Missing the Point on Student Debt
- Thread starter BedellBrave
- Start date
BedellBrave
It's OVER 5,000!
...Yet the issue isn’t just how to pay for a college education. We should also be asking a more fundamental question: What am I paying for? A more feasible first step to helping students of the future is to contain costs. But where should we start?
Here’s a radical idea: What if we contained the mission of our universities to education? The story behind the story of student debt inflation is the inflation of the university into an expanding behemoth of goods and services that have little to do with education and more to do with expectations of coddled comfort. Rather than being an institution centered on education, the university now aspires to be a total institution that meets every felt need. The campus is now a sprawling complex of fitness centers and cineplexes, food courts and gargantuan coliseums. Students aren’t taking out loans to pay for an education; they’re effectively borrowing money to pay exorbitant, short-lived taxes for the privilege of living in a scripted, cocooned city.
This also explains the creeping administration that has swelled and overwhelmed faculty who teach. Indeed, as documented by the New England Center for Investigative Reporting, the number of non-academic administrative professionals and employees at U.S. colleges and universities has more than doubled in the past 25 years. This is in no small part because students — and their parents — expect the university to provide an “experience” managed by professionals. Thus college admissions and orientation morph into a panoply of fun overseen by professionals whose job descriptions are not so different from the Love Boat’s cruise director, Julie McCoy. “How can we help you enjoy yourself?” they ask. And the quality of those experiences and the “lifelong memories” they generate directly impact alumni giving...
Here’s a radical idea: What if we contained the mission of our universities to education? The story behind the story of student debt inflation is the inflation of the university into an expanding behemoth of goods and services that have little to do with education and more to do with expectations of coddled comfort. Rather than being an institution centered on education, the university now aspires to be a total institution that meets every felt need. The campus is now a sprawling complex of fitness centers and cineplexes, food courts and gargantuan coliseums. Students aren’t taking out loans to pay for an education; they’re effectively borrowing money to pay exorbitant, short-lived taxes for the privilege of living in a scripted, cocooned city.
This also explains the creeping administration that has swelled and overwhelmed faculty who teach. Indeed, as documented by the New England Center for Investigative Reporting, the number of non-academic administrative professionals and employees at U.S. colleges and universities has more than doubled in the past 25 years. This is in no small part because students — and their parents — expect the university to provide an “experience” managed by professionals. Thus college admissions and orientation morph into a panoply of fun overseen by professionals whose job descriptions are not so different from the Love Boat’s cruise director, Julie McCoy. “How can we help you enjoy yourself?” they ask. And the quality of those experiences and the “lifelong memories” they generate directly impact alumni giving...
BedellBrave
It's OVER 5,000!
Any Ds want to engage with this?
Yeah I agree with you about that. Part of it is appropriations though and not the colleges. It is always easier to get grant money to build something or have a program than to cover operating expenses.
As to the structured living I think there is a lot of over protectiveness going on. Kids still get in trouble, but they want to turn the college experience into a chaperoned party. Of course kids in that age group have been having a good time for a long time. It's just the college wants to organize it now. This creates a massive bureaucracy to organize it as well. I've also heard that the dorms now have tons of security and educational programs. They have the girls convinced there is a man lurking in every corner to rape them, and it actually dramatically effects housing costs in some places.
They do need to stick to their core mission. If kids have extra money to spend local businesses can give them plenty of opportunities for them to have a good time. They can also cut the construction projects. They are out of control in many places.
As to the structured living I think there is a lot of over protectiveness going on. Kids still get in trouble, but they want to turn the college experience into a chaperoned party. Of course kids in that age group have been having a good time for a long time. It's just the college wants to organize it now. This creates a massive bureaucracy to organize it as well. I've also heard that the dorms now have tons of security and educational programs. They have the girls convinced there is a man lurking in every corner to rape them, and it actually dramatically effects housing costs in some places.
They do need to stick to their core mission. If kids have extra money to spend local businesses can give them plenty of opportunities for them to have a good time. They can also cut the construction projects. They are out of control in many places.
50PoundHead
Hessmania Forever
I blame a generation of helicopter parents that want to bubble-wrap their kids.
BedellBrave
It's OVER 5,000!
Boy, they really are a part of the problem. It's not just whiny millennials but their mummy and daddy. It's also Big-Education. It's become a racket. And Bernie and the lot are only pouring fuel on the fire.
Oklahomahawk
Boras' Client
I agree with you guys pretty much but to address at least one of your points Bedell, you are absolutely right about the layer upon layer of administrators and other "office workers" and assistants and even they sometimes have assistants. But isn't this also true in industry?
BedellBrave
It's OVER 5,000!
And I'm not for giving Big-Industry unlimited funding with no cost-controls either.
Oklahomahawk
Boras' Client
I'm cool with both of those "checks and balances". It's just that each of these two areas has one side or the other that they're absolutely in need of all those assistants, etc., and that they're even better stewards of money, ours, theirs, taxes, etc. I work at a community college and while I actually like my administrators (you have to understand how much overkill of kindness and basic competency it takes on their part for me to say that) we have layer after layer of office workers who are sure they're terribly overworked while the faculty is looked down upon by many there and thought to be lazy while we work circles around their sorry asses most of the time.