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Comment by asabjorn | Hacker News Reader

This is a bit like saying "People buying luxury cars is just a problem with people not having high-paying jobs".

It seems more fruitful to focus on what product is being sold through state-subsidized loans and if they provide the necessary value. Bloated administrations is largely to blame for the increased cost, and a middle class student getting a student loan they can't default on for a degree without earning potential is not a good choice.

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Agree with most of this, but there are good reasons to think education costs are not driver by bloated administration.

https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/05/bl...

> More importantly, the data reject the bloat theory. Figure 8 shows spending shares in higher education. Contrary to the bloat theory, the administrative share of spending has not increased much in over thirty years. The research share, where you might expect to find higher lab costs, has fluctuated a little but also hasn’t risen much. The plant share which is where you might expect to find lazy rivers has even gone down a little, at least compared to the early 1980s.

...

> If bloat doesn’t work, what is the explanation for higher costs in education? The explanation turns out to be simple: we are paying teachers (and faculty) more in real terms and we have hired more of them. It’s hard to get costs to fall when input prices and quantities are both rising and teachers are doing more or less the same job as in 1950.

Ummm...you can't compare higher education spending with elementary/secondary school staffing, as those two graphs in the link do.

Both of these are ludicrous. The salaries for my school are public, they are for all public schools (that I've looked at at least).

I can tell you from the data from my school the administrative costs have gone up substantially. Both from number of administrators increasing significantly. The average administrative staff wage is over 250k (I know that's not a lot in tech salaries, but that is HUGE where I am. Cost of living calculator says $663,545 compared to SF). Our president makes 700k (just under 2m equiv) and gets 60k/yr salary increase.

I'm sorry, I just don't buy it. 60k/yr is more than the average lecturer at my uni makes. A lecturer! Not a professor. Even the CS Professors only make like $120k/yr (highest I see is 220k, which are the heads and are Full professors). So you are telling me that half the admins are worth at least twice as much as the CS professors (ones that are required to bring in money? And a substantial amount I might add). All our STEM professors are paid about that (CS is on the higher side) and all of them are required to bring in money and as far as I'm aware are paying for themselves (with equipment) and their students (all our masters get funded because all the PhDs are filling research positions).

I can understand lab costs going up but I think putting all the blame, or even the majority, on the professors is ludicrous.

And you also need to consider that hiring more professors doens't always equate to less income. You hire more professors to get more students (who pay a significant amount). I'll buy the argument of hiring professors in subjects that don't draw in enough students to justify their cost, but that's a different argument and I would argue is definitely not the lion's share.

> The average administrative staff wage is over 250k (

This is a big salary even in SF. What average admin staff is that?

University. That is the average of our university's admin salary. I don't know the median, so that could be pushed by a few high earners. But given the president's salary it looks like there are quite a few high earners.

If the salaries are public, can you post the link?

My medical school tuition was $38k for my final year of medical school. If my professors were making $250k/yr (1) their hourly rate would be $125. With a wrap rate of 25%, my institution's billable cost would be $156.25/hr. For $38K I should get 243 hours, or a bit over 12% of an FTE. Figure I got 1-2 hours a day direct time and 1-2 hours indirect time. We'll say 3 hours a day for 250 work days. But it was often "group therapy" where one faculty member would have 3-5 students and residents at a time. Still, at 1 hour a day, that comes out about even.

(1) Average US physician income: $294k, dragged down by military and public health physicians.

What percentage of the total budget of your school is being spent on each of overpaid administrators and underpaid faculty? (I honestly don't have any expectation as to what the answer to this question might be, but it seems much more important an analysis than the average salary of a given position.)

Congratulations, you have disproven statistical evidence by providing an anecdote.

This really doesn't fit the definition of anecdote. It is a counter example. You can see other comments for direct reasoning why the data in the article is wrong. There's things like the statement about unemployment not considering that unemployment doesn't count those who left the workforce, which is also at highs. Or to things like that you can't compare elementary and high schools to college.

I know your comment sounds witty, but it is lacking real value and really adds to the problem at hand. Surprisingly things are extremely nuanced and we try to just point to "simple solutions" we generally make the problem worse. Frankly because we are not considering the system and distracting ourselves from solving the problem (calling it done when we've only just started).

I don't know the answer, but it is odd that there's no curve for "faculty share" of university costs. If this were a paper in my field I'd really wonder why the key curve is missing. (Imagine a candy store P&L with no line for "cost of candy.")

