Posted on 12/09/2018 7:28:32 AM PST by Kaslin
The United States spends an ungodly sum on colleges and universities. A lot of that money provides little to no benefit to the consumer (student) or to our society. Many students end their college careers steeped in debt. Yet we have a shortage of people in many critical areas. Here is an idea to solve that.
Colleges today offer degrees to people that provide them little opportunity for supporting themselves for the rest of their lives. The idea of a liberal arts education used to make a certain amount of sense. When the cost became enormous with the resulting disaster for the student’s finances, some decisions must be made as to whether there is rationale for this.
At the same time, we do not have enough students to meet our needs in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math).
The proposal is that colleges and universities provide no-tuition degrees that are critical for our country. Reading this some may think this idea aligns with the Bernie Sanders set, but it is radically different. The idea limits no-tuition education to certain degrees like doctors, scientists and engineers which are critical to our future as we are not producing enough home-grown talent and the no tuition degrees would be limited to American citizens. Under this plan, getting a degree in English literature, journalism or law is on your dime.
I have written previously that it is bothersome that our tech companies are always arguing for more visas to bring in foreigners with engineering degrees. Yet few ask why America is not producing enough individuals to get those degrees when there are lucrative careers available.
The National Association of Manufacturing and Deloitte predict the U.S. will need to fill about 3.5 million jobs by 2025; two million of those jobs may go unfilled, due to difficulty finding people with the skills in demand. Though more students in K-12 are focusing on courses like calculus that are needed to qualify for entering these programs in college. Yet a 2017 report from the National Foundation for American Policy found 81 percent of full-time graduate students in electrical and petroleum engineering programs at U.S. universities are international students, and 79 percent in computer science are also foreigners.
Or what about one of the most important positions in our society – doctors. The Association of American Medical Colleges is projecting a shortfall of between 34,600 and 88,000 doctors by 2025. A large reason is the financial commitment it takes to become a doctor. If you are a top tier brain where would you go -- to a hedge fund where you can start at up to $300,000 per year or a doctor where you start your career with up to $300,000 in debt?
This is not a farfetched idea as New York University (NYU) has committed to covering the education costs for its medical students. This is with special funding, but almost all private schools have the endowments to cover the cost of the students at their medical schools. Public schools could just allocate the funds. Here is an idea: Raise the tuition at their law schools which seem to be in high demand, and there is an extremely low need for additional lawyers in our country.
We already fund the education of a certain class of people – our military leaders. We do this because we want to attract the best and the brightest to lead our military. Each branch has an academy that provides a rigorous education to students. We already know the success rates as we have a long history of knowing how many drop out. If we charged for the real cost of West Point or Annapolis, how many great leaders would we lose? Better yet, how many would we get?
Why America would waste our national resources on funding degrees like Asian Studies, Jewish Studies, Black Studies or Hispanic Studies is beyond me. Degrees like that are superfluous and provide you an opportunity to get a job in the department at the university that minted that pointless degree and not much else other than being a bartender. If you want another one of these degrees or in the so-called social sciences where, when you can’t get a job anywhere else you become an IRS auditor, you can pay the tariff. A lot of these degrees are just a plain waste of national resources.
Just think if you were a poor kid from a first generation Hispanic family and your elementary school and your middle school educated you on the opportunity that you can work hard, take the right courses, and by the time you get to high school you are totally prepared and focused on getting a medical degree and without any affirmative action, you become an MD. Would that change things!
There are some programs that are already aimed toward this. Chevron has funded $400 million toward orienting students at a young age toward STEM degrees. The STEM Coalition is a non-profit that emphasizes getting support for more students focusing on a STEM education.
Our higher education system developed on its own for centuries. It is the marvel of the world as countries send their best students to our country to get the quality education we provide at hundreds of schools. It just is not educating American students for our needs.
The world has changed. Our students have accumulated over a trillion dollars in debt and we are not even producing enough skilled people to take care of the needs of our country. The program needs a revamp and this is a prime idea to start doing that.
We need more doctors and not more students with degrees in sports management where the only job they will ever get in sports is working the counter at a Footlocker. We need to stop wasting these key resources on nonsense and produce viable college graduates. Let’s fund the ones that are necessary to us as a society.
The Great Dr Milton Friedman was @ U of Chicago
I suspect it’s not such a waste of $$$
“Nurses as well as doctors. And Plumbers, Electricians, and HVAC guys.”.
After retiring as a Mech Engr. myself, I entered the field of Personnel Recruiting. The people that were easiest to “place” were those with a BA “PLUS”, again PLUS, a certificate in the “Trades” (Electricians, Plumbers, HAVC, etc.) The starting salaries in the technical fields far exceeded those with a none technical college degree. I doubt few of those placed wound up being bartenders due to not being able to find another job.
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This suggestion isn’t bad, but it is cou ter to the biggest problem in higher education in that it doesn’t do much to control costs.
If government is to be on the hook for all this higher education (which is a whole problem in itself)...
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Why should it? When you have the TAXPAYER ‘piggy-bank’ (I really wish the (R)N(C) would keep on point & correctly point out “GOVT” doesn’t own a DIME it hasn’t taken from another) and an elected class more than happy to give ‘em every penny they so want (’cuz everyone is for “education”...until THEY have to pay for it).
