully manage his/her money for school is like asking an alcoholic go easy on the rum.

I am not going to argue you with you that college has gotten outrageously expensive. I can agree with you on that. I am arguing that colleges and businesses have to be run very similar to a business and though they might not provide money paying dividend checks to their stakeholders, they do have stakeholders and do must provide something of value in return to their stakeholders justify their existence to society. Society can be a stakeholder or students who attend the university can be a stake holder. Shareholders pay money to buy shares of stock and they want a return on their investment just as students pay for semester hours to earn get a high quality education in return, which hopefully lands them a good paying job too.

Here is a valuable life lesson. Using popular buzz words may impress young business people but it pisses off old ones. Again. There are no stakeholders. The problem is, very simply stated, that schools have practically NO INCENTIVE TO BEHAVE LIKE A BUSINESS if you insist on using that term. They do not have incentive to reduce costs to students because the federal government will guarantee the student as much money as they could DESIRE while they attend school. And paying that back some day is hardly weighing heavily on an 18 year old who has never had credit.

Read this blurb from a financial management report:

Enter public-private partnerships...

Public-private partnerships for student housing was a new concept just 10 years ago. Now, it has become a popular and almost necessary alternative for institutions, especially those that have significant enrollments. Today’s students put heavy weight on campus housing when deciding where they will further their education. They command residential facilities that are upscale, functional, safe, and that offer a sense of community. They want the all the comforts of home, and in some cases, much more.

What is wrong with this picture? How is it @Politics_Observer that they even think they could do this. When I started school in 1970, the very idea that I might demand "upscale" digs would have been insulting to everyone in charge and most especially the taxpayer. And it is not wealthy students who are driving this train. They have always had the option of Greek or off campus housing. I shared a room with four other guys in the dorm until I earned a double room. Why? Because there was no way in hell for me to get the money to live off campus. Student loans did not allow me to borrow money and use some of it for an apartment and some for a better car. Of course there are limits on Federal Loans but if you factor in dad's money, grants and scholarships and high taxes, why is it that the average student graduates $37,000+ in debt. But wait. Only 53% of students take on loans at all. Now look at that $37K debt again.

I am not saying that students should not get aid. I am saying that we need to get costs down. (If it gives you a warm fuzzy then like any business.) We need to incentivize colleges and universities to do that. Right now there is virtually no pressure on them to reduce student costs at all. It should be a high priority.

[Politics_Observer]

@Drlee

This is where you and I disagree. I am not going to attend a school if that school can't provide something in return for either my money or in my specific case, my VA benefits. It would be a waste of my time to go to school if they can't provide something of value to me in return. So, this notion that schools don't have stakeholders, that is bullshit. Schools have stakeholders and sure you can fill every seat in a class but if that school isn't providing any real value in return then eventually people are not going to want to attend those schools and will avoid attending them. This is not a bullshit statement. Schools have in fact closed their doors because of either fiscal mismanagement or not attracting enough students that pay tuition (or bring in money) or a combination of both. When people don't find what the university provides has any value, they have a harder time attracting students and keeping the doors open because it is a fact universities have had to close up shop.

This link has an article that discusses some examples of this here:

“Vermont treated this as a campus-by-campus problem,” Jones said, “instead of saying, ‘We need to provide access to education … how are we as a system going to do that?’”

The Vermont State College System's plan to overhaul its colleges includes closing Vermont Technical College's Randolph Center campus and Northern Vermont University and laying off 500 employees. After community pushback, the system Board of Trustees chair, J. Churchill Hindes, announced Sunday that a vote on the plan would be deferred by at least a week.

“I have listened to my colleagues on the board and want to give them time to consider the very significant decisions we have to make,” Hindes said in a press release. “But … delayed action increases the profound financial risks facing all four VSCS colleges and universities. Those risks grow daily. We simply do not have the funds to afford a protracted discussion and debate.”

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/202 ... -can-often

Parents move to neighborhoods that have good schools because they want their kids to have a future. Students attend specific schools because they provide some kind of value in return for those students who hope to pursue a career in a field they enjoy and would hopefully pay them well. If schools didn't do that then people would by throwing away good money and wasting their time for nothing in return. And if that is the case, then eventually they will stop attending those schools because don't like to waste their time and money. And that's a fact. Do you like wasting your time and money? I imagine not and if you don't then why would you expect it to be any different for anybody else?

