But think of the children!

[rah]

Sadly many, many high school grads can't do this at all, or do it very poorly. They can't express their own ideas in a coherent manner.

And even worse, colleges assume they already have these basic skills so they don't feel the need to focus on them.

And it shouldn't take a college education to get your point across on any required subject. (written or verbal) But as an employer I consider it a requirement.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Then there is this issue:

 

[Estebonrober]

Then there is this issue:

View attachment 519886

My wife is in school right now and it is crazy, an anatomy book is like 184$. It's intense and I'm not sure what we can do about it, market forces are kind of broken and now we are down to the triopolies that are taking over so many sectors of the economy. It begs for. . .trust busting regulation! Of course the libertarians will be outraged (from the other threads going on today)

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Look for foreign editions on Amazon. I started getting all my aerospace books that way and the only difference was that all of the problems were in metric units.

 

[Synobun]

$184 is pretty cheap.

A lot of classes/schools wised up to the foreign and used market. Now they ship books with one-time-use codes.

 

[Estebonrober]

Yea I noticed both of those trends, it is a bit unsettling. I have no real knowledge of the industry and how it works, I'm sure there are reasons for the costs. That said the increases have been disproportionate.

 

[Ferocitus]

My wife is in school right now and it is crazy, an anatomy book is like 184$. It's intense and I'm not sure what we can do about it, market forces are kind of broken and now we are down to the triopolies that are taking over so many sectors of the economy. It begs for. . .trust busting regulation! Of course the libertarians will be outraged (from the other threads going on today)

One thing that many US academics and I agree on - Alexandra Elbakyan is the goto gal for papers and books.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Reaching back to the second to last paragraph of the OP, this article says that the share of the public that is in the middle class has dropped from 60% in the early 70s to 50% now. The effect is much larger than 10% would suggest because I think the population has doubled since then. The article points out that not only have many middle-income jobs disappeared as de-industrialization has taken hold, the jobs that remain pay significantly less than they once did.

An example: In 1972, the average American union carpenter earned the current equivalent of $33.55 an hour — about $70,000 a year. Today, a carpenter earns $20.23 on average, about $42,000 annually, according to Indeed.

It's a short article, so here's the whole thing:

Spoiler :

A primary complaint about the current U.S. economy has been the hollowing out of "middle-skill jobs" — the type of work that people with high school educations and substantial training could do and earn a "middle wage."

Be smart: But even if such jobs were restored, it would not mean a revival of America's battered middle class. That's because middle-wage jobs largely do not pay a middle-class salary.

Confused? So were we.

What's happening: Since the early 1970s, the American middle class has shrunk to about half of all families, from about 60%, according to Pew, a trend that's taken on more importance since the financial crash, becoming a substantial feature of the nation's broad disaffection.

• Digging into the economic fallout, study after study has noted the deindustrialization of numerous states, such as Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, resulting in tens of thousands of job losses.
• But while many of those jobs once paid middle-class wages, the collapse of unions and other factors have much-reduced the pay. Now, the same jobs are said to pay "middle wages," but do not suggest a ladder to the actual middle class.

An example: In 1972, the average American union carpenter earned the current equivalent of $33.55 an hour — about $70,000 a year. Today, a carpenter earns $20.23 on average, about $42,000 annually, according to Indeed.

• The difference in dollar terms is of course enormous. But it's arguably more in terms of what it buys. In the 1970s, it was a ticket to the middle class, with the then-accouterments, including a home, a reasonably new car, and possibly even a summer vacation.
• Today's average carpenter salary is at the very bottom of the middle class, which begins at about $40,000, according to Pew, and does not typically put a worker in a position to purchase the 1970s middle-class lifestyle.

The background: In 1948, unionized auto industry workers achieved a major breakthrough — an agreement from the industry on a "basic wage." Over the subsequent decades, the symbol of the basic wage was $20 an hour, a threshold that spread, representing the bottom of the union wage ladder.

• By 1979, 23% of all U.S. hourly workers earned at least $20. Then it began dropping, to 18% in 1989 and 16% in 2000.

