The real reason for skyrocketing cost of higher education?

[White Walker Texas Ranger]

A very interesting response to the original op-ed I linked to. From Slate:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2015/04/06/why_is_college_so_expensive_the_new_york_times_offers_an_awful_explanation.html

From the article:

That really slaps the original op-ed pretty hard. Sounds like Campos has a point regarding administrative blot but is attempting to ignore funding issues in favor of his pet issue.

It ignores the fact that there are economies of scale in large universities and that total spend per student (regardless of whether it's directly from the state, or tuition, or endowment returns) has risen faster than inflation for both public and private institutions.

[Errant Bard]

.... yes, I know. I never implied it was. I don't know wtf you are on about here.

I'm indicating that I was not answering for Europe, as it's not a country like Canada. Chill, man.

[Iskaral Pust]

You have a point and I would actually prefer such a separation, but there are several problems with it. First, there are few places other than universities where research is done. There do exist some national labs, hospitals, etc. which do research, but universities employ the bulk of researchers (including practically everyone whose field is not in STEM or medicine). Second, the professors still need to teach graduate students and the latter typically pay their way by teaching undergrads. You would need to significantly restructure the whole enterprise. Also, universities will strongly oppose any restructuring that moves research money away from them. In the current setup, they take a huge cut of all research funds coming from the government for "administrative overhead".

I would suggest that research stays in universities but with distinct departments for research vs teaching, with professors in one or the other and not just hanging around in the latter angling to get into the former.

Undergrads would work with teaching profs only. Postgrads would work with teaching profs for basic coursework and research profs for their own research efforts.

[Jo498]

This situation does already seem to be the case with adjuncts and assistant professors as cheap teaching slaves and star researchers teaching one graduate seminar once in while.

Of course this flies in the face of Humboldt's old ideal of "unity of teaching and research" but as college/university are neither seen as a general "liberal education" nor as mainly training for research anymore but just as training for some kind of job, it probably does not matter much if this division gets ever worse. But it will probably suck for the teaching slaves having no chance at all to ever get to the more interesting and better paid research positions.

And Parkinson has already shown in the 1950s (only half-jokingly) how the administration and bureaucracy grow on their own. His most striking example was the Royal Navy in the 1920s or so when the administrative staff grew and grew despite the number of battle ships and other vessels being sharply reduced.

[Iskaral Pust]

Bureaucracy ever serves itself, including growing tumor-like at the expense of the host.

Realistically our modern economy could (and in some places has) dispense with vast numbers of unproductive bureaucrats, paper shufflers and low level clerical staff. But then we hear complaints about hollowing out the middle class. Technology replaces as many low skilled clerical jobs as manufacturing jobs.

On the split of teaching vs. research, the whole point is to value teaching as a distinct skill and outcome and therefore seek good teaching talent and reward it. Right now it seems that most teaching posts are held by aspiring researchers. Universities should primarily benefit students from teaching and secondarily benefit the broad population from research. But realistically the faculty wants universities to benefit the interest and career security of the faculty members. That starts to sound a lot like the problem with bureaucracy....

What we have not yet discussed in this thread is that within a decade we could see most undergrad teaching delivered by a few dozen of the very best teaching professors via MOOC and then the role of the classroom professor is to just check understanding, answer questions, facilitate discussion, grade papers. High schools could move in this direction too. Technology has the scope to vastly reduce the cost of university, although MOOCs would also reduce the intangible benefits I mentioned before, so I would expect the top tier universities to continue as they are but the lowest tier to be largely supplanted by MOOCs plus lots of hand-holding and assistance. The middle tier will struggle and try to convince itself that it is top tier.

[Datepalm]

I would suggest that research stays in universities but with distinct departments for research vs teaching, with professors in one or the other and not just hanging around in the latter angling to get into the former.

Undergrads would work with teaching profs only. Postgrads would work with teaching profs for basic coursework and research profs for their own research efforts.

Seems short sighted to me. Might be a personal preference or just the luck of the draw, of course, but my uni at least had a deliberate policy of getting researchers teaching undergrad intro classes (as well as electives more closely associated with their research) which I appreciated.

