Tuition as a function of Degree Plan

Hmmm...I lean toward agreeing, but being in Psychology, I feel it puts a burden on those that genuinely wish to pursue a psychology degree and intend to become (much needed and underpaid) counselors and therapists, not to mention researchers. If the gap was too wide, then I'd probably be against it. I will have to think on this more.

*sits back with some popcorn*

(Engineer btw)

On the surface it sounds good.

However, we see that when we optomize for one result (ie, the economy in this case) then it has detrimental effects in other areas. Take standardized testing in schools. Every curriculum is now geared not to learning, but to passing a rather arbitrary test, one which can't (for political reasons) test for critical thinking, work ethic, etc.

This has damaged our educational system.

By reducing the cost of "economically useful" degrees and increasing the cost of arts we may be forcing more people into a better job market than they otherwise might go into, but I worry that this incentive will actually erode our culture and ability to adapt. There's a reason the school of art and architecture and the school of music is on the engineering campus at the University of Michigan, and it's not just because that's where they had available land.

If they want to make such programs more attractive to students, they should look at making the program more attractive, not simply altering the cost model.

stienman said:

On the surface it sounds good.

However, we see that when we optomize for one result (ie, the economy in this case) then it has detrimental effects in other areas. Take standardized testing in schools. Every curriculum is now geared not to learning, but to passing a rather arbitrary test, one which can't (for political reasons) test for critical thinking, work ethic, etc.

This has damaged our educational system.

By reducing the cost of "economically useful" degrees and increasing the cost of arts we may be forcing more people into a better job market than they otherwise might go into, but I worry that this incentive will actually erode our culture and ability to adapt. There's a reason the school of art and architecture and the school of music is on the engineering campus at the University of Michigan, and it's not just because that's where they had available land.

If they want to make such programs more attractive to students, they should look at making the program more attractive, not simply altering the cost model.

Click to expand...

I was thinking something similar with regards to mental health resources. Counselors serve a genuine need in the community and making it more expensive to create new, proficient counselors may have unintended consequences.

I brought this up with a couple of colleagues and these excellent points came up:

• Undesirable majors already have a financial cost in that they will typically pay more in interest over the life of their student loans. It may not be universally true, but it is well understood that being an English major will make getting a job difficult later.
• There will be a cost to hiring new engineering, business etc. professors, which is not cheap. These kinds of professors usually cost MORE than the english or psychology professor. You have to compete with industry. So your majors are paying less tuition for more expensive education. That will be a tricky balance.
• Universities are not technical schools and are meant to provide a broad education. An educated populace is different than a skilled populace. A skilled populace will provide short term economic gains but with long-term costs that are hard to quantify. I know, we are only talking about the majors and not the entire college curriculum, but I would not be surprised if you found that the electives available to students was reduced in STEM and business-oriented degrees, resulting in a narrower education in general.

In short, I feel like the recommendations might result in short term benefits but with long-term costs at the societal level. On the other hand, I would love to have students that were dedicated to getting their psychology degree. Weed out some of the riff raff for me, sure!

All I know is that human being optimize and that if you aren't careful when choosing your incentives, you may hurt yourself more than you help yourself.[DOUBLEPOST=1358276608][/DOUBLEPOST]

MindDetective said:

Weed out some of the riff raff for me, sure!

Click to expand...

In exchange for flooding the STEM degrees with lukewarm students that have no passion for creative engineering? Talk about STEM industries taking a nosedive with everyone barely able to think at all, nevermind thinking out of the box.

stienman said:

In exchange for flooding the STEM degrees with lukewarm students that have no passion for creative engineering? Talk about STEM industries taking a nosedive with everyone barely able to think at all, nevermind thinking out of the box.

Click to expand...

You would be doing me a great service!

MindDetective said:

You would be doing me a great service!

Click to expand...

Not only that, but psych industries would go up as people hit their 30's and 40's and figure out that stem was a bad choice.

Everyone wins! For some value of "win"!

Necronic said:

The other key point that really should be taken into account here is that what we're really talking about here are government subsidies. The states heavily subsidize tuitions at these colleges (some moreso than others). If we have to start seriously looking at cutting those subsidies due to economic shortfalls, shouldn't we also look at those subsidies in terms of the economy itself? If we want to subsidize ephemeral cultural value, so be it, but I think most would agree that we REALLY want to subsidize the investments that show a real and tangible ROI.

Doesn't have to be "either/or", look at them as seperate subsidies. When you do that it doesn't follow with ANY of our government philosophy on funding to have equal subsidies for cultural gains alongside technical/economic gains.

I mean....you don't even do that in a game of Civ.....

Click to expand...

What's equal? There's the problem. If you have 60 different degrees in the humanities, but 20 in STEM, but you'd rather have a 50/50 split of graduates, then what?


And btw, watch for my wife to come into this thread at some point, given that she's got both a STEM degree and multiple humanities degrees. It's a topic we've discussed a few times, and I find it very fascinating having the input of a person who has literally seen (and worked in no less) both sides of it.

Necronic said:

a little bit of an elitest assumption

Click to expand...

Not just a little bit! I'm going full blown elitist over here!

Necronic said:

As for concerns about graduating so called "lukewarm" students, how about we cross that bridge when we come to it? Right now the demand outstrips the supply by so much that many industries would still gladly accept a lukewarm STEM major. It's also, frankly, a little bit of an elitest assumption to think that the only students that can handle STEM, or do something of value with it, are those that go into it with an already existing passion. It also assumes that the current graduates of STEM are there because they love the subject. Truth is a lot of STEM majors are already there simply for the money. So why not make the picture a bit clearer?

