Re: Are you rich?
 

That I carried you through the class participation part of college?

Re: The Plot Thickens
 

Someone at Volokh.com agrees with me:

"Two Ideas For Reducing the National Debt. Under both Presidents Bush and Obama, we are generating and are likely to generate huge increases in our national debt.

There are two steps that can be taken to reduce the negative impact of this excessive spending, the first of which is quite doable politically.

1. Refinance the federal debt with long-term bonds at low interest rates. Investors around the world are buying Treasury bonds, bills, and notes because they are safe, driving 10-year Treasury rates down to about 2.7% and 30-year rates to 3.1%. The government should immediately refinance as much of the federal debt as reasonably possible at current rates (3.1%) for 30 years. (If there are any recallable bonds, they should be recalled and reissued at these low rates.) This would in effect reduce the federal debt substantially.

2. Sell government land. The federal government owns massive portions of the country, including the majority of Western states. Like the NY Times or other troubled companies, the government should begin an orderly sale of unused or unneeded assets, in this case, land."

Re: Boys don't cry.
 

New Board Motto!

Re: The Plot Thickens
 

Huh? The stuff that is valuable we do "sell" or lease, and the problem is the government gives it away. The rest of it has extremely limited value, unless you have nuclear bombs to make California plus half of Nevada fall into the sea.

Re: Are you rich?
 

Heh.

Excuse me. I have to go mock a sibling now.

That's quite a jump in rankings. Way to go Virginia Tech!

Re: The Plot Thickens
 

the former mayor of Detroit tried that. selling city owned things to cure deficits ignores the existance of next year.

Plus, you think Obama is going to get in and start selling unspoiled Federal lands?

Re: Jimbaran Bay
 

Good idea. It avoids the possibility of upstaging you.

Re: Are you rich?
 

If, like Sebby, you think there's a lot of waste in higher education, then you should have a theory about why competition between schools isn't working. If that theory turns on entry barriers, then you can either regulate existing schools to achieve desired market outcomes, or have the government assist entry. I agree that increasing financial aid may be a better way to do this, although it may also be that what's needed are more schools and that the incentives to start a new non-profit are not enough.

I'm not sure I think all these things. In particular, I don't think there's a lot of waste in higher education. Higher education is labor-intensive, and is not well positioned to benefit from the things making the rest of the economy more efficient. This makes it more expensive over time.

Oh, no -- William & Mary won't due.
 

Apro . . . uh, by the by, all of this college reform discussion reminds me of a bar admission interview. I had applied for admission in one of those states that still requires in-person interviews with a member of the Committee To Ensure That No Riff-Raff Get Into The Guild.

Anyhoo, my interviewer was this delightful older woman who was a senior administrator at a local not-quite-Ivy university. When she picked up my file, and saw I went to college in a state where she apparently vacations, she rhapsodized about all of the wonderful community colleges that this state apparently has. I was surely blessed to have matriculated in such a state.

I nodded agreeably, murmered my assent with her observations about community colleges for a minute or two (which apparently sufficiently demonstrated my Not Riff-Raffishness), and was sent on my way. I tugged my forelock on my way out, and went off into the day, duly reminded of why the Boston Irish occasionally tried to burn down Harvard.

Re: Are you rich?
 

I don't think there is an ideal. Some of it is the professor's skill set.

But, I can say, before law school, my most memorable classes all had less than 15 students in them. While I took some classes with 75 or 80 students, the sheer number of students meant there could not be give and take among the students. With 10-15, there is an opportunity for everyone to be fully engaged.

Now, in law school, I actually had a grand time in several classes with 100 people in them, even if I only got to talk once or twice per term and the fundamental show was either just the prof. or the prof and one or two students going at it. I still find the quality of law school lecture classes surprising - I never saw that same quality undergrad.

Re: Are you rich?
 

I dunno. I'm very curious to see what this USF woman does to the University of Houston, which is known throughout the state as Cougar High, due to it's commuter school reputation.

I suspect, though, with changes in technology, distance learning is becoming much more acceptable and legitimate than it was even five years ago. My particular institution has campuses all over the state, and we can offer degree programs through our campus to people in places like Brownsville and El Paso. I think that probably it's a question of offering good tenure track positions to young, enthusiastic faculty in departments that are already pretty strong. And also doing great branding.

Re: Are you rich?
 

surely you have to agree the consumers for higher education are for the most part uneducated (hah!) about what they truly are looking for. What percentage of kids entering most schools are undecided? of those with a preference, how many have changed two years later?

college choice is necessarially made on the basis of name, because very few people have any idea what else to look at.

Re: Are you rich?
 

Sebby's ignoring the competition mentioned earlier to be an attractive destination for profs. The inefficiency that raises the costs of teaching students arise precisely from the competition to attract academic talent on the basis of inefficiency (i.e., tenure).

Re: Are you rich?
 

It's a little less clearly defined than the number of players on the baseball field. And the number of discipines regularly expands (how many universities had Computer Science departments 25 years ago? How many had biotech research centers?)

And the number of faculty in those departments, or adjuncted as research faculty, can expand quite a bit.


Yes, I concur. Universities do sit on money for far too long, and let their piles grow far too big. But saying that they don't spend that money on operating expenses is an overstatement. Even if they transfer only 4% of their endowment to operating expenses, that's a lot of money, and at some universities accounts for a larger portion of "income" than do current-year donations, tuitions, or federal grants.



Please. In higher ed, reputation is everything. Relatively few people know whether Yale has the top history, math, bio, or French department. Yet everyone knows that Yale is an Ivy League school, a great school, whatever. That reputation took a very long time to build. And the donated assets on which it is based took an even longer time to build.

To answer your question -- why aren't private universities competing, if the problem is so bad? -- differently, the fact is that private universities open all the time. Very few succeed. A huge part of that is because they lack the established reputation to attract top faculty and students. Another huge part of it is the money issue that we were talking about before -- if you don't have any endowment, how exactly do you build the classroom and research facilities you need to attract top students and faculty?

Re: Are you rich?
 

What kind of backwards ass school did you go to? The professors who would drink did not schedule morning classes. And I only took morning classes when forced to. I hate morning.

TM