Obama proposes more college subsidies.

Here is what Obama had to say in Ohio today about college education.

“We see an America where every citizen has the skills and training to compete with any worker in the world. That's why we've set a goal to once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world by 2020.”

“That's why we're fighting to extend the child tax credit, and make permanent our new college tax credit. Because if we do, it will mean $10,000 in tuition relief for each child going to four years of college.”

So Mr. President only 5% of our US college graduates today are engineers (compared to 21% in China and 19% in the European Union). And many of this meager 5% are foreign students who will take this valuable education back home to make their own countries to make them better at competing with the US. Instead of producing Science & Engineering graduates our “send everyone to college” approach is producing more Recrational Management, Physical Education and History majors. Who really thinks that sending more kids to college to study Ethomusicology, Sociology or Gender Studies is making our country more competitive? We need more graduating engineers and scientists to pull the rest of the economy along. The problem is when politicians (many of whom were Political Science majors in college) set up these subsidies and “programs” we will end up with more Sociology and Music History majors.

Let’s reduce the subsidies for college not increase them. And if we insist on subsidizing college at all then let’s narrow it down to Science and Engineering.

Obama also is talking about investing in our infrastructure. So are we going to use all the new graduate Classical Civilization majors to check the loads and structural integrity of our new bridges and dams when we don’t have enough Civil Engineers? Or will we be importing engineering assistance from India to build our new roads while financing the roads with loans from China?

The downward spiral of college subsidies

College student debt now exceeds credit card debt in America.

But it is such an important “investment” by our government? Maybe not.

College costs keep increasing at a faster rate than everything else. So politicians predictably try to subsidize the cost of college even more so that students don’t get priced out of going to college. Most of these subsidies take the form of loans and loan guarantees.

But what is the result? Instead of accepting the law of supply and demand, these increased college subsidies allow colleges and universities to notch up the price of college by the amount of the subsidy. That’s right; the benefits of these subsidies go to the college establishment (professors, administrators, football coaches and janitors). The subsidies relax the push back (and lower demand) that normally results when prices get too high. So it is a vicious cycle; subsidize college more; the cost of college increases enough to absorb the new subsidy; and then subsidize college even more to make up for the increased prices caused by the earlier subsidies.

The end result is a bubble like we had in the housing market. But instead of having neighborhoods full of empty foreclosed homes you have ghettos of young adults with degrees in Psychology or Sociology, $100,000 in student debt and no job prospects that would ever make it possible to pay off these loans. Not to mention the US government holding billions in unpaid student loan guarantees that penalize our grandchildren.

But this is only part of the problem with all of these subsidies. The silly college curriculums like Gender Studies, Sociology & Ethnomusicology get the same subsidies as Electrical Engineering, Petroleum Engineering and Accounting. At least the degrees in science and engineering have a chance of making the US more competitive.

And since so many families don’t really question what Johnny wants to study at college, we have far too many of Johnny’s friends spending six years of tax-payer and family-subsidized college education with little learning that will translate into a more competitive US. The average student cares simply about having enough cash flow (with loans and parent subsidies) to get though another year in college. The future pain of being deep in debt with no marketable job skills is the least of an 18 year-old’s worries.

As a country we need to discourage student debt and we need to start reducing subsidies for college. We might need to rely less on the traditional lecture format and find far more efficient teaching methods like computer-assisted and on-line learning. $160,000 degrees in Medieval German History are not doing the trick today.

Debt-free U

This piece on NBC Today show this morning is an interview with the 22 year old college senior titled "Debt-free U". Zac Bissonnette explains how he got through college without borrowing and how most college students can do the same. Several good ideas and much common sense.

What does a Sociology student study?

I make fun of Liberal Arts degrees so frequently that I decided to delve deeper into one major, Sociology, to understand what students in that major at the University of Southern Indiana might learn. Here are some of the course requirements for this “degree”.

SOC 121 Principles of Sociology: An examination of social dynamics and consequences of social life. The main topics are culture, social groups, socialization, deviance, social stratification, race relations, gender, and family.

SOC 225 Criminology : A consideration of criminality, its nature and extent, particularly in the United States. Includes analysis of the etiology (for those college grads like me that don’t know what this word is, it is the study of causation) of criminal behavior, the sociology of criminal law, and societal reaction to criminals.

