What is the prime function of a college education? Learning interesting stuff, holding off doing anything for another four years, having an interesting social life, getting indoctrinated by the current political in class? No, frankly it is to get a job. To become self sufficient, independent, and hopefully contribute to society.
Thus if getting a job is first, does one therefore even need a college degree? In many cases the answer is no. Yet to be an engineer it is necessary even to have the basic credential, unless you are the founder of some social media company or software conglomerate. Many of my former employees had no college degree yet they contributed significantly. But many colleges degrees are fundamentally useless in a productive manner. We know what they are all too well.
Thus if one gets a potentially productive degree such as engineering, what is a reasonable price to pay for that degree. That is an interesting question. One answer could be: a percent of one's excess income based upon having that degree. Namely, say I go to MIT. I get a degree in Computer Science. I pay nothing yet but I agree to pay MIT 10% of my excess income for say 30 years. What is excess income? The average income of all people my age at the time a payment is due. Then I pay 10% of what I earn less the average income at my then current age. I am not suggesting this just creating an example. Also if my excess income is negative then MIT pays me! So MIT is betting that they can create high value graduates to maximize their income. No losers are accepted.
This then begs the question of how should colleges charge for education, who pays for it, and when. The NY Times has a piece that frankly makes no sense, but that is not new. The writer notes:
If we want higher education to cost less, we should make it cheaper when people enroll. But that’s not how we do things in the United States, where the first rule of personal finance is that it should never be simple. Instead, we befuddle people with a menu of a half-dozen retirement accounts. We fetishize the tax code and its deductions and credits and refunds. We name gold, silver and bronze health insurance plans after precious metals but award no medals for clearing the enrollment hurdles. And so it goes with President Biden’s executive action around student loan debt cancellation. The potential $20,000 in relief per person gets the headlines. But the sleeper element here is a new income-driven debt repayment plan that would help many people pay much less of their student loan debt over time, if they’re not big earners.Instead of helping people up front, when they’re hit with five- and six-figure tuition price tags, we’re taking a plan that used to serve as a safety net and turning it into a stealth subsidy.
This is kind of what I just suggested but it totally misses the value metric. Is a degree in Fine Arts of any value? Possibly if one is financially independent and wants to have good cocktail party banter. Yet in a highly competitive global economy it is a waste. Thus there must be some incentive on the student and the college to balance risk and return. Thus using my scheme above, Perhaps a college may decide to no longer offer a Fine Arts major since they would just lose money from negative payments.
But also what of these costs to a college. Having an endless supply of tuition money guaranteed allows them to do the most idiotic things. Take for example MIT's current plan. It is called Strategic action plan for belonging, achievement, and composition.
Thus for belonging they assert:
Expand categories of identity data formally collected from MIT community members to include characteristics such as religion, disability, first-generation, veteran status, gender beyond the binary, disaggregation of ethnic/racial categories, etc. Develop and execute a communications strategy that supports belonging, achievement, and composition to reach all MIT stakeholders (internal and external). These strategies should include amplifying underrepresented groups and voices, especially during times of the year that commemorate particular identities within our diverse community; and bolstering visibility of existing awards programs for students, staff, and faculty (MLK awards, RISE awards, etc.)
Then for achievement:
Advance excellence in all forms of success among underrepresented undergraduate students. Implement a stronger undergraduate advising structure with dedicated professional staff who, in concert with faculty advisors, will work with students across their undergraduate careers
Finally for composition:
Improve the representation of underrepresented graduate students. Each academic program will document its graduate admissions process and selection criteria; deans, department heads, and Institute leadership will collaborate to ensure the implementation of holistic processes for admissions decisions Institute-wide; they will also document, promote, and operationalize best practices to inform the use of standardized tests, letters of recommendation, and other admissions criteria. Create a certification process focused on the relationships between diversity, community, and excellence for all MIT principal investigators who make postdoc and research staff hiring decisions.
One must then ask two questions. First does any of this make sense? Second, how does any of this impact excellence in the professional technical areas? Frankly it just adds more overhead and in turn more costs. Moreover much of this is just indoctrination. It is managed by Commissars called Deans who enforce these vague plans. In many ways these documents are reflective the old Soviet Five Year Plans and we know how well they worked.
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