You elected to take (to satisfy core lower division undergrad), or were required?
As some people have correctly noted, the free market is not at fault here, simply because of market distortions caused primarily by government.
When you subsidize something, you raise the price. That is an economic axiom.
Government heavily subsidizes education, ergo the price goes up.
And to twist the knife in students backs further, the government imperatively NEEDS students to run up heavy and long lasting debt. To issue more money, the government needs to back that money with debt. If students, and society at large are not accumulating debt, the government cannot create more money and the whole cartelized coordinated fractional reserve house of cards collapses.
Government WANTS and NEEDS students to be heavily and long term in debt. That is an economic imperative in the coordinated fractional reserve monetary and banking system that this country operates under.
Iām talking about requirements for the degree. Two years of foreign language and a certain number of hours in humanities and English comp were required to graduate with my BS. I was able to choose from a lot of different classes to satisfy those requirements by the areas were mandated.
I donāt think the same requirements, at least not to the same extent, were part of the engineering degrees.
Donāt ignore that incentives are screwed up. People assume their prosperity will improve if they go to better schools. Better schools cost more money. Ergo the more money they spend on college the more prosperous they will become.
Itās not dissimilar to the screwed up incentives in health care.
Iām an ME and took a foreign language but no biology or anthropology. Iām glad I took the language. Still remember it and use it to this day.
College is more than just learning the basics of your chosen profession. It is about a well-rounded education enabling you to be a better critical thinker.
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I donāt disagree with that at all. I think many students are steered to a higher price schools that really wonāt help them out that much.
For law students, a J.D. from Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Stanford, etc. is a big deal and will elevate you over students from less institutions. Same with M.D.'s and Ph.D.s in the hard and applied sciences and engineering.
In other fields, that is not really the case for the most part.
Thereās also a difference between elite colleges (which due to large endowments often arenāt the most expensive) and expensive colleges. I donāt think thereās that much difference for 99% of students between Duke and UNC other than about $100k over 4 years.
There was a lot of assuming in that post.
So was your assumption.
The problem is that people donāt necessarily end up working in their degree field. My current career did not exist when I was in college (I graduated college in 1987). Itās a good thing I got a liberal arts and sciences education (i.e. a well-rounded one in biology), because I use a variety of skills in my current job.
Also, being the father of a mechanical engineering student, biology isnāt in their required courses.
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Sometimes competition just increases luxuries.
And if you did not have to take those classes do you think you now would be a bad person?
Not in the least.
Whatā¦that college professors were liberal and tend to push that agenda? Do you not buy that?
Not as much as you think.
There are several persuasions to choose from so do you think āliberalā represents more or less than 50%ā¦without looking?
The question wasnāt whether professors are liberal. The question is whether they āprogramā people. Thatās extremely far fetched.
That is an overly broad generalization. What liberal agenda do you suppose my Calculus 3 and differential equations professor expoused upon me? How about my Cisco certification classes?
The only place you are gonna find political agendas are in majors that deal with political and social issues such as a womens study major.
The better schools also give much more in institutional aid (need based grants) than the non elite schools.
Students at those schools with parents whose income can be as high as $200K/yr in some cases, will qualify for some institutional aid. Students from lower SES will have virtually the COA (room, board and tuition) covered in institutional aid. That being said, you must be smart enough and have other outstanding qualities to get accepted into these colleges who have acceptance rates between 5%-20%. These schools also have ginormous endowments enabling them to give extremely generous FA packages.
COA at even fair to middling colleges are also not much different from the elite schools.
The biggest difference in COA is between the public schools and private colleges and universities.
I volunteer assisting students from lower SES households with applying to elite colleges and universities, so Iām very familiar with the FA packages these schools give.
Maybe but is there merit to it? Since youāre espousing your exposure to it, you should know.
