Way OT: Interesting Article on "the Education Bubble" from U of Iowa. Curious about impact to UofM (and MSU)?

I'm interested in the responses to this.  My wife and I are both getting Phds in history and I can tell you that, at least in my department, and my university, the humanities seem to be woefully unprepared for the coming burst of the bubble and I think the humanities are going to get hit really hard. There's going to be a lot of grinding of teeth about working longer hours and teaching more classes that students want to take.  There's a reason why The Great Courses are selling so well over the past few years. 

 

You're already starting to see people protest their student loans, but they still haven't put to and two together about whether or not you need a sociology, art history, history, or philosophy degree at the cost of 20 grand a year from a school like MSU or Iowa.  In the end, I think Michigan, and the other elite schools, will be able to get by because any degree from them is valuable when compared to the cost of attendance, at least for in-state. 

 

You might see  out-of-state students majoring in the humanities and more majoring in Engineering, etc, but because of our top graduate schools, especially Law, Medical, Dental, and Businiess, etc if having a Michigan degree can help you go there for professional schools afterwards, its value should stay consistent with its cost.

I think for top 50ish institutions this is less of an issue.  Michigan is in a good position because a large percentage of its students are in the Engineering, Business, and Nursing schools, all fields which will consistently need lots of people and don't have lots of competition from online type schools.  Another large chunk of the undergrad population will be preparing for law/med/pharm/dental school, and even more are in programs (like actuarial mathematics) that will lead to good jobs after graduation.

The point is, going to a traditional tier 1 university for any of those undergrad degrees is vastly superior to an online college.  Until that situation changes, Michigan will probably be ok.  It's the directional Michigans and community colleges that rely more heavily on state funding and students that could easily go anywhere else that will suffer.

This is just my two cents, but I feel that education hasn't really kept pace with the demands of the job market over the last 50 years. The pattern from "back in the day" seemed to be that a high school diploma could get you a foot in the door and a number of businesses and jobs, and they didn't necessarily have to labor positions. College was mainly for those who had the grades and could afford it, and it would help them get into the higher crust of society and income levels.

 

However, things have changed. A HS diploma won't get you as far these days, and the Bachelor's degree has become (in some ways, but not all) what the HS diploma was years ago. This also means that getting a Master's or other advanced degree will be required to put yourself in a position for higher earning potential and better job security.

 

This wouldn't be such a problem except for the fact that with this shift came even higher tuition costs and almost no change/increase in helping students pay for this education. With the new minimum being a 4-year college degree, more and more students are going into debt, and it's killing a lot of kids out of the gate b/c the job market is stale (to put it nicely) and loans need to be paid back ASAP. It's a sad tale, one that a lot of my friends are living first-hand.

 

<Steps down off soap-box.>

Please do not burst until after I have tenure.  Since I don't yet have a PhD this will be probably/hopefully be somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 years.

Thanks in advance for your consideration.

Good read.  Thanks for this quality OT.  

This is why a lot of schools are investing in international ties right now.  So after the bubble bursts, 98% of north campus will also hold a degree from Bei Da (top school in China) instead of the current 70%.  The other 2% will be the kids from the Yonsei in Korea.  

We're diversifying where we pull kids from (we have strong ties with the top schools in Korea and China).  Throughout the late 1990s/2000s Michigan's out of state numbers increased.  As Michigan's population contracted due to people leaving the state for jobs, out of state admissions went out.  When domestic students contract, we'll up the international admissions.  The only catch is a lot of the international kids are grad students (who get grants/tuition waivers/etc) instead of kids who cut you a tuition check every term.  The new trick will be having your grads produce enough research to keep the federal funding flowing and thus supporting said grad students.  

As for anyone who is a non tenured faculty member in the humanties, well those of us with engineering degrees need our lawns mowed and snow shovelled still.  So they'll be work for you (until we get the kinks in the robotic snowblower worked out at least).  

... i find the author's point of view terrible.  She basically advocates for a less educated population.  Fewer schools with fewer students.  That's just so myopic and fails to address the real issues in education. 

I think we need to advocate for a higher population of college grads in America, but with more of a focus on science, math, and languages.  It's not the number of those in programs that worry me, it's the proliferation of courses that are likely to add little value to a nation's ability to compete and innovate. 

Her piece just sounds like a hit job on government programs that make it easier for people to get education, and I fundamentally disagree with that premise. 

The U is a huge institution and the effect of these changes will not be felt uniformly.

Here are some of the factors listed:

1. A decline in the sheer numbers of people in the typical college age demographic.

2. Rising costs of running places like the U.

3. Rising cost of tuition.

4. Growing feeling that the cost of an education is not always worthwhile in a very basic tangible way (i.e. earning power later in life)

5. Competittion from other so-called "non-traditional" venues - like the University of Phoenix and others which emphasize on-line teaching.

