I think you'd have to ignore all the "real world" comments, liberal indoctrination claims, and general conservative declaration of "the elite" in order to make that claim though.
One of my calculus profs designed the GPS system, worked as an engineer on the space program and was a colonel in the air force but many here on this very board would be quick to say he had no real world experience based on him being a professor at a university.
While true, there are universities that take this approach to the extreme. I forget the specific numbers, but someone looked at UT's faculty and found that something like 60% of all classes were taught by just 20% of the faculty. Obviously research is important to universities, but it certainly seems like there's some room to help control student costs by eliminating some faculty positions and making professors teach more.
And in most cases they are underpaid. Most colleges are cutting costs by using these non-tenure-track faculty to carry more of the teaching load.
Many state universities are also increasing revenue by increasing the portion of out of state and international students they admit.
At the same time, they have been increasing costs by adding student services and amenities that have very little, if anything, to do with education.
I'm sure once you see how nice and shiny the athletics facilities are you'll agree that it's money well spent.
To be fair, a school like UT is going to be different because it is such a huge research facility. What is going to be true for A&M and UT is not going to be true for UTSA etc. I can't comment on what professors do there since I don't know specifics, but in a lot of cases students will be benefited much more by a professor who's able to include them in research rather than teach another 100-200 level course. There may be ways to make it efficient but I would not assume so.
If the athletics departments are able to fund their own facilities then so be it. I really don't have a problem with things of that nature.
I'm happy that I work for a fully self funded department (not athletics related) in our university. We really don't have anything extravagant by any means, but we are able to fund some cool programs that I can really get behind.
I have no problem with education being priced at it's cost of delivery. Education should be subject to the same market forces as other commodities. The students and the dollars will find the best value. We need to get over the concept of college being an automatic middle class "rite of passage" and accept it for what it should be...an investment in learning marketable skills and knowledge that is paid back through increased lifetime earnings. Make a bad investment choice and get a degree in Philosophy? Tough . Should have thought about that when you were picking a major.
How about we simply have no federal or state funding of college, and make the students pay? There are still loans, scholarships, and Pell grants.
The Pell grant is issued for the student. Not the university. Maybe I misunderstood what was meant.
I say that no federal money should go to the schools them self. A grant should be issued to a student and then have his/her choice of which school to use it in.
git yer socialist hands off my medicare
Pretty much.
OTOH, Wild Cobra raises a sensible point: who gets the money?
The college receives the money in turn, true, but that it is originally given to the student is not a trivial difference.
Its fairly trivial to say that funding should be given straight to students to decide where to spend it and it magically becomes money well spent. I'm not going to hold my breath expecting WC to provide any semblance of data to back up his claims. Are you?
For instance, I cringe at every dollar of federal grant money being spent at the University of Phoenix or Devry.
I do not disagree with this. It is these Pell Grants and Subsidized Federal Loans that have allowed prices to inflate in the 1st place. The money IS given to the student to be disbursed to the school, *kind of*.
You still have to go THROUGH the University to *GET* that money, and it is at the discretion of their Office of Student Financial Aid that *you* can be disbursed that money. I have experienced this first hand, as I decided to go to grad school in the same university as my undergrad. I was not permitted to receive financial aid through the university (my FAFSA went through just fine and was supposedly offered enough to cover my expenses) but because their system had a glitch and still showed me as undergrad attempting too many credits towards my degree, I was denied aid... Not by the government, but by the university... I had to appeal to the university to reinstate my aid, and to get my status updated...
It is hard to legitimize what cons utes proper accreditation without government intervention. Even schools that are accredited seem a bit shady sometimes...
In fairness, I was viewing 'federal funding' meaning the subsidized loans and Pell grants...
Absolutely.
In any event, not everything we need should be based on a "for profit" free market business model. I would have thought after watching the past 15-20 years of deregulation people would have realized that a bit more. Imagine Enron happening with education instead of energy. Yeah, that would be just great.
We should find ways to make it easier for people to afford an education - not harder - because of the overall benefit a more educated society has on everyone's life.
There are lots of choices out there. School too expensive? Choose a different one.
Then you agree there needs to be a change, where the grant is given to the student.
I agree there needs to be a change. I am not sure that just giving money to a student is a solution. It seems like a good way to introduce more fraud and frivolous spending by inexperienced (dumb) young adults...
Perhaps giving a voucher to be used by the student as they see fit may be a better (not perfect) solution, so as not to be at the mercy of the State/Private university's Financial Aid bureaucracy...
Not sure how this even addresses anything I put up.
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