RJ, I wonder if Sanders emphasizing his Polish heritage has something to do with a concern about anti-semitism.

Or maybe he just isn't religious and so doesn't want to be seen to play up that aspect. Most socialists tend not to have strong religious convictions.

freeman3 wrote:RJ, I wonder if Sanders emphasizing his Polish heritage has something to do with a concern about anti-semitism.

I didn't experience it that way ...It's not like he's changed his name or accent to try to hide anything ... I'm guessing he was thinking about the Polish-American vote.

freeman3 wrote:Here is an interesting article on the causes of tuition hikes. Warning: liberal interpretation.

hikes.http://www.salon.com/2014/06/08/college ... the_media/

Sass, enrollment is increasing a lot, not just due to demographics but also to a higher percentage of people going to college.
http://www.statista.com/statistics/1839 ... titutions/

Here are the stats about the number of colleges.

https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=84

I wonder if you'd be so kind as to not force me to read three articles to derive the "liberal interpretation?" Can't it be summarized in two sentences?

Only one of those links relates to the liberal interpretation. The others are just data on the demographic stuff I was talking about.

Sassenach wrote:Only one of those links relates to the liberal interpretation. The others are just data on the demographic stuff I was talking about.

A lot of stuff in there. It seems he's blaming bloated college administrations, but I'm not going to spend half an hour to sort it out. He did reference 369% growth in administrative positions. That seemed to be his core issue. If it's something else, lay it on me.

I read it all. In truth it's a little vague and at no point does he ever point to a clearly definable explanation, but he seems to be saying that all the explanations that have been advanced over the years are just a smokescreen for greed on the part of the colleges.

He's also saying that higher education is not a normal market and isn't susceptible to the normal functioning of market forces, and as such the attempts to leave it to the market to resolve the problem have failed because it's rigged. I don't know enough about the American higher education system to be able to say whether I agree or not, but I suspect he does have a point.

Sassenach wrote:I read it all. In truth it's a little vague and at no point does he ever point to a clearly definable explanation, but he seems to be saying that all the explanations that have been advanced over the years are just a smokescreen for greed on the part of the colleges.

He's also saying that higher education is not a normal market and isn't susceptible to the normal functioning of market forces, and as such the attempts to leave it to the market to resolve the problem have failed because it's rigged. I don't know enough about the American higher education system to be able to say whether I agree or not, but I suspect he does have a point.

Here's a funny thing: these institutions are run by folks who are overwhelmingly liberal. So, the thesis is that these liberals are fattening themselves at the expense of those who really have no choice but to go to school?

That's one take. I'm not sure it's the right one. It does tell us something about the lack of competitiveness though. If "Wal-Mart University": popped up and could show that it offered an equivalent education for 40% of the price, things would change.

I think things will anyway. Just as the music industry was stood on its ear by the Internet, so will the college system. It's just a matter of time.

Doctor Fate wrote:

Sassenach wrote:Only one of those links relates to the liberal interpretation. The others are just data on the demographic stuff I was talking about.

A lot of stuff in there. It seems he's blaming bloated college administrations, but I'm not going to spend half an hour to sort it out. He did reference 369% growth in administrative positions. That seemed to be his core issue. If it's something else, lay it on me.

I bet you spend more that half an hour writing posts lambasting ricky, which generally serves little to advance things and seems not to dissuade him from posting stuff for you to react to. Just as in spoken conversation, often listening can be more important than speaking, so perhaps reading might be more important that writing when it comes to a debate.

If nothing else, freeman has presented sourced evidence, which is better than slogans and received wisdom.

Anyway, for those too busy posting polemic to read a few articles:

1) the Salon article starts off going through the reasons that universities ascribed increases to over the last 30 years or so (utility bills, libraries, teaching staff costs, declining student numbers) and shoots them down. And notes that the administrators who were running the colleges and blaming all kinds of factors had grown in number and cost - as you saw - by nearly 400% (which is still only a third of the rate of increase in the tuition costs)

It then describes various reforms and tinkers tried by government of both parties which seem to have either failed or made things worse.