And you have to consider, if the state or federal government pays the lions share of tuition, well guess what? All of our taxes will go up. So, either way, we pay. Nothing is free. It's a cardinal rule of life. I personally don't have an issue of paying extra taxes to ensure that the less privileged have access to an education. Some people do because they are selfish, aren't going to school or their kids aren't attending college or they are sending their kids to a private university and don't want to have to pay extra taxes to help send somebody's else's kids to school (again, because they are selfish).

[Tainari88]

@Drlee @Tainari88

I see non-profits as businesses too. They have to run an efficient operation and use good fiscal management. As far as like paying dividends, obviously universities would not directly pay dividends to shareholders in terms of money. However, I would say that non-profits, high schools and universities do have stakeholders but their returns are not based upon direct returns in forms of a dividend payment but instead their returns are based upon less tangible items.

So, I think a more accurate term we should use to describe my views is that high schools, colleges and universities are like a business but not corporations in terms that the dividends they pay is not in the form of money dividends but instead on less tangible items like the quality of education a student may receive from that institution of education and in the case of some non-profits that they fulfilled the purpose they were set to serve. I do think some non-profits are money making machines and are used to dodge taxes, for example, some churches are like this.

PO, there are two areas of any modern society's need to NOT have it become a business. The areas are Health care and Education. Again, because it is about the foundation of modern societies. You limit that to wealthy people only? The entire premise of having educated and healthy people working and contributing to the society for decades is compromised and stunted.

Two videos:

The issue with American education:

The Finnish system:

The USA school system:

Poverty is a huge problem. Got to make the changes. Not caring makes everything fail. Again, effort, respect, caring and adequate education and training for teachers and educators. The USA spends a lot. But it is not doing what is the basis of all great education.

[B0ycey]

The problem is that, in practice, wealthier people will have a greater chance of admission. It would make more sense to make tuition means tested than free for all in that case, particularly for degrees that may not pay well individually but are very useful for society as a whole.

The system should be means tested but it should also indeed be free. It should rely on your grades only. I would say the current system is unfair on the lower classes actually given it depends on wealth whether you can afford a higher education or not. Besides today people look at higher education as a means to save money when once it was all about education to what course you took. I can assure you that even the wealthy don't want to pay £70,000 for education either when other options are available, so they will choose courses based on affordability too hence the skills shortages we have in society that I mentioned in the previous posts.

[Cartertonian]

PO, there are two areas of any modern society's need to NOT have it become a business. The areas are Health care and Education. Again, because it is about the foundation of modern societies. You limit that to wealthy people only? The entire premise of having educated and healthy people working and contributing to the society for decades is compromised and stunted.

...

Poverty is a huge problem. Got to make the changes. Not caring makes everything fail. Again, effort, respect, caring and adequate education and training for teachers and educators. The USA spends a lot. But it is not doing what is the basis of all great education.

There is a far wider consideration in these matters Tainari, which sadly requires a little linguistic semantics. Much depends on what you meant - and what others understand - by 'worth it'.

On this side of the pond, at least, we hear a lot about American society being a 'meritocracy' and, superficially, a meritocracy sounds good. But to my eye it seems the US meritocracy is an economic meritocracy, which immediately distorts the word 'merit' and biases it toward wealth, to the point where unconsciously many Americans see merit and wealth as essentially the same thing - the latter being the product of the former that can then be used as a metric for 'merit'. Thus whether or not something is 'worth it' is less about any intrinsic value it may have and more about how much economic merit it has.

PO alludes to this when he says:

When it comes to high schools, if you live in a wealthy neighborhood with much higher property values, those high schools are going to get more funding and more money and thus be better schools than other high schools that are located in poorer neighborhoods with lower property values who do not get as much funding. Guess where the better teachers are going to be teaching? You got it, the wealthier neighborhood with higher property values that pay more money in property taxes and thus whose schools get better funding.

In an economic meritocracy, the wealthy get better education (and healthcare) and so such a society ceases to be a meritocracy and becomes an exercise in what one might call socio-economic Darwinism. If wealth is a measure of merit, then that's ok...but I question the 'if'.

Both PO and (in this thread) Drlee are veterans (and I was a veteran, joined up again and will return to veteranhood very soon), so they and others may recognise something from my own experience. As both a mental health clinician and an educator, I have lost count over the years of the number of soldiers I have encountered who were clearly highly intelligent, but who had been systematically failed by our education system and joined up as 'foot soldiers', without any formal qualifications. I imagine the US military has a similar cohort. One in particular comes to mind - a guy from a deprived background who didn't bother trying at school because he needed no qualifications to join the Army, who having done so was treated as 'thick' for many years until a bright Army Education Officer spotted that he had dyslexia. Once that was identified and allowed for, he raced up the ranks, did an online degree and when he retired did a masters degree. He's now the CEO of a Veterans charity.

