Sanders supporters, what do you make of this?

[Ken g6]

When I went to college, I got my student loans at about 2.5%. 6% and higher is crazy! When student loan rates are higher than mortgage rates, it probably means there's too much student loan debt being taken on in general.

 

[LegendKiller]

When I went to college, I got my student loans at about 2.5%. 6% and higher is crazy! When student loan rates are higher than mortgage rates, it probably means there's too much student loan debt being taken on in general.

No, those rates were crazy. 2.5% was way too low, especially with how they are funded.

 

[ivwshane]

Of course, look at ivwshane. He just refuses to acknowledge that this whole thing is a sham. Why? Because he has no clue what is going on and doesn't even research it in the slightest. Instead of taking my word for it and looking at the data, as presented, where I try to lead him to water, he resorts to "BUT BUT BUT, YOU LIKE TRUMP!" bullshit.

Demand change and you'll get change. I try to lead the horse to water but there are too many people who won't drink.

Good lord you are retarded! You missed my point completely and instead restated what you've already said that I agreed with! If you were any more pig headed you'd grow a curly cue tail!

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Good points. Education costs have become decoupled from economic benefits but also education has become decoupled from the actual job market. This won't be fixed by students though because so many are there for the university experience. It's the one time kids get to be functionally adults while someone else foots the bill. It's also become illusionary, as the students' portions are merely postponed and often fairly often crippling.

Perhaps one intermediate step is to cap tuition. Set one flat level that is the maximum, including activity fees and other dodges, equal to state universities. Any for-profit university taking students on government loans must limit their total fees to that level. If they wish to charge more - and many are worth more - then let them arrange and underwrite their own loan programs.

The value of an education these days is seen as purely economic -- in terms of employability. Certainly, the statistics still prove that college grads have lifetime income exceeding high-school grads.

Fareed Zakaria had published a book recently on the value of a "liberal arts" education. I don't much need to read his book. I had it both ways -- science (physical and social), mathematics, and humanities.

But the idea that a "university" can only have value to employers and employment lacks something. The original idea behind public high school embraced preparation of people to be wise and discerning citizens, and I now find that it is falling short. It's a good idea to prepare people for the job market, but if curriculum falls short in these other respects, not so good.

Yet, such an education costs money. And those born into circumstances on the lower rungs of the economic ladder are bound to feel most desperate to obtain it toward the end of making money. LegendKiller is correct if he implies a situation similar to the housing market. Students or their parents fail to anticipate the burden of deferring the costs of education through debt. Not too different, from someone 10 years ago who bought a house otherwise beyond their income's ability to service debt under a creative mortgage scheme, anticipating that somehow they can meet their obligations some few years later. It's a problem of balancing the debt burden with future income -- which is uncertain.

I think this is similar to health care. The ultimate solution reduces the present costs of an education. Trying to fix the equity problem with more borrowing doesn't address the problem.

I have my own prejudice about the "for-profit" education market or what can also be called "consumer education." Some of those institutions choose to retain faculty merely on the basis of student evaluations. Student evaluations are useful, but it discourages faculty from challenging students to meet their full potential. And often, the students as consumers are mostly interested in the credential, as opposed to obtaining real education. Ask them to do some work, and a professor brought up in a more challenging environment is asking for trouble.

The public institutions I remember offered no-nonsense competitive environments. The value of degrees was greater, whatever the employment potential for this or that discipline.

 

[werepossum]

The value of an education these days is seen as purely economic -- in terms of employability. Certainly, the statistics still prove that college grads have lifetime income exceeding high-school grads.

Fareed Zakaria had published a book recently on the value of a "liberal arts" education. I don't much need to read his book. I had it both ways -- science (physical and social), mathematics, and humanities.

But the idea that a "university" can only have value to employers and employment lacks something. The original idea behind public high school embraced preparation of people to be wise and discerning citizens, and I now find that it is falling short. It's a good idea to prepare people for the job market, but if curriculum falls short in these other respects, not so good.

