The Higher Cost of Higher Education

[MoKelly]

I think the answer depends on how you define government.

Steve

"It depends upon what the meaning of the word is is".

MoKelly

 

[rsallen]

Who's talking about months? Yeah, you know what I'm talking about.

And the reason the big corps give to academic institutions is because close to half of the graduates from those paragons of learning aren't literate and they need someone that can at lest parse the work sheet.

Good corporate citizens. Yeah that's the ticket.
Just another phrase for the company store.

 

[smstonypoint]

"It depends upon what the meaning of the word is is".

MoKelly

Touche.

Steve

 

[smstonypoint]

I think it's important to understand that 'money' is not interested in an educated population.
They are interested in a good corporate citizen, subservient and unthinking. That is all.

And the reason the big corps give to academic institutions is because close to half of the graduates from those paragons of learning aren't literate and they need someone that can at lest (least) parse the work sheet.

Good corporate citizens. Yeah that's the ticket.
Just another phrase for the company store.

You first say that corporations are not interested in education, then you say they want to improve education.

Which is it?

Yep, anyone who doesn't understand privatization of our government hasn't been paying attention.

I understand English -- it is my Mother Tongue.

I use the dictionary definition of privatization:

changing something from state to private ownership or control

privatization - definition of privatization by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia..

Your definition and examples?

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Steve

 

[rsallen]

It's not extraordinary claim.
Can you name one part of our government isn't controlled by private means and ends?

Welcome to the new gilded age and heading into the new robber baron days.
In my lighter moments I may comment that the entire world is control materially by about 18 people.
But you know, I'm just not that far wrong.

 

[smstonypoint]

It's not extraordinary claim.
Can you name one part of our government isn't controlled by private means and ends?

Welcome to the new gilded age and heading into the new robber baron days.
In my lighter moments I may comment that the entire world is control materially by about 18 people.
But you know, I'm just not that far wrong.

Rather than "privatization," you are referring to rent-seeking and cronyism (by/for corporations, unions, special interest groups, etc.) -- two entirely different concepts.

Don Boudreaux (Cafe Hayek) speaks to the issue with eloquence.

If cronyism had truly been the dominant force in our economy for decades, we would have stagnated long ago. The economic booms of the 1980s and 1990s would not have happened. Ordinary Americans today would have no smartphones, no GPS navigation, no digital photography, no e-books, no Amazon.com, no big-box retailers, no access to miracle drugs such as statins and PDE5 inhibitors? This list can be extended much further.

Yet even if I here underestimate the extent of cronyism, the problem with cronyism isn't that it makes incomes less equal. The problem is that it stifles economic growth and, worse, violates the property and contract rights of ordinary people in order that government can transfer unearned treasure to politically powerful special interests. Any resulting rise in income inequality is merely a symptom of cronyism's evils. Efforts aimed directly at making incomes more equal, therefore, miss the mark. Such efforts not only penalize non-cronies, but by attacking merely a symptom of cronyism, these efforts divert attention from and leave intact the destructive cronyist policies themselves.

Were I a crony, that's a situation that I'd find to be most convenient.

Steve

 

[dave1949]

Freshman dorm mates are usually luck of the draw.

Our oldest son's first room mate was a real PIA. As it happened his room mate was struggling with some identity issues and hadn't gotten out of the closet yet.

Second son's first room mate was an alcoholic. He already had 1/2 gal. bottles of cheap vodka on the bookshelves when we moved our son in. He didn't last long.

Within reason of course, it is a good learning experience to let kids to solve their own college problems, from room mates to cranky professors. Ya gotta let go sometime, may as well get used to it. I know it isn't easy.

 

[smstonypoint]

Within reason of course, it is a good learning experience to let kids to solve their own college problems, from room mates to cranky professors. Ya gotta let go sometime, may as well get used to it. I know it isn't easy.

Surely you jest.

Steve

 

[dave1949]

Surely you jest.

Steve

It's possible Sharon still has nightmares, 43 years later, about Dr. Finkelstein in a graduate school math course. :laughing:

I can only remember one professor I could never figure out. It was a lecture hall history class covering the Civil War Era. He was big on essay tests and I could never regurgitate to his liking. He read his lectures page by page in a droning delivery.

The profs I really liked were those with the ability to open their students' minds to a viewpoint most high school students haven't yet considered or been exposed to.

 

[buickanddeere]

Probably a re-hash of previous comments. We don't need anymore literature and art or liberal arts grads. History majors, marine biologists, lawyers, English majors or math majors on a restricted quota.
Medical, engineering, chemistry & accounting we do need.
I wonder about these grads after 3-7 yrs of post secondary with student loans trying to find jobs in a flooded market and starting out at base wage. Their schoolmates who went into the trades are now near the top of the pay scale and have been making an income for the past 3-7 years.
Should hear all the wannabe school teachers in Ontario wailing. They can't get a job so they go back to University for another year or two to be come more qualified for jobs that don't exist. Students that re pushing 30 and never had a career job yet.