Jump to content



Photo

College endowment hoarding


  • Please log in to reply
29 replies to this topic

#11 stocks

stocks

    Member

  • Traders-Talk User
  • 4,550 posts

Posted 05 July 2011 - 04:45 PM

Bill Gross, managing director and co-CIO at Pimco

A mind is a precious thing to waste, so why are millions of America's students wasting theirs by going to college? All of us who have been there know an undergraduate education is primarily a four year vacation interrupted by periodic bouts of cramming or Google plagiarizing, but at least it used to serve a purpose.

College, in the minds of many ..., is stultifying and outdated – overpriced and mismanaged – with very little value created despite the bump in earnings power that universities use as their raison d'être in our modern world of money.

Fact: College tuition has increased at a rate 6% higher than the general rate of inflation for the past 25 years, making it four times as expensive relative to other goods and services as it was in 1985. University administrators have a talent for increasing top line revenues via tuition, but lack the spine necessary to upgrade academic productivity. Professorial tenure and outdated curricula focusing on liberal arts instead of a more practical global agenda focusing on math and science are primary culprits.

Gross
-- -
Defenders of the status quo are always stronger than reformers seeking change, 
UNTIL the status quo self-destructs from its own corruption, and the reformers are free to build on its ashes.
 

#12 stocks

stocks

    Member

  • Traders-Talk User
  • 4,550 posts

Posted 06 July 2011 - 11:08 AM

The College Scam

There are 80,000 bartenders in the United States with bachelor's degrees

Hillary Clinton tells students: "Graduates from four-year colleges earn nearly twice as much as high school graduates, an estimated $1 million more."
We hear that from people who run colleges. And it's true. But it leaves out some important facts

I spoke with Richard Vedder, author of "Going Broke by Degree: Why College Costs Too Much," and Naomi Schafer Riley, who just published "Faculty Lounges and Other Reasons Why You Won't Get the College Education You Paid For."
Vedder explained why that million-dollar comparison is ridiculous:
"People that go to college are different kind of people ... (more) disciplined ... smarter. They did better in high school."
They would have made more money even if they never went to college.

Also, lots of people not suited for higher education get pushed into it. This doesn't do them good. They feel like failures when they don't graduate. Vedder said two out of five students entering four-year programs don't have a bachelor's degree after year six.

"Why do colleges accept (these students) in the first place?"
Because money comes with the student -- usually government-guaranteed loans.
"There are 80,000 bartenders in the United States with bachelor's degrees," Vedder said. He says that 17 percent of baggage porters and bellhops have a college degree, 15 percent of taxi and limo drivers. It's hard to pay off student loans with jobs like those. These days, many students graduate with big debts.

College
-- -
Defenders of the status quo are always stronger than reformers seeking change, 
UNTIL the status quo self-destructs from its own corruption, and the reformers are free to build on its ashes.
 

#13 Rogerdodger

Rogerdodger

    Member

  • TT Member*
  • 26,862 posts

Posted 14 July 2011 - 06:42 PM

These kids are smarter than I thought:
Debt fears drive youth away from college...

#14 stocks

stocks

    Member

  • Traders-Talk User
  • 4,550 posts

Posted 15 July 2011 - 09:19 AM

A History of College Grade Inflation

“When college students perceive that the average grade in a class will be an A, they do not try to excel,”


Most recently, about 43 percent of all letter grades given were A’s, an increase of 28 percentage points since 1960 and 12 percentage points since 1988. The distribution of B’s has stayed relatively constant; the growing share of A’s instead comes at the expense of a shrinking share of C’s, D’s and F’s. In fact, only about 10 percent of grades awarded are D’s and F’s.

Grades
-- -
Defenders of the status quo are always stronger than reformers seeking change, 
UNTIL the status quo self-destructs from its own corruption, and the reformers are free to build on its ashes.
 

#15 stocks

stocks

    Member

  • Traders-Talk User
  • 4,550 posts

Posted 10 May 2012 - 08:06 AM

The disposable academic
Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time

The Number of Ph.D.s on Public Aid Triples in U.S.

The life of an academic who pays hundreds of thousands of dollars in tuition and lives off stipends and scholarhips is becoming more financially treacherous. A skyrocketing number of Americans with Ph.D.s say they are facing
a reality in which they are turning to food stamps to survive.

One in six Americans received food stamps or other public assistance last year, but the number of people with a Ph.D. or Masters degree who receive that aid has tripled in the past two years, according to government data.


http://abcnews.go.co...58#.T6u8Py-2651
-- -
Defenders of the status quo are always stronger than reformers seeking change, 
UNTIL the status quo self-destructs from its own corruption, and the reformers are free to build on its ashes.
 

#16 stocks

stocks

    Member

  • Traders-Talk User
  • 4,550 posts

Posted 25 May 2012 - 03:32 PM

Mark Cuban: The Coming Meltdown in College Education & Why The Economy Won’t Get Better Any Time Soon

The competition from new forms of education is starting to appear. Particularly in the tech world. Online and physical classrooms are popping up everywhere. They respond to needs in the market. THey work with local businesses to tailor the education to corporate needs. In essence assuring those who excel that they will get a job. All for far far less money than traditional schools.

The number of people being prepared for the work world in these educational environments is exploding.

You would think traditional university educators would take notice. Beyond allowing some of their classes to be offered online, they haven’t. They won’t. Its the ultimate Innovators Dilemma. They don’t believe they should change and they won’t. Until its too late. Just as CEOs push for that one more penny per share in EPS, University Presidents care about nothing but getting their endowments and revenues up. If it means saddling an entire generation with obscene amounts of school debt, they could care less. This is how they get their long term contracts and raises.