Yet, such an education costs money. And those born into circumstances on the lower rungs of the economic ladder are bound to feel most desperate to obtain it toward the end of making money. LegendKiller is correct if he implies a situation similar to the housing market. Students or their parents fail to anticipate the burden of deferring the costs of education through debt. Not too different, from someone 10 years ago who bought a house otherwise beyond their income's ability to service debt under a creative mortgage scheme, anticipating that somehow they can meet their obligations some few years later. It's a problem of balancing the debt burden with future income -- which is uncertain.

I think this is similar to health care. The ultimate solution reduces the present costs of an education. Trying to fix the equity problem with more borrowing doesn't address the problem.

I have my own prejudice about the "for-profit" education market or what can also be called "consumer education." Some of those institutions choose to retain faculty merely on the basis of student evaluations. Student evaluations are useful, but it discourages faculty from challenging students to meet their full potential. And often, the students as consumers are mostly interested in the credential, as opposed to obtaining real education. Ask them to do some work, and a professor brought up in a more challenging environment is asking for trouble.

The public institutions I remember offered no-nonsense competitive environments. The value of degrees was greater, whatever the employment potential for this or that discipline.

Agreed. Unfortunately the non-economic benefits of a liberal education are being degraded even more quickly than the economic benefits. Instead of being challenged to think, students are demanding and receiving safe zones where they are protected from ideas they don't wish to hear. Individualism, that great movement of Western secularism, is being replaced with politically correct group think.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Agreed. Unfortunately the non-economic benefits of a liberal education are being degraded even more quickly than the economic benefits. Instead of being challenged to think, students are demanding and receiving safe zones where they are protected from ideas they don't wish to hear. Individualism, that great movement of Western secularism, is being replaced with politically correct group think.

. . . And when I read the news about the latest scuffles over "safe zones" and "micro-aggression," I lose my patience.

It also makes good propaganda for the myth that universities are a hot-bed of "liberal" professors with an ideological agenda. On the one hand, you have these wing-nuts [See "How do these folks get elected?"] who have their own agenda about public school curriculum, and on the other generally folks divorced from any post-secondary experience, who jump to the idea that there's some insidious agenda to exposing students to a range of ideas.

I'd almost have to visit my alma-mater for a few days to see what's happening with this. I just don't want to pay the parking or suffer the traffic to get there.

 

[Jhhnn]

The paradox about the growth of for-profit education mostly addresses myth-based desires of education consumers without facing the realities that markets don't support the myths anymore.

You said more than you may realize. Selling education as a viable answer to our economic woes has served to delay entry into the job market. That entry can't be delayed forever, so we've come to the practical end of that strategy because our Job Creator! system simply will no longer create sufficient employment opportunities to make it work. All this emphasis on getting degree(s) merely masks that stark reality.

So why do we cling to the notion that people who have no intention of solving that problem, the financial elite, should be relied on to solve it?

They've had it basically their way since the Carter era. While their wealth & incomes have exploded, a huge segment of the population has been left to languish. We live the consequences of accepting their leadership. I realize they don't see it in terms of looting & class warfare but that's really what it is. They depersonalize it all, see it only in terms of profit.

Our circumstances are of their making. And they'll try to cut themselves an even bigger piece of the pie-

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/20...Opinion&action=Click&pgtype=Blogs&region=Body

 

[Herr Kutz]

When I went to college, I got my student loans at about 2.5%. 6% and higher is crazy! When student loan rates are higher than mortgage rates, it probably means there's too much student loan debt being taken on in general.

Not too crazy when you think about it. If you don't pay your mortgage, the bank repossesses your house. If you don't pay your student loans, there is nothing to repossess. More risk for the bank equals higher interest.

 

[zinfamous]

That's a pretty clueless statement but in all fairness, he probably doesn't write his own twitter feed or even necessary have final approval for what gets posted.

very likely, but he should still be on the hook for anything said under his name, as are all politicians. It should only be assumed that he endorses such statements.