Today, economists and other experts typically call $15 an hour "middle wage;" the top of the middle-wage scale can be a little over $20. Since the financial crash a decade ago, some three-quarters of new jobs have paid around $15 or less an hour. As of 2015, 42% of all workers earned $15 or less per hour, according to the National Employment Law Project.

• Why it matters: Language matters. Use of the phrase "middle wage" projects the impression of a middle-class job. That they are not suggests a degradation of what it means to be middle class — now, to be middle class, you must earn a "high wage."
• "I would expect that most people that earn $15 an hour, especially if they are in higher-cost areas and have a family to support, are not able to live what they believe to be a middle class life given the increased costs for housing, education, and health care, and the fact that these costs are increasing far faster than wages," said Al Fitzpayne, who runs the Future of Work Initiative for the Aspen Institute.

And while wages have stagnated, costs have continued to climb for everything. Not only have costs climbed but there are simply more of them to begin with. An internet connection is required to compete in the job market now. Obviously that didn't exist in the 1970s, so that's an entirely new bill to pay. College education wasn't required for the majority of middle class jobs back then, now it is - adding a cost to individuals and families that most people could have avoided entirely back then. And while many goods have tracked with inflation and many others have actually come down over time in real terms, other services and goods are on sickly exponential curves like health care.

Bill Maher recently rejoiced that the birthrate is falling for younger generations because it's good for the environment. I can agree that it is good for the environment for human populations to level out or even fall. At the same time, it's really flipping terrible that people are being forced to make personal choices that affect all of society because they were dealt a miserable economic situation to come of age in.

 

[uppi]

Look for foreign editions on Amazon. I started getting all my aerospace books that way and the only difference was that all of the problems were in metric units.

Wait, these books have problems with values in imperial units? Sometimes I wish for the downfall of the US just to get rid of stupid units in engineering.

Also: Try to get old books. Doesn't work for some subjects that are rapidly developing, but for some subjects you are perfectly fine with a 20 year old book.

Reaching back to the second to last paragraph of the OP, this article says that the share of the public that is in the middle class has dropped from 60% in the early 70s to 50% now. The effect is much larger than 10% would suggest because I think the population has doubled since then.

To be fair, that number is misleading: If you look at the source, the share of the upper class has increased by 5% in the same time frame. So only half of the shrinkage of the middle class is due to people becoming relatively poorer. Which is still quite bad, no question, but the effect is only half as big as it seems at first glance (assuming the numbers are comparable and meaningful).

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Wait, these books have problems with values in imperial units? Sometimes I wish for the downfall of the US just to get rid of stupid units in engineering.

Also: Try to get old books. Doesn't work for some subjects that are rapidly developing, but for some subjects you are perfectly fine with a 20 year old book.

American engineers have to be fluent in both metric and imperial and our textbooks have problem sets in both unit systems. Foreign editions are pure metric.

The problem with wildly out of date textbooks is that many professors assign problems for homework out of the textbook and the older the edition, the less likely you can find the same problem to work. You also run into professors who are sticklers for only allowing current-edition copies - and more than once I found the sticklers would be the same people who wrote the books so they got a cut when they forced classes to upgrade editions.


-----------------------------


Elizabeth Warren has come out with a plan to tax the rich to make public college and university free and to forgive up to $50k of debt per person if the household income is less than $100k per year. I can't see this passing even if she won but it's a step in the right direction.

 

[rah]

and more than once I found the sticklers would be the same people who wrote the books so they got a cut

This was always my experience. But if the were non-tenured, it was hard to hold that against them.

 

[El_Machinae]

Not for nothing, but a straight-up progressive income tax is essentially the same idea. We fund your education, and then we get a slice of your future productivity.

A complex system of loans, interest on the loans, debt forgiveness, debt repayment ...... it's just a more complex system for a similar idea. It makes sense, if it causes people to more carefully value their education costs, but that's about it

 

[rah]

yeah, the problem with free is that it can lead to considerable waste.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

if it causes people to more carefully value their education costs, but that's about it

The problem is that it has not done that. I will repeat a tired argument I've made many times because it's relevant but many kids don't plan their education or the associated costs. Parents make the decisions for the kids and often leave them with the bill at the end and no support. We judge people under 21 as insufficiently mature to drink but let them make decisions which will impact their financial health for the rest of their life - or let other people make that decision for them.