Now in fairness to PO, he did earlier state:

Moreover, it is extremely important that the less privileged members of society have access both to a high quality education and college education to ensure a well informed and educated society. The poor and less privileged members of society having access to both a high quality education and college education helps tremendously towards ensuring the survival of democracy and a well functioning society that is less dysfunctional.

And whichever side of the notional political divide you sit on, "the survival of democracy and a well functioning society", has to be the goal. Political differences exist only around how that is to be achieved. Even an ardent socialist (which I'm not, btw) would agree that economic factors are important, but in a society that has subconsciously married merit with wealth, those factors have a disproportionate influence. We can see that in the relative remuneration of different jobs and professions. Those that overtly and more or less directly contribute to wealth generation are remunerated far more than those whose contribution is seen as more toward esoteric and abstract notions (to some) of quality of life and the overall human experience - like nurses and teachers in this instance. Those groups and many others do contribute to wealth generation, but the link is less obvious.

Here in the UK (and I'm sure in the US, too) the recent pandemic has clearly shown society that many of the less glamorous, less 'meritorious' (in an economic sense) and therefore less well paid jobs have been utterly critical to our collective survival as a society. As well as healthcare workers, teachers, grocery retailers, delivery drivers, sanitation workers and a host of other 'economic little people' have had to work heroically to keep society safe. But sadly, once the pandemic has faded in the memory, the dominant, wealth-centric view will reassert itself and nothing will have changed.

So whether a college degree is 'worth it' will continue to be mostly contingent upon whether it has economic merit. PO spoke of a 'dysfunctional society'. Well to me, any society that denigrates its essential (and often pulbic service) workers and lauds its overt wealth generators - and remunerates them accordingly - will continue to be dysfunctional.

[Julian658]

There is a far wider consideration in these matters Tainari, which sadly requires a little linguistic semantics. Much depends on what you meant - and what others understand - by 'worth it'.

On this side of the pond, at least, we hear a lot about American society being a 'meritocracy' and, superficially, a meritocracy sounds good. But to my eye it seems the US meritocracy is an economic meritocracy, which immediately distorts the word 'merit' and biases it toward wealth, to the point where unconsciously many Americans see merit and wealth as essentially the same thing - the latter being the product of the former that can then be used as a metric for 'merit'. Thus whether or not something is 'worth it' is less about any intrinsic value it may have and more about how much economic merit it has.

The meritocracy is built on a hierarchy of talent and competence. Those that are more talented and competent climb at a MUCH faster pace. Those with no talent stagnate or go down. The overlapping economic hierarchy does not help the poor or the less talented. IN any event there is no equality with regards to the term meritocracy:

Merit: the quality of being particularly good or worthy. Not everybody is worthy.

PO alludes to this when he says:
In an economic meritocracy, the wealthy get better education (and healthcare) and so such a society ceases to be a meritocracy and becomes an exercise in what one might call socio-economic Darwinism. If wealth is a measure of merit, then that's ok...but I question the 'if'.

What PO states is true. The better neighborhoods have better schools which at the end of the day reflect the high quality of the neighborhood. If you move that school to a poor neighborhood the poor kids do not perform as well as the upper class kids (or kids with Asian parents) in the wealthy neighborhood. Kids in poor neighborhoods do not perform well because they come form crappy dysfunctional homes. A great home (and a good set of parents) is the most important factor regarding education.

Both PO and (in this thread) Drlee are veterans (and I was a veteran, joined up again and will return to veteranhood very soon), so they and others may recognise something from my own experience. As both a mental health clinician and an educator, I have lost count over the years of the number of soldiers I have encountered who were clearly highly intelligent, but who had been systematically failed by our education system and joined up as 'foot soldiers', without any formal qualifications. I imagine the US military has a similar cohort. One in particular comes to mind - a guy from a deprived background who didn't bother trying at school because he needed no qualifications to join the Army, who having done so was treated as 'thick' for many years until a bright Army Education Officer spotted that he had dyslexia. Once that was identified and allowed for, he raced up the ranks, did an online degree and when he retired did a masters degree. He's now the CEO of a Veterans charity.

Anecdotes are great, but they do not reflect average behaviors. Anecdotes only speak about outliers. BTW, you are in the UK a land where people were either highborn or lowborn. I do not know if this is still the rule.