For this, the best outlook for his side is that he just has some dumb people that he trusts to make random statements without proper vetting...but of of course that isn't great either, as it speaks towards his ability to vet people serving in his staff.

Still, it's more substance than you'll ever get out of Trump, whom only ever has "terrific!" ideas.

 

[zinfamous]

Of course I espouse helping average Americans, but lowering the interest rate doesn't do that. Anybody with half a brain knows that. Anybody with half a brain knows that you cannot keep charging 2-3x rate of inflation for tuition forever. Anybody with half a brain realizes that taking out $100k in loans for a $30k job, even at a 0% interest rate gets you nowhere.

What Trump doesn't know is that the Government is not making money on student loans. Ohh, sure, there's a nice little accounting gimmick they pull. Even for IBR/ICR/PAYE/REPAYE they budgeted an amount, but that amount is ridiculously low compared to enrollment and the future forgiveness. Why? Because they will only kick the can.

Don't be a little bitch about it. You know, deep down, that their "solution" is a fucking farce.

You know how you fix this?

1. Immediately halt all grants and loans to for-profit universities.

2. Charge back all defaults a few standard devisions from the national average to the school, making them the first-loss bearer for anything above that amount.

3. Offer 2 years of free education to a community college for every student who can test into it. The cost of this will be far less than a student who incurs much more cost/debt going to a private or public university and failing out after realizing they can't make it. A huge portion of defaults are from students who drop out, especially for Private non-profit and Private for-profit universities.

4. Underwrite maximum loan amounts to reasonable repayment plans for degrees obtained. Maximum amounts for a Lib Arts in sociology should be far less than pre-med.

5. Offer reduced interest rates for every year of completion, retroactive. 1st year should be 8-10%, 2nd 6-8%, 3rd, 4-6%, completion should be 4%.

There are a few more things that can be done. However, reducing rate does not *FIX* the problem. Looking for half-assed measures spouted off by cynical politicians who think they can fool Americans is what keeps us in this situation.

Hold Sanders, and everybody else, accountable for the problem. Don't accept bullshit answers.

What's funny is that you think I am some uber-conservative (Guess that is incongruent with my belief in a single payer system). Your partisanship blinds you to the truth and your inability to even hold your "team" accountable is telling.

I think these are all solid ideas, except #4 should be tweaked:

I think the loan should be tied to the cost of the degree, and not the type of degree. This means that we should re-evaluate the cost of education based on performance. Endgoal would be the same as you propose--smaller loan amount for Liberal arts--but the cost charged by the institution would be less.

There is still plenty of great value for all sorts of liberal arts degrees, and plenty can still get highpaying jobs in fortune 500 companies--it's far more about the individual, in the end--but I think reducing the loan amount for a degree that costs the same as any other higher-paying degree would effectively eliminate that field; which is a terrible idea for any successful economy that depends on a diverse and multi-talented work force.

I think your solution to number 4 would push out workforce further into a binary mode of thinking, and that is the last thing this country needs.

 

[LegendKiller]

I think these are all solid ideas, except #4 should be tweaked:

I think the loan should be tied to the cost of the degree, and not the type of degree. This means that we should re-evaluate the cost of education based on performance. Endgoal would be the same as you propose--smaller loan amount for Liberal arts--but the cost charged by the institution would be less.

There is still plenty of great value for all sorts of liberal arts degrees, and plenty can still get highpaying jobs in fortune 500 companies--it's far more about the individual, in the end--but I think reducing the loan amount for a degree that costs the same as any other higher-paying degree would effectively eliminate that field; which is a terrible idea for any successful economy that depends on a diverse and multi-talented work force.

I think your solution to number 4 would push out workforce further into a binary mode of thinking, and that is the last thing this country needs.

I'd be fine with that, however, I think the market would take care of itself Schools would have to reduce cost if you put loan caps on them. Otherwise people would drop out. Either way, it would solve it although your solution may be a bit better.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

I'd be fine with that, however, I think the market would take care of itself Schools would have to reduce cost if you put loan caps on them. Otherwise people would drop out. Either way, it would solve it although your solution may be a bit better.