Effect on the U:

1. Though not quite as steep as some other schools where only 5% of the applicants are accepted, the U turns away thousands of kids each year. It has a lot of kids who want to come here and that will probably be that way for another generation and a half (call it 40 years). As others have noted, enrollment in colleges which are linked with professions or prepare for later professions will probably stay strong. The pure classic humanities like English and history will probably take the biggest hit. The era where someone could earn a degree in the Classics or philosophy and then walk into a job on the business world pretty much died out in the 1960's and peaked in the 1940's. It wasn't as big news then because the academic institutions were expanding and the economy was better so more families tolerated their kids earning degrees which had little practical value. Today, the question of "what are you going to do with a degree in X" is the number one thing on a lot of family's minds. We might see a bit of grade inflation by some colleges and courses to try to keep their numbers up. We might see some efforts to show that these courses have relevance in teaching "people how to think critically." These are all common ploys being used today. It is hard to predict the full effects - there will probably be fewer tenure track slots in these classic humanities slots and more post-docs in these areas might try to find a hook into some contemporary issue. Consider during the Vietnam War era, there was a splurge in activity looking at the American Revolution. A few clever American Historians were able to point out how the US and British situations had notable parallels.

2. The U is honestly a great place to work. The benefits are good and the atmosphere is fun so if there are some cut backs (inevitable) we'll still have a lot of people willing to tough it out.

3. Rising cost of tuition is going to be a big issue. Though the U doesn't depend heavily on the State of Michigan for funding, it will always have to be sensitive to this issue if only for public relations reasons. This is where the famous alumni and famous students (everyone from Larry Page, Madonna, Mike Wallace, Sid Meier, Charles Woodson, etc. etc.)  who may have only spent some time here and left, and things like the athletics help. It helps build that network of alumni and friends; that brand recognition. We might see more international students because we excel in many of the fields coveted abroad (engineering, the natural and physical sciences, biomedical health topics) and those students are typically cash or fully funded.

4. This issue is probably going to be the wild card. There are a lot of jobs which require training and experience but don't need a college degree. While some have attributed this as an effect of the rising costs some of it comes from the nature of our society which is less rigid and less class oriented than others. Social mobility is easier and there is more respect to people who do something well even if it involves using their hands and a bit of dirt. The book "The Millionaire Next Door" illustrated this point well.

5. The competition from places like the U of Phoenix is real, but not a total threat. For a lot of young people, going off to college is a physical act of transformation. It is that first big step into adulthood and so doing it online at home isn't as appealing. Going out there, making your own decision and suffering the consequences is part of that experience, were it all just about learning a course syllabus and passing a certain number of tests, a LOT of kids wouldn't go!

It certainly sounds like she is pissed that the "great unwashed" have the opportunity to pursue an education.  After her fifth paragraph, it was really difficult to take the rest of the article seriously.

I'm not going to read the entire article but judging from its title and others responses I think i grasp the majority of the points and I believe its something that I've been advocating for personally;

 

I believe we generate way to many college graduates these days and the quality of education has went down because of it. Do we really need something like 15+ public universities in the state? How many community colleges? How many schools with college in their name?  I came from a small town farming community where 90% of the kids on gradation were accepted into college and planned on attending. 

I can easily say less than 40% of those kids are college graduates today and more than likely attending a lesser school than the one they started off at.  Now think of how much money was lost/used needlessly in terms of scholarships and student loans with these kids.  Maybe if we didnt hand out student loans like candy and made the vetting process a little harder you would see default rates lower and items like scholarships easier to access as instead of 200 kids you would be fighting 80.

Its ok to not go to college people, if you do not have a plan then please do not go.  I know a girl who is 40k in debt as she bounced around to college, cosmo school, community college and is now a masseuse struggling to pay off all that debt. 

Granted even the best laid plans change but think about if she had become the masseuse straight out of school or a hair dresser to begin with; she could have been consuming products and pumping money into the economy instead of being saddled with a $600 month sunk cost on a piece of paper she's never recieved. 

Any who things do need to change at somepoint.         

Allow private student loans to be discharged via bankruptcy and stop treating Sallie Mae as though it were still a federally owned corporation by placing strict regulations on their horrific practices and boom, you've just helped things immeasurably. I'd like to see Michigan follow Illinois and Penn State and launch an e-college. There's a huge market for online degrees from brick and mortar universities and name brand schools like Michigan will be have a serious advantage over schools like the University of Denver.