And whichever side of the notional political divide you sit on, "the survival of democracy and a well functioning society", has to be the goal. Political differences exist only around how that is to be achieved. Even an ardent socialist (which I'm not, btw) would agree that economic factors are important, but in a society that has subconsciously married merit with wealth, those factors have a disproportionate influence. We can see that in the relative remuneration of different jobs and professions. Those that overtly and more or less directly contribute to wealth generation are remunerated far more than those whose contribution is seen as more toward esoteric and abstract notions (to some) of quality of life and the overall human experience - like nurses and teachers in this instance. Those groups and many others do contribute to wealth generation, but the link is less obvious.

Plato said that only the smart and talented should lead nations.

There always is a chance of getting an incompetent leader in both the right and the left. However, in my opinion crazy ideas that are based on emotion and virtue signaling are more abundant on the left since there are no limits in terms of where the left can go. The right is less dangerous in that there is a barrier and wall that prevents the extreme right wing views of the past

Here in the UK (and I'm sure in the US, too) the recent pandemic has clearly shown society that many of the less glamorous, less 'meritorious' (in an economic sense) and therefore less well paid jobs have been utterly critical to our collective survival as a society. As well as healthcare workers, teachers, grocery retailers, delivery drivers, sanitation workers and a host of other 'economic little people' have had to work heroically to keep society safe. But sadly, once the pandemic has faded in the memory, the dominant, wealth-centric view will reassert itself and nothing will have changed.

I agree, but you must remember that there is no equality. Hence those with less talented often have jobs that are not as glamorous. Furthermore, they can easily be replaced by immigrants or automation. I would take a Tesla or Edison over a zillion of those workers.

So whether a college degree is 'worth it' will continue to be mostly contingent upon whether it has economic merit. PO spoke of a 'dysfunctional society'. Well to me, any society that denigrates its essential (and often pulbic service) workers and lauds its overt wealth generators - and remunerates them accordingly - will continue to be dysfunctional.

Hmm--wealth generation is actually important. A thriving society generally has more wealth generators that wealth consumers. Once the consumers of wealth outnumber the wealth generators we have chaos.

[Cartertonian]

The meritocracy is built on a hierarchy of talent and competence.

No. If that were the case, it would be a true meritocracy. However since the only metric for measuring merit in the US (and increasingly the UK) is money, talent and competence are marginalised.

Those that are more talented and competent climb at a MUCH faster pace. Those with no talent stagnate or go down. The overlapping economic hierarchy does not help the poor or the less talented.

Indeed...because the reality is that those who have more money climb at a MUCH faster pace. Those with much less money stagnate or go down.

There are plenty who can compensate for their lack of talent and competence with money and many more who cannot compensate for their lack of money with any amount of talent and competence.

IN any event there is no equality with regards to the term meritocracy:

Merit: the quality of being particularly good or worthy. Not everybody is worthy.

If the measure of being particularly good or worthy is how much money you have or can generate, as it is in an economic meritocracy, then it's not a meritocracy at all.

Hmm--wealth generation is actually important. A thriving society generally has more wealth generators that wealth consumers. Once the consumers of wealth outnumber the wealth generators we have chaos.

I'm aware of that. It's a matter of weighting and priority, hence my earlier reference to the aphorism that 'money is a good servant but a poor master'. The economic approach popular with the right seems to be to make money a good servant for them and to make it the master of everyone else.

[Julian658]

No. If that were the case, it would be a true meritocracy. However since the only metric for measuring merit in the US (and increasingly the UK) is money, talent and competence are marginalised.

Wealth is the metric of success in capitalism. Those with more talent often earn more, but this is not always the case. Sometimes highly talented people go nowhere if they are not conscientious and well organized. Birth in a well to do family is an advantage too. But, it is not a guarantee for success.

Indeed...because the reality is that those who have more money climb at a MUCH faster pace. Those with much less money stagnate or go down.

The Matthew principle is ruthless and it applies to many aspects of life. I will agree with that. But, what can be done? Not allow those on top to continue to climb?


Obviously it applies to wealth. It is easy to make money if one has a high baseline. Investing at 5% generates more income for those that invest larger quantities . And this is the most passive way of increasing wealth. Jordan Peterson said that since becoming famous he is offered a zillion opportunities to make more money on a daily basis.

There are plenty who can compensate for their lack of talent and competence with money and many more who cannot compensate for their lack of money with any amount of talent and competence.