Consider that some people might stop with a BA in business, engineering, physical and biological sciences. But many people choose any of various majors as undergrads, and there are core courses. For instance, a language or music major might have to take so many hours of chemistry or physics, and there's always a core math requirement.

And to go straight to the heart of it, if you want to be a lawyer, you get a JD after you earned a BA or BS. Pre-med would probably be a potpourri of hard science or life science, and then you work on an MD and intern at a hospital. Your English or Econ major might get an MA or MS or a business degree -- an MBA.

I knew a woman who has been chancellor at two state universities in the last ten years. She got a BA in English from Stanford; worked as associate editor for a fashion magazine in San Francisco; then went back to school and earned a PhD in Astronomy.

So making financial aid more or less available and discriminating among degrees at the undergraduate level might not prove such a good or wise idea. And if you wanted to do it right, you would need to periodically update information from the job market. You know there was a time back in the 70s when there was a cutback in aerospace and defense contracts; there were layoffs in Seattle. Real estate fell. And it would have happened again with the HP outsourcing.

Some years back, maybe 2004 or 2005, I found some published statistics showing that the average doctor made about $60,000 annually. Put it another way, I am sure it was a five-digit sum. But there are wide variations for certain specialists. If a center of agricultural research wants a top name in the entomology field, he will live handsomely. Somebody else at some different institution wouldn't fare better than any other assistant professor without tenure. Put it another way, seniority counts.

See, the way the Germans do it maybe serves their industrial profile better. They get a lot more done at the end of the gymnasium level. There are trade schools. The only uncertainty about trade schools arises in changing technology. Car mechanics can sometimes make very good money. We need people with a culinary education, and there are culinary schools. But everything must work in sync, and there will either be shortages or labor surpluses, no matter what.

 

[werepossum]

I think these are all solid ideas, except #4 should be tweaked:

I think the loan should be tied to the cost of the degree, and not the type of degree. This means that we should re-evaluate the cost of education based on performance. Endgoal would be the same as you propose--smaller loan amount for Liberal arts--but the cost charged by the institution would be less.

There is still plenty of great value for all sorts of liberal arts degrees, and plenty can still get highpaying jobs in fortune 500 companies--it's far more about the individual, in the end--but I think reducing the loan amount for a degree that costs the same as any other higher-paying degree would effectively eliminate that field; which is a terrible idea for any successful economy that depends on a diverse and multi-talented work force.

I think your solution to number 4 would push out workforce further into a binary mode of thinking, and that is the last thing this country needs.

I think the two approaches are fundamentally the same. If students cannot borrow as much for degrees in low-paying fields, then tuition for those majors must needs get cheaper. The obvious exceptions being the Ivy League schools where the connections made justify higher tuition, or course, but even there the Ivy League schools would be highly motivated to reduce the cost of liberal arts tuition to avoid being seen as vehicles for the wealthy only. (Because that brings with it risks from irate voters.) It might also work to increase salaries for low-paying degrees such as sociology and psychology by making qualified graduates more scarce.

It's also worth pointing out that professions requiring higher degrees (e.g. doctor) can use liberal arts baccalaureate degrees as long as they are heavy in the required prerequisites such as science and mathematics for medical school. Therefore it might shake out not by major but by course, so that a three hour physics course might cost twice as much as a three-hour English course and four (or more) times as much as a Women in Film course. Personally I'd have no problem with that. Obviously my physics courses were more valuable to me than my backpacking course, and there were far fewer qualified people available to teach physics.

 

[nextJin]

The amount of stupid being thrown around by Sanders supporters on this topic is baffling to be honest.

