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Comment by bradleyjg | Hacker News Reader

While there may well be more bad (by whatever metric) for-profit colleges there are also bad non-profit colleges. And non-profit itself is a bit of misnomer. It is true that registered non-profits can't pay dividends to their shareholders, but they can and sometimes do pay exorbitant salaries to those that have control over them.

As the gainful employment rule[1] currently stands it exempts degree programs from public and private non-profit institutions. I'd rather see a uniform set of metrics and standards applied to all institutions eligible for student loans.

[1] https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2014/10/31/2014-255...

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Be careful what you wish for. This would basically kill liberal arts programs and the idea of a well-rounded post-secondary education. The incentive would be to transform universities into job-training programs.

I know there is an ongoing debate about the worth of a liberal arts education in the modern economy, but there's something to be said about the traditional notion of education for education's sake, rather than as a mechanism to improve lifetime earnings.

Something should be done about the high cost of post-secondary education and the untenable burden it places on many students, but I disagree that the solution should be tied to job prospects.

The question is, why should tax payers subsidize liberal art programs with no job prospects? Giving student loans in exchange for getting an education that will increase their earning power makes sense. Not only will the loan be paid back, but the increased earning power will also increase the tax base. But someone graduating with $200k in student loans with a degree that will barely qualify them for a $35k per year job seems a lot more questionable.

If you take away the student loan subsidies then the cost of those liberal art programs will inevitably come down, or at least they will be restricted to just the people that can afford a house worth of tuition to study philosophy.

Taxpayers do this already: it's called grade school and high school. The public has an interest in an educated populace.

I'm not seeing any direct correlation between the cost of an education program and the earning power of graduates from the program, so in the absence of that evidence, I couldn't say with any confidence that tying subsidies to earning power will do much at all to bring program costs down.

If I were to guess, what's more likely to happen is these programs would be canceled wholesale at low-margin institutions, leading to an effect opposite that which you describe: liberal arts programs would be available only at the institutions where graduates are more likely to obtain well-paying jobs, meaning Ivy League and other prestigious (and expensive) institutions.

Simply limiting access to federal loans across the board, rather than subsidizing STEM/MBA degrees at the expense of liberal arts, would probably do much more to incentivize the reduction of post-secondary education costs without completely ditching the notion of a liberal education.

The way the formula works the average or median (whichever is higher) annual income can be lower for lower cost institutions. So for example, SUNY Binghamton University could pass the GE rule if it's graduates make at least $40,000/year. Likewise, Nassau Community College would need its graduates to secure $23,500/year jobs. They'd both be fine.

Where this rule would pinch would be high cost institution that nonetheless produce graduates that enter low paying jobs.

Taking your premise that society has an interest in an educated populace, and that includes people studying liberal arts at the tertiary level, does it have an interest in paying for the most expensive providers of that education?

I don't see it as subsidizing STEM at the expense of liberal arts. I see it as giving loans to people who are likely to use those loans to increase their earning power, and therefore have the ability to repay said loans. It doesn't have to be STEM specifically, there are well paying jobs outside of that as well.

What benefit does society get from having lots of graduates with $100 to $200k in student loans that they'll struggle to make payments on for the next 20 years? Education is perfectly fine, but if the goal is to encourage lots of people to study liberal arts for the sake of learning, then let's find a way to do that that doesn't cost $50k per year.

>>Taxpayers do this already: it's called grade school and high school. The public has an interest in an educated populace.

If society has an interest in an educated populace, then we should go ahead and make college free for everyone by funding it directly with taxpayer money, versus indirectly with student loans.

Where do you draw the line? Would you have the public subsidize an education in tarot reading? In duck duck goose? These are fine amusing hobbies, just as literature is a fine diversion, but the economic prospects of a skilled duck duck goose player are pretty grim, just as the economic prospects of a literature buff have become. Let people who want to explore their hobbies do so on their own dime without society suggesting to them that it's reasonable to take out a $100k loan to do so. Then they won't be wondering why they are unemployed and $100k in debt when they finish their studies.

> I'm not seeing any direct correlation between the cost of an education program and the earning power of graduates from the program

In Canada, the degrees with high earning potential (HBA, CS, Engineering) cost 2-3x more than the other programs.

It's really quite aggravating because they charge you based on your declared program, even if all the courses you're taking are actually arts courses.

Maybe the solution would be to inject liberal arts into every curriculum if the college wants access to subsidies.

Producing well-rounded citizens is very important for a functioning society, therefore, it makes lots of sense to create incentives to produce well-roundedness.

This should be a requirement, and my own liberal education is why I'm glad I have one of the very few B.A.'s in Computer Science that my university issued. I could have taken a B.Sc., with more sciences, more maths. Instead I took the B.A. with a greater focus on classes like literature, economics, philosophy, and political science.

Taking Calc III and a fourth science class is a lot less valuable to me both as a worker and as a citizen than any one of my economics courses. (To say nothing of my public speaking courses.)

I completely believe in the value of education for its own sake, but why does a liberal arts education need to be 4 years long? Couldn't we have a system where a student spends one intensive year focusing on liberal arts, and the rest of the time at university can be devoted to job training?

> The incentive would be to transform universities into job-training programs.

That's what most people go to university for. That's how universities (at least around here) advertise themselves.

Salaries at non-profit must be "reasonable" by law.

There's probably a lot of wiggle room there, but it's not like you can just pay yourself anything.

if everyone else in the same profession is granting themselves raises and hiring extra staff, the definition of 'reasonable' gets skewed to "this is how everyone is doing it". And... it doesn't happen overnight, but I'd bet staffing levels and pay scales are pretty out of whack compared to 30 years ago for university staff who basically do the same things as 30 years ago.

How do you define a reasonable salary for a C level exec when the for profits pay them insane rates?

No idea why you're getting downvoted. The same rules should apply across the board.

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