I have a few non-important points to add:

- When I got into law school i figured I could handle it without coming out in debt, but it is absolutely amazing how easy it is to get trapped. If I paid every cent of my tuition/books/room/board then I would never ever get to go home, I wouldn't be able to drink beer or go out to eat, and I wouldn't even be able to take my girlfriend to a cheap movie. All that, and I'm in significantly better financial shape than most of my friends who attend similar institutions.

I just don't have it in me to say "You know what, I'm going to stay in tonight to conserve money while my friends go to that insane party they will always remember". I just can't live like that. I'm 22 and won't ever be 22 again.

- Secondly, I feel like a lot of people depend only on their academic achievements and just assume that a job will come to them upon graduation. It doesn't work like that. When you apply to a job, you're just a name on a piece of a paper with a degree and a GPA and a list of crap that probably looks exactly like hundreds of other applicants'.

I don't want to sound all movie-of-the-week cliché here, but if you really want to do something then don't depend on your degree. Go out and make it happen. Make connections, find your niche, meet the people who can get you where you need to go. Learn to accept rejection and just let it feed your ambition. Keep knocking until someone lets you in, and if they don't, kick the fuckin door down. You have to distinguish yourself. Accept the fact that it won't be easy and it might take longer than you prefer, but that only makes it better when it works out. I will always respect a person who fought for what they have over someone who had it all handed to them.

Those are my thoughts, I went on a bit of a rant but I'm a big believer in making your own luck.

I'd really like to be a college professor (Civil Engineering) but the possibility of the bubble bursting makes me think I should just stop at my masters and go work in industry.

All I can say is I feel sorry for current college students.  In-state tuition at U-M is literally double what I paid a decade ago.  Are they going to get anything more out of the U-M degree than I got?  No.  It was a top 25 university on the U.S. News charts then.  (In fact, our ranking has slipped slightly.)  Current students, getting the same educational experience I received at the turn of this century, are going to have to walk away with way more debt than I had.  

The bubble has to burst.  College has to become more affordable.  I don't know how it can be done but it has to happen.  We're crippling the livelihood of an entire generation by saddling them with enormous debt right when they're starting their adult lives.   If tuition at this school just keeps on skyrocketing, I may have to someday recommend to my children not to attend.  That would be heartbreaking.

I got my bio degree in 96. I went on to get an a.d. in nursing in 99 at a community college in toledo. I learned I could have taken 2 years of classes at Owens and transfered all my credits to M. I think credits were $76 per in 99 at owens when they were $350 for the first and $320 each additional when I graduated in 99. My nursing classmates were whining about $1000 per semester when I was used to almost $5k. So. My advice? Take a couple years of classes at a junior college you know the credits will transfer from at a fraction the cost. Go away the last two years, party, live it up, and graduate with the degree from the big name university. That is, if money is a serious issue.

(warning: somewhat "cool story bro" post)

After 3 years at Michigan I said "28k/yr for a degree in history isn't worth it" and took a job working as a desktop support monkey for a tech company. 17 years later I'm CIO for a large non profit. I owe everything to the friends I made at Michigan and nothing to what I learned in school.

I'm sure when I've gone scraping for work (only twice in my life) people threw out my resume because I didn't have my degree and it hasn't mattered a lick. Keep in touch with your friends (getting resumes to the right people is a science), work hard, pay attention to detail, love what you do. It will show and you will find yourself employed. Even if I had my degree in CS or had finished history it would have had zero to no impact on where I would have started....an an entry level IT position and needing to learn the ropes of IT Management.

Some professions absolutely require college. Lawyers, doctors, and some engineers who will get jobs that will have their loans paid back in 7-10 years. For the rest of you, take that same ten years, you can learn just as much in the field (internships, etc) and the tricks to the job which is ultimately more important than what you get from books (in my trade anyway), you'll be fine and not $200k in debt.

When I hire people, I am looking at their experience and how well they test in our lab, solving real world problems under pressure. Degree/No Degree....makes no difference whatsoever, if you know what you're doing and you don't act like an axe murderer, you're a candidate.

I'm not surprised there is a bubble in education.  Much like housing price increases were outstriping inflation, college tuition has been following the same trend.  If I remember correctly, the state limited tuition to only 10% per year and most colleges have been staying at roughly that mark.  At some point, something will have to give.

But I think this speaks to a larger problem....I don't think everyone should go to college.  Some people are suited for it and some people are just throwing their money away.  I kind of wish that the trades didn't have the stigma that they seem to have because more people would go that route.

historically, universities have been accessible to the extremely industrious, gifted, or wealthy.

Only within the last 50-60 years has it been accessible to the broader public. unfortunately, I believe we will revert back (and depending on how bloated the org structure is, this can be quite painful).