[The following dollar figures have all been adjusted for inflation.] From 1971 to 1981, annual tuition and fees for higher education only rose $2 for a public two year facility. [2] You read that correctly. ONLY two dollars. For a public, four year state school, in state tuition and fees had actually DECREASED $190. For the same period of time, a private four year institution, ALSO decreased by $304. [2] This is very important to note. It means that the cost of higher education was NOT rising at an alarming rate at this point in history. Rather, it had actually decreased or, at most, broken even. (depending on the circumstance) Since that time, however, tuition unfortunately inclined sharply.

So then, what is the record on financial aid for higher education? Unlike the claims from the critics, expansions in financial aid programs DID come BEFORE the start of the tuition crisis. Federal financial aid had its start in 1958, with the National Defense Student Loan Program for low-income students, the precursor to the Perkins Loan Program, and soon after with the Health Professions Educational Assistance Act of 1963 [a]. Note, however, these were relatively small programs and therefore didn't necessarily distort the market in any impactful way. They truly were helping low income individuals, and thus were not wide-scale programs.

It wasn't until later, in 1965, 1972, and 1978, when the financial aid that we recognize today began to take hold. In 1965, for instance, the precursors to the Pell Grant and Stafford Loans were created as part of the "Higher Education Act. [3] At that time, a key change occurred in the way federal tuition loan programs were financed. "Instead of using government money directly, the loans would be made by bankers. But if students defaulted, the government guaranteed that IT would cover the tab." [4] Think about this perverse incentive for a moment. It meant that capital could be offered in the form of student loans under the presumption that profit from said loans could be kept privately, but if and when losses arose, banks and investors wouldn't have to lose their money since TAXPAYERS would foot the bill. Effectively, this was socializing losses while privatizing gains. It would take years for this perverse incentive to grow into a large scale problem, but it eventually did.

In '72, the precursor to the Pell Grant was created, but more importantly, Sallie Mae was created by Nixon and the Congress. Sallie Mae was a firm that received help from the treasury to buy student loans off of banks, freeing the banks to then offer even MORE federally insured loans. [4] From that point forward, banks had nothing to lose by offering loans since they - quite literally - could ONLY profit from the exchange. That meant a bank's sound underwriting reasoning, which typically would lead them to decline risky or unreasonable loan requests, was no longer present. If that weren't bad enough, the most important change came in 1978 with the Middle Income Student Assistance Act, which expanded federal student assistance programs to include middle-income students in addition to low-income students. [3] This is where everything changed. From this point forward, most of these financial aid programs were no longer limited to a minority of low income applicants, but instead became the norm for nearly the entire populace. Under this arrangement, loans would eventually be made to nearly everyone regardless of the requested price of tuition, and tuition would therefore be free to rise unchecked since no financial institution was saying "no." It should be no surprise, then, that this was the last decade our nation enjoyed relatively affordable tuition. Since that 1978 expansion, the cost of higher education increased more than 13 fold; about 1,225 percent. [5] To put that into perspective, in the same time period, ordinary inflation (CPI) had only increased 279 percent. [5]

CONCLUSION:
NO, massive and alarming increases in tuition did not occur PRIOR to expansions in financial aid. The expansions in financial aid occurred PRIOR to the tuition crisis. We have a legitimate problem on our hands, and it's important that it be properly diagnosed if we are ever to fix it.

Over the course of 24 hours I had Sanders supporters saying Colleges drastically raising tuition costs was the direct result of the free market, more government intervention was needed, and that we needed to make College to tuition free all the way through med school including Universities like Harvard, Yale, MIT, and all others.

When presented with simple economics 101 level rebuttals they immediately changed the argument into a race issue or 1% are bad. Never mind the reason for administration staff exploding in all colleges (a sign of much more strenuous recruiting and admissions) or the explosion in worthless liberal arts degrees that are much worse to see a ROI with such soaring costs.

You simply can't argue the results of easy unsecured guaranteed government loans has on any market much less this one. Years before the housing market collapse when bills were being passed the evil banks were warning of the dramatic increase in defaults that would occur when their standard systems of vetting were ignored.

No one gave a shit then, and now somehow its the free market fault this is all happening.

