Popping the Higher Ed Bubble

Yesterday, Instapundit linked to an interesting article here about "the next market bubble" being higher education, where government subsidies (obstensibly, to improve access to higher education) have had the unintended (but certainly foreseeable) consequence of inflating the costs of college: "Over the last 10 years, after adjusting for inflation, tuition is up 48% at public schools and 24% at private schools."

There are several important parallels with the recent housing bubble; policy goals of extending participation (in higher education, in home ownership) led to people with serious credit risks borrowing a lot to pay a lot for something that, it turns out, isn't worth what they paid.   (Instapundit also linked to a comment by Dean Esmay explaining his regret about ever bothering to pursue a college degree.)

This bubble, like all bubbles, will have its tragic stories, so I don't want to cheer this on.   But if there's a silver lining, it's that it may make people rethink the value of those four years that polite society assumes you need.   

As someone who resents how those four years are often an indoctrination in politically correct sensibilities (see here), I think this is a conversation worth having.   It's not to say that I didn't love my time at that elite institution I got to attend -- that university mentioned in the article that "recently constructed a fancy dorm that cost $70,000 more per bed than the median home price" -- but I'm guessing there were other ways I could have broadened my horizons and learned more for the money (though I doubt I could have learned more Marx...).   

But I suppose that people will still pursue college degrees until employers start removing that as a "get-in-the-door" requirement for job interviews, and start thinking about how some of the brightest people may be those that don't want to wait around for a diploma (Bill Gates anyone?).   

Any opinions out there about the value of your own college educations?   And what could help pop the bubble of prestige in college degrees (which -- given the leftward tilt of almost ALL colleges -- could be a major boost for the long-term viability of free-market ideas)?

UPDATE:  Welcome InstaFolks!   (Thanks, Glenn, for the link!)   Hope you'll take a look around while you're here.   YeahRight is an eclectic site, mostly focused on pop culture, which somehow is usually only discussed by folks from the Left (or by the crankiest folks on the Right).   So if you're a libertarian or non-cranky conservative, I think you'll enjoy the discussions of music, film, culture, as well as topics like the one that brought you here today!   More on the YeahRight raison d'etre is here.  Enjoy!

Comments

[Lee]

I work at a university where I help keep the computers running.

Since my time here began almost ten years ago, I've seen the departments on campus that tend to be dominated by moonbats change. Well, they don't actually change in reality, but they sure do change their names. The anthropology department is now the "School of Evolution and Social Change." Yeah...I know.

Other departments and colleges have undergone similar renaming schemes, all in an effort to make themselves seem important and to justify their delusions of relevancy.

Meanwhile the salaries for professors in these departments are extremely low. The starting salary for a tenure track Poli-Sci professor is around 45k a year. The starting salary for a Finance, Marketing, or Computer Science tenure track faculty is around 120k a year. Who says that teachers don't get paid what they're worth?

The humanities departments are academia's version of a slum (complete with grandiose naming conventions) because the real world isn't making use of the dreck that they produce, be it research or graduates. Meanwhile there is high demand for engineering talent and business acumen, and research in these areas is also highly valued.

A college education is very very very valuable IF you actually study something that you have a good chance of getting paid to know after you graduate. Majoring in French Literature or Post Modern Interpretive Guitar is a very good way of putting you or your parents deeply into debt with the only benefit to you being the ability to check "college graduate" on the application form for a dead-end job that will never pay you more than 25k a year.

GO TO COLLEGE. But have a career in mind when you do, preferably researched ahead of time so that you'll know what you're getting into. Don't go to college because you think you're "supposed" to or because that is what will make your parents happy. That is how people wind up with a general studies degree...after 6 years, assuming they graduate at all.

It is true that crypto-Marxist (and sometimes explicit Marxist) asshats tend to congregate in academia, but almost entirely in the humanities. I work for the college of engineering and while I deal with faculty on a regular basis, I have no idea what their politics are. (Neither do they in many cases.)

Academia is the only place where your extreme moonbats can get away with being completely full of shit that doesn't involve padded rooms, thorazine, and a guy saying "tell me about your mother" twice a week. But the classes where you're likely to run into these turkeys are all "general studies" classes, which exist primarily to provide the university an excuse to continue giving them a paycheck. If you're going to college to study something serious, then you'll only have to sit through may 6 credit hours of post-modernist newspeak, and maybe 6 more hours of "western civilization is the root of all evil, the blood-guilt of being white is upon you." That isn't such a heavy burden for a degree that will literally pay you 1 million extra dollars over your working life, at least. If you go for a master's degree that number is even higher.

Sometimes these classes can even be fun. I have a friend who took a class on feminism. The instructor was a man hating lesbian who just about came unglued over his use of the term "girlfriend" instead of her preferred nomenclature of "significant other." He was one of two men in the class and she loved to glare at them while ranting about the "patriarchy" and other shared delusions of people like her. I asked him why he was taking the class and his answer was "morbid curiosity."

I don't remember if he passed the class or not. Either way he definitely learned a lot, though not the lessons I'm sure she intended.

The best way to protect your kids from the predations of the lefties on campus is to take some time from the 17 or 18 years you have with them before they get to college and TEACH THEM. This means that you must understand the nature of what it is that you claim to believe. You have to understand the unspoken premises upon which conservatism and/or libertarianism rest but which few people ever explore in any serious way. The lies of the left are founded upon flawed and false premises. A person who understands these premises and how they are flawed will not be hoodwinked by the arguments that are built on top of them.

[Memomachine]

Hmmm.

"To sum up: if you are attending a university only to improve your earnings, you're on a fool's errand. Does no one get an education to understand things? Does no one want to?"

I work in the computer industry but without a college degree. Is this a problem for my work-product? Not a chance. I've been programming professionally for around 21+ years. Is it a problem professionally? Yes it is.

This is because many employers demand a degree or else they will not hire. Some employers, such as the government, peg salary increases directly to the education levels gained.

Right now there are a multitude of positions I could do very well, but will never get the opportunity simply because I do not have a degree.

*shrug* that's the way it is.

[PalmerEve]

Various people in every country receive the loans in various creditors, because that's fast and easy.

[HumphreyJO]

Some specialists argue that personal loans aid a lot of people to live their own way, because they can feel free to buy necessary stuff. Moreover, banks present car loan for different persons.

[ANNEHickman26]

Set your own life more easy take the mortgage loans and all you need.