It asserts that the price spiral started in 1981 - I guess data could be used to check that assertion? Apparently in the 1970s tuition costs lagged behind inflation but after then exceeded it. Of course, 1970s general inflation was high, so it may not be that significant.

But his conclusion seems to be that higher education is marketed as a means to greater wealth, and so that attracts a higher value in the minds of "consumers", allowing the vendors to increase the price, as long as demand remains. Which it seems to based on enrollment levels.

2) the second link is to a graph with some associated writing (not exactly onerous). Basically enrollment numbers between 1965 and 2013 (and then projected estimates to 2024). A general increase in numbers, a relatively similar ratio between "public" and "private" provision, and if you look at the times when the rate of increase slows or even reverses, it tends to happen correlated to periods of low/negative economic growth.

But few conclusions (liberal or otherwise) are proffered or even derivable - it does not even show enrollment as a proportion of the relevant age-group.

3) It shows a table with explanatory text (again, hardly a massive chore for a reasonably alert reader) which shows the numbers of educational institutions in total for a set of years between 1980-1 and 2011-12 divided into Public (total, elementary, secondary, combined, other) Private, Post-secondary Title IV(total, degree-awarding, 2-yr course based, 4yr course based).

Basically, colleges have increased in number, but not as fast as the number of enrollments.

Again, conclusions (liberal or conservative) are there none.

danivon wrote:

Doctor Fate wrote:

Sassenach wrote:Only one of those links relates to the liberal interpretation. The others are just data on the demographic stuff I was talking about.

A lot of stuff in there. It seems he's blaming bloated college administrations, but I'm not going to spend half an hour to sort it out. He did reference 369% growth in administrative positions. That seemed to be his core issue. If it's something else, lay it on me.

I bet you spend more that half an hour writing posts lambasting ricky, which generally serves little to advance things and seems not to dissuade him from posting stuff for you to react to. Just as in spoken conversation, often listening can be more important than speaking, so perhaps reading might be more important that writing when it comes to a debate.

If nothing else, freeman has presented sourced evidence, which is better than slogans and received wisdom.

Anyway, for those too busy posting polemic to read a few articles:

Yes, it's soooooo unreasonable to expect the poster to at least provide a nugget of information.

Thank you . . . for being an absolute jerk. I didn't ask you to do a research paper. I didn't ask you for anything, but you come riding in all high and mighty . . . I do not give a fig what you wrote.

Doctor Fate wrote:Here's a funny thing: these institutions are run by folks who are overwhelmingly liberal. So, the thesis is that these liberals are fattening themselves at the expense of those who really have no choice but to go to school?

Again you could read it for yourself rather than guess.

Whether or not they are "liberal", people who run an organisation tend to want to act in their own interests. Administrators would not want to cut back on adminstration, would they?

But the point is not that people have no choice but to go to college, rather that there is a demand for college that they want to feed (naturally, anyone who sells something wants to make it more attractive and if possible increase the revenue).

That's one take. I'm not sure it's the right one. It does tell us something about the lack of competitiveness though. If "Wal-Mart University": popped up and could show that it offered an equivalent education for 40% of the price, things would change.

So what has stopped that from happening?

While "pile-it-high, sell-it-cheap" works as a retail model for goods like food and clothes that are essentially fungible, education is perhaps not the same. A box of washing-powder is not much different from any other really. But a degree from Harvard is not the same as a degree from the State college of Podunk, to the ultimate consumers - employers looking for able employees.

I think things will anyway. Just as the music industry was stood on its ear by the Internet, so will the college system. It's just a matter of time.

Perhaps, but the revolution there was not about the content or the quality, so much as the medium, and the extent to which it can be used for piracy or not.

But reading back through the thread, I see a lot of back and forth about enrollment and the types of courses on offer, and possible supply-side explanations.

