An Impressive Step in the Right Direction - Horse Racing Forum - PaceAdvantage.Com

traynor · 07-14-2015, 10:21 AM

http://money.cnn.com/video/news/2015...&iid=obnetwork

For those of you who may have attended colleges or universities long ago, the current debacle in "higher education" may be largely unknown. It is a sorry mess. This looks like a good beginning to a solution to that mess.

Solving a problem is always easier when one steps outside the borders of lala land and realizes, "Hey, this is a BIG problem!" Only after one realizes a problem exists can one really start working on a solution. The old saying, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" is fine. It does NOT mean, "If you don't admit it's broken, you don't have to fix it." The latter is pure lala land philosophy.

AndyC · 07-14-2015, 11:35 AM

I guess if the not-for-profit colleges were doing what the for-profit colleges are accused of not doing then I would view this as a good step.

To me, this is more of the government stepping in to "help" because the individual is deemed to be incapable of making their own decisions.

TJDave · 07-14-2015, 11:40 AM

The key to solving this is to crack down on accreditation policies. No way should federal monies or loan guarantees be going to these diploma mills.

AndyC · 07-14-2015, 11:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TJDave

The key to solving this is to crack down on accreditation policies. No way should federal monies or loan guarantees be going to these diploma mills.

Much better to have the federal monies and loan guarantees going to illegal aliens to take up space in public universities from the children of tax paying citizens.

Just who should be the one cracking down on accreditation policies? Do we need to have accreditation boards accredited?

TJDave · 07-14-2015, 12:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AndyC

Do we need to have accreditation boards accredited?

Yes. At the very least, for-profits shouldn't have seats on accreditation boards.

Robert Fischer · 07-14-2015, 12:31 PM

These for-profit colleges were starting to get good at using the media.

They were suckering-in a lot of naive people. They were taking a significant part of the market share.

AndyC · 07-14-2015, 12:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Robert Fischer

These for-profit colleges were starting to get good at using the media.

They were suckering-in a lot of naive people. They were taking a significant part of the market share.

If they were suckering-in people via lies they should be sued for damages. If people failed to do their due diligence shame on them. It seems like all efforts to protect the so-called naive people by the government ends up being a massive expensive unproductive bureaucracy.

What bothers me is that the need for the for profit schools has arisen due to the inability of the state colleges and universities to fill the needs of the students. In California, you would have an easier time getting in to a state school as an illegal alien than a tax paying resident.

classhandicapper · 07-14-2015, 01:01 PM

I don't like the idea of the government backstopping any student loans fully.

Schools don't have enough (or even any) skin in the game. They will take as many students as they can get away with as long as someone else is paying for it. Maybe a solution is that the government backs x% of a student loan and the school has to take on y%. Then if the kid fails or does not get a job, the school eats enough of the loss to think twice about who they take in as a student and what the chances are of him actually finding a job and paying back the loan.

Student loans are eventually going to be a financial debacle in the US in no small part because the government is incompetent and competent private people will use incompetent and corrupt government to enrich themselves.

AndyC · 07-14-2015, 01:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TJDave

Yes. At the very least, for-profits shouldn't have seats on accreditation boards.

Who should have seats on the board? Presumably all board members would have an education background or connection and have a conflict of interest of some sort.

Tom · 07-14-2015, 01:07 PM

Price controls on tuition would be good.

Clocker · 07-14-2015, 01:13 PM

The federal government has no business in the student loan area to begin with. This whole thing is social engineering. The do-gooders in Congress decided that everyone should have a college degree, just like they decided that everyone should own their own home. How did that one work out?

There are too many people going to college getting degrees that will not help them find a career. Many are doing it because they can't find jobs now, and they can live on student loan money for 4 or 5 years and hope things get better.

Without the government in it, fewer people would be going to school, those people would be making better decisions about spending their own money, and the demand for seats in classrooms would go down greatly, leading to lower prices.

johnhannibalsmith · 07-14-2015, 01:28 PM

Agreed. Then again, what is better than a constituency full of young voters buried under debt they can't pay and can't discharge, only default. Talk about a great double-dip. Bury them and then promise to resurrect them every year.

Robert Fischer · 07-14-2015, 01:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AndyC

If they were suckering-in people via lies they should be sued for damages. If people failed to do their due diligence shame on them. It seems like all efforts to protect the so-called naive people by the government ends up being a massive expensive unproductive bureaucracy.

What bothers me is that the need for the for profit schools has arisen due to the inability of the state colleges and universities to fill the needs of the students.

I don't have strong feelings about what should or shouldn't be done here.

It's also possible that this sanction is actually more about the infringement of the market-share by for-profit colleges of the traditional colleges, and the projected growth, than it is for protection of the citizen. Again, I've simply made some logical observations over time and today I skimmed a couple articles. Far from my expertise.

We have a lot of naive people in this world. There's a reason info-mercials have done so well. There's a reason talk shows have done so well.

Right now we have a disincentive for education. We have this large pool of very low cost laborers, and we have a large military, and we have a large for-profit prison industry. All of this stuff has already been invested in over a significant time-frame, and has strong incentive behind it to maintain.

I don't know what solutions or safe guards would be useful or even how to make such ideas a part of our world if I did care enough to try to figure them out.

traynor · 07-16-2015, 12:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TJDave

The key to solving this is to crack down on accreditation policies. No way should federal monies or loan guarantees be going to these diploma mills.

Absolutely. The one thing most avoid like the plague is "calibration." Meaning a metric of just how much was learned. While "exit testing" is frequently used, it is irrelevant without a baseline for comparison. That is, comparing knowledge of individual students coming in with the knowledge of that same student when leaving/exiting/graduating.

traynor · 07-16-2015, 12:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AndyC

If they were suckering-in people via lies they should be sued for damages. If people failed to do their due diligence shame on them. It seems like all efforts to protect the so-called naive people by the government ends up being a massive expensive unproductive bureaucracy.

What bothers me is that the need for the for profit schools has arisen due to the inability of the state colleges and universities to fill the needs of the students. In California, you would have an easier time getting in to a state school as an illegal alien than a tax paying resident.

What needs are unfulfilled?