Click to expand...

I don't see it as a concern, because there will always be lukewarm students. They will simply take the path of least resistance. That is frequently through Psychology, as it turns out.

Necronic said:

Or Communication.

In terms of cultural significance, let me also point out that STEM itself has massive cultural significance. What has been more important to American, NAY, WORLD cutlure? John Irving? Or the internet?

And let's take it a step further. Would we even have had Kurt Vonnegut if not for the inspiration he drew from the Space Race?

Click to expand...

You get no argument from me on that.

Necronic said:

Let's take it a step even FURTHER

What would Design and Art proffesionals out there prefer? More lukewarm Design and Art students? Or another Apple, which has supplied them thousands of jobs?

Click to expand...

No one is denying there would be short term economic benefits to a plan like this.

Necronic said:

Ok, so it's accepted that there are short term economic benefits. And by short term we are talking about at least a generation from what I see since we are talking about a working life. If we can have a plan that has obvious benefits in over the course of 40 years, with possible speculative problems centuries from now.....that's about as good a plan as I think government could ever come up with. And while you may be tempted to draw parallels with global warming/environmentalism on that description remember: it took STEM to identify that problem and it will take STEM to fix it.

Click to expand...

40 years? I'd agree to 10 at most. Really, I will happily trumpet the benefits of STEM right along with you. But to critically assess a proposal you have to poke holes in it. Listing the obvious benefits over and over doesn't strengthen the proposal...only your own commitment to it.

I wonder what kind of legal challenges it's going to have to face. If the government is going to provide tuition help to students, does the government have a right to discriminate based on coursework under the theory that the economic reward balances against the discrimination?

God, I am such a fucking drain with my History degree. All I did was become a history teacher. It's not like my degree benefits society in any way! I should be made to pay some form of financial penalty for my crimes.

Interesting point. How do we approach this if it's going to gut primary education? Teachers are already disincentivized by low pay and yowling human larvae.

Again, it brings to fore the short term vs long term benefits.

stienman said:

Interesting point. How do we approach this if it's going to gut primary education? Teachers are already disincentivized by low pay and yowling human larvae.

Click to expand...

When I hear comments on something that will gut primary education I can't help but wonder if that really matters at this point. We've already killed the poor horse and are continuing to beat it. Does it really matter if we stop? Especially with no one caring/willing to actually try and recesitate it.

I think part of the problem here is one of image for the term "humanities major." The phrase conjures up the image of a loser type, with his scraggy goatee, telling someone how he studied philosophy to get back at The Man and moving home to live with his parents. That term doesn't bring to mind the folks who want to be teachers, counselors, police officers, lawyers, executives, and so on. Most of those fields require a lot of work with crappy (comparative) pay. Do you really want to tell that group they've been singled out to pay more tuition than someone else because a politician decided they aren't contributing enough to society?

How do you identify degrees that deserved more funding? You don't. You give everyone an equal shot at making something of themselves and help them succeed as much as possible. If you want more people to go into STEM fields, make it more attractive. Don't punish people who want to study outside of STEM fields.

As someone currently in school for a Psych major (and knows he's going to have to get AT LEAST a Masters if he wants to make a career out of it), I'm getting a real kick out of this. Go on, discuss my future as I slowly acquire more debt trying to better myself...

I have a question:
Is there any price difference between STEM and humanities right now in the US? Around here price is loosely based on cost (mind you, all education is subsidized so we supposedly pay 30 to 60% of cost) and there's a few categories: studies that involve more practical work, labs, etc (such as the ones in STEM programmes) are a bit more expensive. That's natural to a point. If you don't have anything like it, you are already compensating, aren't you? If there is no direct relation between cost and future salary, you already have an incentive to study jobs with higher salaries.

(Here, the requirements to renew a scholarship are a quite lower -pass 60% of subjects instead of 80%- for for people in engineering programmes. I was always offended that they made the lower requirements for engineers, as if engineering was easier than physics! I am now offended because I see engineering is seen as much more important to society).


Besides all of this, I've come to think that the problem nowadays is in primary education. You have a problem of demotivated or lukewarm university students, and you have that problem everywhere. Really, the medium term solution is to drastically improve their education before they get there. You'll probably be able to get better quality professionals later on, plus if you consider there's not enough interest in STEM you can change that at this level (whereas a purely economic motivation has all the inconvenients already discussed for the field itself)

Ps.: I just woke up, I'm sorry if you need to make an effort to see my actual arguments somewhere in these words.

EDIT: "Some universities do charge more for STEM degrees, because they are typically more expensive to run." I guess I should've read the article first...

AshburnerX said:

As someone currently in school for a Psych major (and knows he's going to have to get AT LEAST a Masters if he wants to make a career out of it), I'm getting a real kick out of this. Go on, discuss my future as I slowly acquire more debt trying to better myself...

Click to expand...

English and Classics here.

I'll probably be preparing for medical in a year or so, my shit's expensive no matter what I do.

AshburnerX said:

As someone currently in school for a Psych major (and knows he's going to have to get AT LEAST a Masters if he wants to make a career out of it), I'm getting a real kick out of this. Go on, discuss my future as I slowly acquire more debt trying to better myself...

Click to expand...

Exactly this for me.