 

[John Connor]

You know, with the high cost of college I think the solution is to stop paying asshole professors upwards of $200 thousand a year. Then you have to go after the high outrageous cost for books. Get to the root of the problem and not create more.

Col. Sanders failed econ 101. He's a perfect candidate for the low information, young voter who doesn't know anything. Especially economics.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

You know, with the high cost of college I think the solution is to stop paying asshole professors upwards of $200 thousand a year. Then you have to go after the high outrageous cost for books. Get to the root of the problem and not create more.

Col. Sanders failed econ 101. He's a perfect candidate for the low information, young voter who doesn't know anything. Especially economics.

After I retired and returned to my home town, I visited my business school and met the "interim" dean. He'd been a Navy judge-advocate then got a job with a company that made golf-clubs. As soon as he was appointed dean, he argued that "you have to spend money to make money," and his spending had the result of an extra $4,000 in a one-time fee to those applying to the MBA program. And he was certainly making upwards of $200K/annum.

When he was dismissed from that post, he was given a post as assistant-professor or associate professor at something like $60K/annum.

But I had watched administrative salaries balloon here under UC and the state university system -- formerly state colleges -- and in not-for-profit universities back east.

Meanwhile, I'd met with politically-active students involved in DFA around 2008. One told me it was taking him six years to get his BA/BS, that he had to work full-time and he was making something like $26K/annum. That wages have stagnated over a period of decades cannot be denied.

And on the textbook issue -- yes -- I'd been stunned to learn how those costs had also inflated.

 

[John Connor]

he was making something like $26K/annum. That wages have stagnated over a period of decades cannot be denied.

It's our trade problem mostly with China. We simply don't have jobs in this country. I mean, there are jobs, but not high paying skilled labor jobs like there used to be. Companies have gone to inversion BS. And that stems from the highest corporate tax in the world right here in the land of the free (?)

We need to get a grip on high corporate taxes, foster job growth and curtail the China trade problem. I've been saying this for about 10 years. Now Trump is saying it. But I doubt what he says he can achieve in four years let along 8. Personally I think he has the eerily reminiscent cult of personality that Obozo had in '08.

Rather see Carson or Christie myself.

 

[sm625]

Sanders isnt about financial reality or reality of any kind. Sanders is appealing solely to the voter who thinks that the government can never run out of other people's money. It is a simple equation. If the rich can afford a million yachts and $200 million for some stupid painting, then they can afford to give another trillion in handouts to buy him some votes. It doesnt matter that ALL of the profits of ALL the S&P500 wouldnt be enough money to give him the handouts that he wants. Facts dont matter. Reality dont matter. If it did, people wouldnt be voting for socialists.

 

[Jhhnn]

Sanders isnt about financial reality or reality of any kind. Sanders is appealing solely to the voter who thinks that the government can never run out of other people's money. It is a simple equation. If the rich can afford a million yachts and $200 million for some stupid painting, then they can afford to give another trillion in handouts to buy him some votes. It doesnt matter that ALL of the profits of ALL the S&P500 wouldnt be enough money to give him the handouts that he wants. Facts dont matter. Reality dont matter. If it did, people wouldnt be voting for socialists.

Needs more Benghazi.

 

[TheSlamma]

Kucinich syndrome

paint the people who would actually buck this failing system into a corner and label them crazy so we can make sure to elect our status quo.

Pro corporations
Rob from the middle class and give to the rich/poor
Always have troops deployed

3 things that are only for "sane" politicians

 

[BonzaiDuck]

It's our trade problem mostly with China. We simply don't have jobs in this country. I mean, there are jobs, but not high paying skilled labor jobs like there used to be. Companies have gone to inversion BS. And that stems from the highest corporate tax in the world right here in the land of the free (?)

We need to get a grip on high corporate taxes, foster job growth and curtail the China trade problem. I've been saying this for about 10 years. Now Trump is saying it. But I doubt what he says he can achieve in four years let along 8. Personally I think he has the eerily reminiscent cult of personality that Obozo had in '08.