It’s just a matter of time until we see a meltdown in traditional college education. Like the real estate industry, prices will rise until the market revolts. Then it will be too late. Students will stop taking out the loans traditional Universities expect them to. And when they do tuition will come down. And when prices come down Universities will have to cut costs beyond what they are able to. They will have so many legacy costs, from tenured professors to construction projects to research they will be saddled with legacy costs and debt in much the same way the newspaper industry was. Which will all lead to a de-levering and a de-stabilization of the University system as we know it.

And it can’t happen fast enough.


http://blogmaverick....-any-time-soon/
-- -
Defenders of the status quo are always stronger than reformers seeking change, 
UNTIL the status quo self-destructs from its own corruption, and the reformers are free to build on its ashes.
 

#17 stocks

stocks

    Member

  • Traders-Talk User
  • 4,550 posts

Posted 25 July 2012 - 09:53 AM

The disposable academic
Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time

The Number of Ph.D.s on Public Aid Triples in U.S.

A skyrocketing number of Americans with Ph.D.s say they are facing a reality in which they are turning to food stamps to survive.
One in six Americans received food stamps or other public assistance last year, but the number of people with a Ph.D. or Masters degree who receive that aid has tripled in the past two years, according to government data.

U.S. pushes for more scientists, but the jobs aren’t there

only 14 percent of those with a PhD in biology and the life sciences now land a coveted academic positionat . The reason: The supply of scientists has grown far faster than the number of academic positions.
That figure has been steadily declining since the 1970s


The pharmaceutical industry once was a haven for biologists and chemists who did not go into academia. Well-paying, stable research jobs were plentiful in the Northeast, the San Francisco Bay area and other hubs. But a decade of slash-and-burn mergers; stagnating profit; exporting of jobs to India, China and Europe; and declining investment in research and development have dramatically shrunk the U.S. drug industry, with research positions taking heavy hits.

Since 2000, U.S. drug firms have slashed 300,000 jobs, according to an analysis by consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. In the latest closure, Roche last month announced it is shuttering its storied Nutley, N.J., campus — where Valium was invented — and shedding another 1,000 research jobs.

“It’s been a bloodbath, it’s been awful,” said Kim Haas, who spent 20 years designing pharmaceuticals for drug giants Wyeth and Sanofi-Aventis and is in her early 50s. Haas lost her six-figure job at Sanofi-Aventis in New Jersey last year. She now works one or two days a week on contract at a Philadelphia university.


http://www.washingto...pQUW_story.html
-- -
Defenders of the status quo are always stronger than reformers seeking change, 
UNTIL the status quo self-destructs from its own corruption, and the reformers are free to build on its ashes.
 

#18 stocks

stocks

    Member

  • Traders-Talk User
  • 4,550 posts

Posted 13 August 2012 - 08:59 AM

University of California had 22 employees statewide who made at least $1 million in 2011 - mostly doctors and coaches.

Scroll over the blue bars below to learn more about them:



http://blogs.sacbee....rce=Patrick.net
-- -
Defenders of the status quo are always stronger than reformers seeking change, 
UNTIL the status quo self-destructs from its own corruption, and the reformers are free to build on its ashes.
 

#19 stocks

stocks

    Member

  • Traders-Talk User
  • 4,550 posts

Posted 23 June 2013 - 08:01 AM

The disposable academic
Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time

The Number of Ph.D.s on Public Aid Triples in U.S.

A skyrocketing number of Americans with Ph.D.s say they are facing a reality in which they are turning to food stamps to survive.
One in six Americans received food stamps or other public assistance last year, but the number of people with a Ph.D. or Masters degree who receive that aid has tripled in the past two years, according to government data.

U.S. pushes for more scientists, but the jobs aren’t there

only 14 percent of those with a PhD in biology and the life sciences now land a coveted academic positionat . The reason: The supply of scientists has grown far faster than the number of academic positions.
That figure has been steadily declining since the 1970s



Million Engineers Struggling to Find a Job


It's tough to find a job everywhere: in the US, in China, in Europe, and in India.
Think education is the answer? I don't.

Some end up in the US on work visas because the US citizens purportedly do not have the right skills. In reality, there are plenty of skills here, but foreign workers will work for a lot less. Since companies can hire a programmer from India or Russia for 1/3 the cost of a US worker, that's what happens.

Training more engineers, here, or in China, or in India will not help. There is a glut of high-tech talent.

article: Epic Glut of Graduates Depresses Wages; Fake Job Offers Taint Hiring Statistics.

The article was about a glut of graduates in China with no job, but it could just as easily been about India or the US.



Read more at http://globaleconomi...EuKDQ4KSeOF0.99
-- -
Defenders of the status quo are always stronger than reformers seeking change, 
UNTIL the status quo self-destructs from its own corruption, and the reformers are free to build on its ashes.
 

#20 voltaire

voltaire

    Member

  • Traders-Talk User
  • 1,134 posts

Posted 29 June 2013 - 12:31 AM

Any smart nation would provide FREE tertiary education. Jefferson was a proponent of not only free tertiary education BUT free from examinations. This allows a more expansive range of studies than a single pursuit. There was a time when sportsmen were great in multiple disciplines. There was a time when men of genius pursued many avenues. Free education is not a cost, it is prosperity for all in the nation. But I agree that a degree is meaningless. Allow people to learn on the job or at study and provide every assistance the nation can afford. Privatising education is a way to decline.