The Expense of Higher Ed

Interesting article herein. I’d be interested in hearing what comprises the industrial aggregate that resulted in the findings of the 2021 Georgetown study. As an aside, I’m persuaded that the costs associated with higher education may be effectively mitigated by applying the standard canons of free market economics. That is, YouTube entertains the countless masses for free because those many people watch a token ad. Why not ‘monetize’ campuses to float quality higher education? Just an idea.

 

Once upon a time, I had a dream of building a fully monetized learning platform that would, eventually, give some students a stipend for using it. Similar to how YT pays money to its creators. I never really fleshed out the idea, but I did want students to be able to get college credit and not just learn.

 

"If you think education is expensive, try ignorance." -- Derek Bok, former president of Harvard University.

 

I've said this before, but it bears repeating. The importance of a college degree exploded due to a few converging factors in the late 1970s.

First was the almost-overnight switch from defined benefit (pension) plans to defined contribution (e.g. 401k) plans at work. While the intent was to relieve corporations of their debt burdens related to employee retirements, it also freed up employees to change employers without losing all (or any) of their retirement. This made employees more mobile. Two results arose from this phenomenon:

1. Employers became more reluctant to invest in the development of their employees since those employees were more likely (than before) to leave for other jobs at other companies, and
2. Employees needed credentials recognizable to future employers. Because the US lacks a strong national qualifications system, this meant college degrees. Ka-boom!

The second factor in this is the explosion during the 1970s of nontraditional methods for earning college degrees. This paved the way for people to go back to school to (a) finish the degree they started or (b) go on to a higher degree. Almost overnight, workers found they didn't have to quit their jobs to do this. (NB: this was also the time DEAC got into the business of accrediting degree-granting institutions. Hardly a coincidence.)

(NB: National University was started for this reason. In the early 1970s, a manager at General Dynamics wanted to teach his managers business and management skills. He approached the local state university--SDSU--asking if they'd consider offering an MBA program at night for a cluster of his managers. SDSU refused, stating to this guy that if those people were serious about getting their MBAs, they'd leave their jobs and come to school full-time for 2 years. That manager, David Chigos, instead went on to found the second-largest private university in California.)

A third factor was creeping credentialism, a phenomenon documented by David Hapgood in Diplomaism in 1971! This is where higher and higher credentials (e.g. degrees) are, over time, required to do the same jobs.

These phenomena, coupled with the high availability of Title IV funding, drove up prices considerably over the years and continue to do so.