SOC 231 Social Problems: Examination of the nature, extent, causes, and effects of selected contemporary social problems, such as gender, sexual behavior, drugs, environment, economic inequality, racial inequality, crime, and education.

SOC 335 Juvenile Delinquency: Definitions and interpretations; theories of causation and prevention; organization and functions of community agencies and institutions including police, courts, and probation services.

SOC 345 Simulated Games of Society: The study of society through the use of simulated games. The power structure, the social class system, the justice system, sex roles, different cultures, whole societies, ghettos, economic systems, municipal politics, and national political parties are simulated in classroom games to provide the student with experiential knowledge of these processes.

SOC 375 Social Change: An investigation of change in cultural patterns, behavioral relationships, and social structure. Topics comprise social movements, work, urbanization, family, computerization, social organizations and other aspects of American society.

SOC 415 Sociology of the Environment: A sociological approach to understanding the interaction of society and the natural environment. It focuses on social causes and consequences of environmental problems and mitigating actions taken toward them. It also addresses inequality in the distribution of environmental problems.

SOC 421 Race and Ethnicity: A sociological exploration of the origins and influence of race, ethnicity, and cultural/national identity in American and international stratification systems.

SOC 431 Gender and Society: An exploration of gender patterns. The course focuses on gender differences. It analyzes the causes and the consequences of these differences for social life, including the various social inequalities between males and females that have become institutionalized in American society.

SOC 441 Social Movements: Consideration of social movements as attempts to establish a new order of life. Analyzes states of development from inception to the achievement of full institutionalization. Specific social movements are examined such as the labor movement, the women’s movement, and racial, religious, and political movements.

SOC 463 Wealth and Poverty: An examination of social stratification in U.S. society with comparisons to other countries. The course explores different indicators of inequality, the social class system, theories of inequality, poverty, social mobility, and legitimization of inequality. It also explores racial and gender stratification.

Do you think there might be a certain liberal spin and propaganda to these classes that explains why the criminal is in fact the victim? I can find you many of these graduates that are looking for a job. Do you need this skill set for your business?

A Bachelors in Fine Arts pays off....

UK study finds that one in four lap dancers have a college degree. Usually in the Arts.

And these dancers make an average of about $350 per shift thereby elevating the stats for college graduates for those arguing that “college grads make more than those that do not graduate from college.”

Of course another argument for attending college (even if you are going to take a silly degree) is that one meets the right kind of potential life partners – and that is clearly the case for these lap dancers.

Have you heard the disclaimer “past performance does not guarantee future results”?

“According to the U.S. Census Bureau, people who graduate with bachelor’s degrees will earn nearly twice as much over the course of their careers as those who complete only high school.” What a bunch of drivel!

Have you heard the disclaimer “past performance does not guarantee future results”? The general media totally misses this concept.

Too many writers forgot to attend their logic and statistics classes. There is a difference between correlation and causation. And the past does not predict the future.

You tell me who is hiring those recent grads in Ethnomusicology, Sociology, History, Gender Studies and Art History? The answer is no one. That is right; there are no jobs of any kind for these grads other than fast food. And I don’t want to belittle fast food as a career because a manager at a McDonalds will surely make more than most of the Drama majors out there and without going $100,000 into debt.

More defaults on college student loans is a symptom of the bigger problem

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More defaults on college student loans is a symptom of the bigger problem (massive government intervention in college finance and an industry that has learned to depend on these subsidies).

Truth in advertising is a critical component of what is being questioned. But this should hold true just as much at the University of California just as much as for-profit colleges. Every college should be required to track and publish the starting salaries and number of graduates placed after graduation. By major.

Then we absolutely need to start cutting off funding to those institutions that do not create graduates that are sought in the job market. Actually we need to get the government out of these subsidies all together but that is a much longer putt.

The percentage of those defaulting on student loans is only one of the necessary criteria. The other critical factor is how much has the stuend borrowed? In the example in this story this young lady defaulted after borrowing $15,000. This is probably representative of the defaults of many of the one and two year certification programs. But if 50% of those borrowing $15,000 is a problem, how about if 30% of those borrowing $100,000 default after their History degree from Duke?

The problem is far from confined to the for-profit college industry.