In this case, though, the "product that [was] being sold" that made these students originally go to school, is employment—or rather, a proxy signal for employability that the consumers of the product hope will get them employment. People consume education when they can't find a job, in the hopes that they'll become more employable, even though this makes the problem of their unemployment more dire rather than less (because it adds debt.)

It's sort of like taking stimulants when you're hungry.

Or like taking Caffeine for productivity even though you have severe anxiety already

I guess we have to decide whether the it's "We have a problem with too many snake oil salesman!" or "We have a snake oil effectiveness problem".

I think you present a false analogy, but I found your phrasing very funny

Ague and toothaches are developing resistance to snake oil. We must take drastic action.

> people consume education when they can't find a job

I think many of our youth are "consuming" higher education because that's what they're expected to do.

> it's sort of like taking stimulants when you're hungry

I'd say it's more like teaching someone how to swim by tossing them off a boat, but with life preservers so they kinda squirm around and do alright but they ain't really swimmin

Recessions are cyclical though, so it seems a rational decision to go to school during a recession as an investment towards greater employability, if one is unable to find a job, to take better advantage when the economy turns positive again.

I agree with that... however, there are a lot of people studying programs that are overloaded. Let's say there's 100 positions for Foo Studies program majors, but 10000 people get Foo Studies degrees each year. How many of those people will find jobs in their field? How many will wind up in jobs not paying enough to cover cost of living + student loan repayment? Who is responsible for not understanding that a Foo Studies degree will not get them where they need to be? And even when they can get into their chosen field, because there's so much excess supply the actual job pays even less.

here’s another thing to think about:

- people want to go to name brand/Well known schools

- The maximum number of schools that humans can remember in their brain is largely fixed

- The population is increasing

- Schools largely Don’t increase their enrollment size due to space and notoriety concerns

you combine all the factors above and you should expect the price of top-tier schools go up dramatically with population size

As a supporting data point, I looked up the stats. My “elite” undergrad institution increased enrollment by 14% in the last 15 years.

I don't think US population increased 14% in the last 15 years (even the world is barely 16%).

But people out of poverty and into middle class around the world has.

I don't think that happened in the US, and I don't think they immigrated so it's not really an effect on US colleges.

But it has not been only top-tier universities whose tuition has increased so dramatically, it has been nearly every university. The only ones that haven't skyrocketed in price have been community colleges.

many factors.

Largely came to say similar... As someone who didn't go the college route, it's hard for me to sympathize with someone who chose to go 6 figures into debt for a degree in a job that's specifically overloaded, and jobs that pay less than 1/4 if that debt. It's just not a wise decision. Not to mention the over-bloated costs to begin with.

Most of the suggested solutions will not really do much to change things. Maybe requiring students to sign that they've seen job market studies for their chosen program and/or forcing non-compounding interest for student loans while still in college. Maybe even capping loan interest to 10% of income when direct withholding 15%. Optioning loans under cost/benefit would probably go a long way as well.

> It's just not a wise decision.

Children don't make wise decisions, especially not when they've been told for years that if they get a college degree everything else will just fall into place automatically.

I don't think someone that is 17-18 should be referred to as a Child. I do think the Universities should do more to disclose the likelyhood of working in a given profession based on their degree path... however, realistically, the individual bears a lot of responsibility.

Aside: based on some actions/headlines that consistently pop up in news articles (most recently Oberlin)... maybe we should start treating them like children. Also, maybe it's time to stop telling kids the world should be whatever they deem to be as "fair."

Someone at 17-18 can be mature... but the US school system and the general culture around how teenagers are handled doesn't do much if anything to actually encourage that. It's entirely possible for people going into college today to have had zero opportunity to pick their own classes, manage their own bills, or have any real control of even the tiniest career up to that point, which is exactly the worst context to come from when making up-front choices involving tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Then, perhaps the schools should start treating them like children and putting a foot down when they start running roughshod... And by this I mean High Schools and Universities. Again, the world is not fair, it isn't meant to be. And children should learn this.

Beyond all of that, PARENTS should be raising their children. They seem to be too concerned about protecting their kids, instead of letting them know in deep specifics how bills/finances in the home work. There's no reason a 10yo can't sit with you when you pay bills, or look at a spreadsheet that outlines things.

It doesn't even take THAT much... I have most of my paycheck going into an account that bills get paid out of... most are set to autopay, except the largest ones (house/car payments). Every two weeks, when I get paid, I sit down and pay those bills due. The rest of my paycheck goes into an account that is for day to day expenses, and that's all I get for it.

In the end, it's not JUST the schools that are responsible for raising children, and the (US) government doesn't do a very good job of most things. Raise your children people.

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