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if Harvard feels like it’s women’s studies program is so important, it can fund scholarships out of its massive endowment.
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The “fix”, like most things wrong in this country, is getting GOVT out of the mix and back into its A1S8 box.
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If they don’t want to pay for them outright, they have the means of backing private loans that could (unlike student loans today) be dissolved in bankruptcy or written off as bad debt.
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Again, biz/institutions/etc. can “give away” and “teach” anything they wish, the Free Market will decide. But, until the taxpayer is out of the loop, ‘students’ shouldn’t be able to write-off their own folly.
A better idea is to “fix the broken” first.
A doctor sees a 1,500 pound man at his home, because he cannot even fit out the door. The man tells the doctor that he wants an exercise regimen to make him a marathon runner.
“Well, first you need to shed all your superfluous weight,” says the doctor.
“Do I have to stop gorging myself? Can’t a just add some food to my diet that will make me more athletic?”
This is the basic problem with universities today. If they just slice off the gigantic rolls of fat, they will have lots of money to concentrate on helping students learn things they need. But they refuse to do it on their own.
So start with their states’ legislature. Make a list of the degrees the university offers, and how many graduates with those degrees are placed in degree related jobs in six months or a year.
If they aren’t getting good jobs, no longer fund those degrees. And prohibit students from taking loans to pay for such degrees. And fire faculty and staff involved with those degrees.
So goodbye, ethnic and gender studies, etc.
Once they take out entire majors, then focus on non-critical but mandatory courses for the remaining majors. What good is a 4-year degree if you have to waste a year and a half of it on indoctrination and socialization? Dispense with those expensive wastes.
Agreed. If the gov't is going to offer "free" college education, the online virtual college degree idea would be the way to go. It might be less costly and more convenient. Many colleges offer online degrees now.
Really, though, all colleges should be private. With college funding, many more people go to college now, mainly because they think they'll fail in life without a degree. Yet, I know/have known many high-income earners in the computer field who had a tech school education. But education will never be privatized, so the "free" online degree may be the way to go.
Outlaw student loans and government funding.
No academically talented first-generation Hispanic (or black) kid has a problem with college debt. Our top schools already promise them a free ride.
Med school will always be more expensive than, say, law school. But 4 innovations could solve that:
1) getting away from room and board requirements at colleges and from government subsidies of traditional schools.
2) easing the med establishment’s tight hold on the number of med students permitted and the accreditation of new schools.
3) easing regulations such that work-and-learn hospital labor models could employ more medical and healthcare students while they study.
4) blending medical and healthcare tracks so students can productively work their way through whether they are going to end up as actual doctors, physician’s assistants, purse practitioners, etc.
A big difference between $150 and $150 million.
But even smart men have a hard time seeing where to give money to make a difference.
A great, smart, friend of mine died recently. He could have made a significant difference by giving his estate to pro-Second Amendment groups.
He gave his whole estate to Alzheimer research. Nine million dollars. University affiliated.
He hated politicians with a passion...
So,was he wise...
I am not wise enough to know.
There’s no reason for government subsidy to start with.
Just remove the artificial barriers that jack up costs and limit the flexibility for students to work their way through.
This is a good idea (I’ve long thought so), but it should be treated as a “STEM scholarship.”
The recipients of this scholarship would need to maintain a minimum GPA.
In return for this scholarship, the students who graduate would be required to work for a minimum number of years (say, 3-5) in a government post - for example, a Veterans Hospital - just as those in the military serve in return for their degree.
This should have bipartisan support, too.
“...The recipients of this scholarship would need to maintain a minimum GPA....”
That’s pretty much the case with any scholarship that I have ever heard of!
That’s not a bad idea either :)
Exactly! I stated what probably is common knowledge to everyone (that a min. GPA would be required).
“...In return for this scholarship, the students who graduate would be required to work for a minimum number of years (say, 3-5) in a government post - for example, a Veterans Hospital - just as those in the military serve in return for their degree....”
I can think of several federal programs that do this too!
Even 1 or 2 that are for medical careers.
The problems I have see with those is the government keeps screwing with the standards in order to keep the right mix (as perceived by each administration!) of minorities enrolled.
Colleges that give worthless degrees should give the respective money back to the taxpayers.
The problem with standardizing STEM courses is that technology progresses fast enough that as soon as a standard is agreed on, it's hopelessly out of date. More bureaucracy is not the answer.
Higher education in this country isn’t intended to give students anything of value. Its aim is to employ marginal people who can’t get real jobs ... while providing a bunch of new customers for a banking industry whose business was drying up after the 2008 real estate collapse.
As a business owner in a STEM field, I would refuse to provide any finaicial support for college programs in my field unless the recipient institution allows me to draft their curriculum for them. I’m tired of meeting recent college graduates in my field who have a 4.0 GPA but a big failing grade for any subject matter outside what they learned in a classroom.
Then get rid of the indoctrination and socialization aspects, not the general ed requirements. A UNIVERSITY education is supposed to be about more than just your major. It is supposed to expose the student to a host of different ideas and a breadth of knowledge, not just a particular subject.
If you want to learn only one thing, go to a trade school, a vo-tech school, or your local community college.
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