I agree! Wolfgang A. Mozart would not have been a genius composer if he did not have Leopold Mozart as a father. Leopold was an excellent musician and hence nurtured Wolfgang to an extreme degree. . Life is a bit of a lottery. How can anyone change that? Many parents do the best they can for their children. Kids born to indifferent dysfunctional parents are screwed.

If the measure of being particularly good or worthy is how much money you have or can generate, as it is in an economic meritocracy, then it's not a meritocracy at all.

If currency is eliminated the hierarchy will be based on something else. That is the nature of the beast.

I'm aware of that. It's a matter of weighting and priority, hence my earlier reference to the aphorism that 'money is a good servant but a poor master'. The economic approach popular with the right seems to be to make money a good servant for them and to make it the master of everyone else.

A society with no currency is the Utopia. No worries! Capitalism culminates in communism. This happens when wealth becomes redundant. On a theoretical basis there is no limit to the amount of wealth creation. Once excessive wealth is ordinary, redundant, and plentiful there is no need to hoard wealth. We already see signs that this is happening, however class division will remain.

[late]

It never ceases to amaze me how much you guys dance around income inequality.

https://www.amazon.com/Price-Inequality-Divided-Society-Endangers/dp/0393345068/ref=sr_1_2?crid=16IVSGAAOZBMS&dchild=1&keywords=stiglitz+price+of+inequality&qid=1623006191&sprefix=stiglitz+%2Caps%2C180&sr=8-2

[Julian658]

It never ceases to amaze me how much you guys dance around income inequality.

https://www.amazon.com/Price-Inequality-Divided-Society-Endangers/dp/0393345068/ref=sr_1_2?crid=16IVSGAAOZBMS&dchild=1&keywords=stiglitz+price+of+inequality&qid=1623006191&sprefix=stiglitz+%2Caps%2C180&sr=8-2

I agree. Inequality leads to discontent and revolution. What do you propose? Less inequality or equality? I vote for less inequality.

[MistyTiger]

I said maybe. A quality education can improve you as a person and build character. I am more rational because of my college education.

Why is education so expensive in the US? Higher education in Germany is more affordable. Higher education should be more affordable in the states. Had I been allowed to, I would have studied overseas instead of in the US. I actually dreamed of studying in England, oh well.

In 2014, Germany’s 16 states abolished tuition fees for undergraduate students at all public German universities. This means that currently both domestic and international undergraduates at public universities in Germany can study for free, with just a small fee to cover administration and other costs per semester.

This good fortune may not last however. In autumn 2017 the south-west state of Baden-Württemberg reintroduced tuition fees for non-EU students, and it’s possible other states will follow suit in the coming years. Non-EU students in Baden-Württemberg must now pay tuition fees of €3,000 (~US$3,500) per year, while those gaining a second degree pay a reduced fee of €1,300 (~US$1,600) per year.

For now, the low fees certainly help to make studying in Germany an attractive option for prospective students, and the country has previously been ranked as the fourth most popular destination for international students in the world (after the US, UK and Australia)
Although you can study for free at public German universities as an undergraduate, there is a charge per semester for enrolment, confirmation and administration. This is typically no more than €250 (~US$290) per semester, but varies depending on the university.

There may be an additional charge to purchase a “Semesterticket”, which covers public transport expenses for six months – the price varies depending upon which Semesterticket option you choose. If you exceed the standard period of study by more than four semesters, you may also face a long-term fee charge, which could be as much as €500 (~US$540) per semester.

Most universities in Germany are public. Private institutions are usually dependent on tuition fees for their funding (though some also receive support from foundations), and set their own fees, which can be anything up to and beyond €20,000 a year (~US$24,400).
https://www.topuniversities.com/student ... dy-germany

That $20K figure reminds me of the cost of Mt Holyoke back in 2005. It's probably closer to $30K nowadays due to inflation. That is still better than most colleges in the US.

[Julian658]

I said maybe. A quality education can improve you as a person and build character. I am more rational because of my college education.

Why is education so expensive in the US? Higher education in Germany is more affordable. Higher education should be more affordable in the states. Had I been allowed to, I would have studied overseas instead of in the US. I actually dreamed of studying in England, oh well.

In Germany only the smart go to university. The rest are channeled to vocational school. German universities are just a classroom and not luxurious country clubs like in America. This saves a ton of money.

Furthermore in America people that should never go to university end up getting useless majors. These people easily obtain Loans and the colleges offer goofy meaningless degrees. You never hear politicians on the left preaching vocational school.

America should copy Germany, I agree with you.