[Lord of the Vale]

Reading this i am really happy that all the public universties and colleges in my country are free and that all students from my country Get A loane frome the goverment and when you graduate a part of it is converted to a scholarship, so you Get free money to take higher education

[Iskaral Pust]

Seems short sighted to me. Might be a personal preference or just the luck of the draw, of course, but my uni at least had a deliberate policy of getting researchers teaching undergrad intro classes (as well as electives more closely associated with their research) which I appreciated.

I had the same at University of Chicago. It's a huge part of the institution. But that doesn't mean that it's a good universal policy. And despite UofC being knee deep in Nobel laureates, most of the current research they shared was an interesting side note but did not significantly add to the curriculum. And some was clearly a hobbyhorse of the professor.

Most universities, especially below top tier, will be producing low quality research. Students can access new papers and research directly if they are interested -- that's a big part of what the university experience is about. Most current research is not actually worth teaching in class: it has not been vetted, it may be of only marginal significance, it's more important to the professor than the student. Teaching professors should be primarily focused on being effective teachers, not disinterested teachers waiting for a research grant approval or for their all-American novel to get published.

Forcing star research professors to teach classes (Eugene Fama is a great example) is mostly a marketing ploy. Richard Thaler is a very poor teacher and public speaker. There is nothing that stops them from sharing current updates on their research with professors who are great and motivated teachers.

[HexMachina]

Where I am (Sweden) university is free.

We can apply for national student loans to pay for the most basic living costs (a small sum monthly during the semesters, not during summer holiday). To keep getting payouts one has to complete a certain amount of the studies within the semester or risk not getting a loan for the next semester. The repayment plan is fair, and long term with low interest rate. It's very common that parents can't pay for their childrens living costs through uni, so most students apply for the loans to have enough time to study properly, and keep a part time job to manage.

All phd students, teachers and most of professors do research and teach. Everyone doing research chase funding for their projects themselves mostly. The pay for a permanent position at a uni is low compared to most of the western world at least.

In the UK, university fees are currently £9,000 per year. Although I think Scotland is different and if you are Scottish you get university free. Not sure about that though, someone more knowledgable would need to chime in.

However, the UK does have quite an easy and accessible support system in Student Finance. In most cases they pay the tuition fee as a loan, which is paid back when you earn over a certain amount. There is also a possibility of applying for "maintenance" loans and grants. Those are awarded based on your financial position.

[Swordfish]

Reading this i am really happy that all the public universties and colleges in my country are free and that all students from my country Get A loane frome the goverment and when you graduate a part of it is converted to a scholarship, so you Get free money to take higher education

There is no such thing as 'free money'.

[Datepalm]

I had the same at University of Chicago. It's a huge part of the institution. But that doesn't mean that it's a good universal policy. And despite UofC being knee deep in Nobel laureates, most of the current research they shared was an interesting side note but did not significantly add to the curriculum. And some was clearly a hobbyhorse of the professor.

Most universities, especially below top tier, will be producing low quality research. Students can access new papers and research directly if they are interested -- that's a big part of what the university experience is about. Most current research is not actually worth teaching in class: it has not been vetted, it may be of only marginal significance, it's more important to the professor than the student. Teaching professors should be primarily focused on being effective teachers, not disinterested teachers waiting for a research grant approval or for their all-American novel to get published.

Forcing star research professors to teach classes (Eugene Fama is a great example) is mostly a marketing ploy. Richard Thaler is a very poor teacher and public speaker. There is nothing that stops them from sharing current updates on their research with professors who are great and motivated teachers.

Maybe - it's not something I have a strong opinion on, but I think there's some value, or maybe just charm, to the impracticality of universities. Professors rambling on sideways about some anecdote usually holds my attention more than the class material (I'm also a lousy student, so I don't get much out of having a great teacher. One needs to show up. And not play tetris all the time) and I appreciate the exposure to at least some sense of how research works, what's being looked at, etc. That felt like a really integral part of the university experience to me, and I think i'd miss it if there was a neat division and getting a degree was that much more just a list of sensible topics of the material without individual professors various grudges and tics and pet projects thrown into the mix, some of which is at odds, requiring at least some shred of critical thinking and one's own opinion from us students. Of course, that's me. Universities do have a reputation for being harder on students as opposed to non-research colleges here, and it's a choice you can make about where you want to go.