Rather see Carson or Christie myself.

I have to disagree with that, since the economic data proving wage stagnation when corporate profits began to rise like a rocket goes way back before China started to blossom or jobs were outsourced.

 

[Bart*Simpson]

When I attended UC through '72, tuition was less than $200 per quarter. I've got two earned masters degrees now, but if I wanted to go back to school at the same campus, I couldn't afford it.

The problem is that the advent of Federally guaranteed student loans drove up the cost of an education by pumping too much money into the education market.

If we want to reduce the cost of education and reduce the amount of debt then a sure-fire way to do both is to END STUDENT LOANS.

Get rid of student loans and the universities and colleges will have to immediately reduce prices as most students won't be able to afford $40k a year for an education. The for-profit private schools will close shop almost immediately.

And when people graduate from school they'll do so debt-free for the most part.

Just like you did.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

The problem is that the advent of Federally guaranteed student loans drove up the cost of an education by pumping too much money into the education market.

If we want to reduce the cost of education and reduce the amount of debt then a sure-fire way to do both is to END STUDENT LOANS.

Get rid of student loans and the universities and colleges will have to immediately reduce prices as most students won't be able to afford $40k a year for an education. The for-profit private schools will close shop almost immediately.

And when people graduate from school they'll do so debt-free for the most part.

Just like you did.

I'll boast about my personal history, even if I bemoan my callow youth or the value I held for a dollar then. Keep in mind this was the period '65 through '72. I racked up a total of maybe $9,000 in NDEA student loans.

And I simply started paying them off with monthly checks. I was concerned for my credit-rating as a young adult who didn't have so much as a credit card.

I later discovered that some people simply defaulted on their NDEA loans. There were even people telling me "just default -- it's OK." but I didn't. I think I transferred a lesser remainder of those loans to a credit-union loan, and all of it was paid off in less than ten years after I left school.

So your thoughts about this are interesting. However, markets don't just adjust instantaneously.

Anyway, I think the entire system is out of whack. There are too many people seeking college degrees. The for-profit phenomenon -- I deduce -- addresses the problem of people seeking a sheep-skin who wouldn't have "tested into" acceptance at a state U.

And looking at today's secondary schools, I have a suspicion that there's been a great deal of grade inflation. Just an article in the paper the other day about CA's school system showed in testing that maybe 40% of HS graduates were even prepared for college work.

The concept of a university didn't originally address job-markets. Universities were "institutions of higher learning" for people who placed an intrinsic value on it.

In CA, taxpayers simply didn't like the idea of subsidizing institutions for which they themselves might not gain admission through testing and application.

I'd much rather see it work in such a way as to eliminate the advantage of money, and simply make admission based on testing and similar factors. But I can think of one chucklehead who couldn't gain admission to U of Texas, and sailed on to Harvard (or was it Yale?) because Poppy was an alum and could foot the bill.

 

[werepossum]

Sanders isnt about financial reality or reality of any kind. Sanders is appealing solely to the voter who thinks that the government can never run out of other people's money. It is a simple equation. If the rich can afford a million yachts and $200 million for some stupid painting, then they can afford to give another trillion in handouts to buy him some votes. It doesnt matter that ALL of the profits of ALL the S&P500 wouldnt be enough money to give him the handouts that he wants. Facts dont matter. Reality dont matter. If it did, people wouldnt be voting for socialists.

Isn't that pretty much true of all of them? Clinton is certainly the same. On the right, the promise is to spend pretty much the same but take less in taxes. Either way, the plan is to borrow our way to prosperity.

I have to disagree with that, since the economic data proving wage stagnation when corporate profits began to rise like a rocket goes way back before China started to blossom or jobs were outsourced.

Before China, outsourcing was to Mexico. Remember the huge Maquiladora plants? They began under Johnson way back in the sixties, but really blossomed after the 1994 NAFTA.

 

[alcoholbob]

Needs more Benghazi.

Sounds like Michael Bay has more to offer you than Anandtech P&N.