Let's look at the other part of a market: demand.

As I said, there are the direct consumers of education, the students, who seem to be increasing in number, despite the spiralling costs, and who are more diverse in their choices.

But after education, there are the "consumers" of educated people - employers. Some are content to employ high-school graduates. When there was a lot of manual labour needed in the USA, that was fine. Who in Flint MI needed a degree when there was lucrative car-building work available? Of course, now that manufacturing has changed - the lower skill jobs automated out or migrated offshore, the higher skill jobs accruing more and more skills and technology, that makes a big difference.

The service economy is also changing. Sure, we always want low skilled people in that market - but then again it often is the perfect place for students to work in to get some money before, during and sometimes after college. But it is also a sector that is rapidly "professionalising" itself. Where before doctors, lawyers, accountants etc were the main "professionals" who required a degree, you now see a demand for qualifications in all kinds of industry.

Now, here is a question that I think has an influence on the debate. Is it educators who are pushing such professionalism on to service sectors? Is it the students?

Or is it in fact the labour market?

I look at my own work history, mainly in IT. Before, you could be self-educated, or just show an aptitude, and an employer would take you in and train you to write or test code, or set up hardware. But over time employers seem to have decided that training people in skills is not really for them. Just as you saw a massive decline in apprenticeships for skilled manual labour (in the UK, at least), employers in IT decided they wanted people who already had experience or skills. Of course, one solution is to poach people that other companies had invested in. But soon enough that means other employers will learn not to invest, and they have to cast around.

So hey, why not find a way to identify people who can already do the work (in theory), and will have a documented way to prove it? A degree in Comp-Sci.

And that leads people who want to work in IT to seek a degree, rather than try the more risky strategy of being self-taught and hoping that an employer will know that from an interview process.

Similarly, management often used to come through experience. Now you have MBAs.

Now, that explains an increase in what we might call vocational degrees. But what about the rest (those often generalised as useless)?

Well, again, there is an image in the labour market that passing a degree in any subject (within reason), has something to say about the graduate. They had to learn stuff and demonstrate it. They usually - especially in the humanities - had to construct an argument. They had to deliver work to deadlines. Those less specific skills and talents have an application in a lot of workplaces, and as much work in corporations is more about process than skill, the actual academic subject is less important than the impression of how good you have to be to get a degree in it.

I don't propose that all of the increase in enrollment or cost is down to changes in labour-market demand. But I do think it is a significant factor.

LA Times has a story on Bernie being the first Jewish candidate to win a presidential primary. The article discusses his background (he has never belonged to a synagogue)and discusses the history of anti-semitism in US politics.
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la ... story.html

First openly non-Christian to win a Primary apparently.

of course he may be a crypto-Catholic

I just saw an article where some group is trying to get Harvard to not charge for tuition. That sounds crazy but Harvard has a 37 billion dollar endowment and income off of that totaled 2.2 billion dollars last year. Tuition revenue was 583 million. It's a bit bizarre that a university whose purpose is to educate the finest students now has such a huge endowment that they can easily do so without charging students.

I note this because I think the conclusion of the Salon article is the last paragraph where it talks about that the rise of tuition is due to a single bad ideological idea--that the market could solve the problem. (Actually, in my view it was a bad idea to apply market thinking to education.) Once the purpose of college changed from a calling of educating people into a profit-making enterprise for students who wanted to make a lot of money the results were predictable. And of course it is most likely not a coincidence that tuition started to rise in 1980 when Reagan was elected and applying market principles to everything was thought to be so great.

http://www.quinnipiac.edu/images/pollin ... rpfd42.pdf

Interesting head to head polling by Quinnipac today.
Sanders would be a much stronger candidate than Hillary.... He'd win handily over any republican candidate.
Hillary would probably lose against most, depending on how votes divided among states.
Of course its early. But this may give Sanders more ammunition in Nevada and Michigan.