Moreover, the demand for academic qualifications in the job market is overwhelming and leaves kids without a lot of meaningful choices. It's insane that we have a system where a person who wants to be a teacher is going to have to take out over $30k in loans and will at best make about that much per year when they graduate in many states. Or put another way, if it takes tens of thousands of dollars in education to staff the front desk for minimum wage, the whole system is broken in a fundamental way. No amount of smart debt management and careful consideration of the fundamentals of your loan terms are going to change that picture because the system itself is broken.

This was always my experience. But if the were non-tenured, it was hard to hold that against them.

God bless the professors who wrote textbooks they sold for $5 or $10 each. I had a couple of those as well but mostly it was money-grubbers.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

As if this wasn't enough, wages in the US have been stagnant for 40 years and this vicious cycle of rising costs and declining relative income has resulted in a birth rate that's lower than it's been for 30 years.

I just noticed this line. I'm not buying it, some of the poorest countries in the world have birth rates 2-3 times that of the US. If we're looking for a cause of declining birthrate it's probably better to look elsewhere.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I just noticed this line. I'm not buying it, some of the poorest countries in the world have birth rates 2-3 times that of the US. If we're looking for a cause of declining birthrate it's probably better to look elsewhere.

You mean like survey data showing this is a top self-reported reason why young people aren't having kids?* You also realize making comparisons across countries like this is facile, right?

*And you can google just as well as I can; to head off the 'sources please!' that's coming.

 

[El_Machinae]

I think the United States has a student loan crisis, regardless. It is a series of bad incentives, from guaranteed loan status to allowing loan interest to be tax-deductible.

My long-term hand wave suggestion is to remember that education is cheap, it's the certification that seems to be expensive.

But you still don't want to remove the price mechanism all the way. Parents have trouble making good decisions, but in the end you want individuals making predictions about what will help their future the best. The problem with the current student loan problem is that the consequences of a mistaken choice are overwhelmingly placed on the student, and are too large.

 

[uppi]

You also run into professors who are sticklers for only allowing current-edition copies - and more than once I found the sticklers would be the same people who wrote the books so they got a cut when they forced classes to upgrade editions.

Those should be prime targets for some collective student action.

Elizabeth Warren has come out with a plan to tax the rich to make public college and university free and to forgive up to $50k of debt per person if the household income is less than $100k per year. I can't see this passing even if she won but it's a step in the right direction.

Would "free" mean no tuition, but you have to cover your living expenses yourself? Best case would be some kind of financial support for students to cover those as well, but I guess that would be too much too ask in the US.

yeah, the problem with free is that it can lead to considerable waste.

But "free" is never really free. Living expenses need to be paid and whoever controls those has some interest and power to limit waste. Even if those are covered, few people want to waste too much time of their life being a student.

If you are still worried about waste, you can make conditions under which education is free. For example, only your first education is covered. If you decide to switch careers, you are on your own. Or it is free only for as many years as it takes to complete a degree, if you take longer, you need to come up with the funding yourself.

I just noticed this line. I'm not buying it, some of the poorest countries in the world have birth rates 2-3 times that of the US. If we're looking for a cause of declining birthrate it's probably better to look elsewhere.

In the poorest countries, the high birth rate is due to many other reasons (like no access to birth control). But if you just look at one country, birth rate certainly is coupled to the well-being of the people.

 

[rah]

God bless the professors who wrote textbooks they sold for $5 or $10 each. I had a couple of those as well but mostly it was money-grubbers.

You must be pretty old to have had textbooks in that range
I remember them that was back in the 70's.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

My long-term hand wave suggestion is to remember that education is cheap

It is but it isn't. There are some fields that do require expensive facilities to enable learning. And at the end of the day, the people we need teaching in university do have to be highly-credentialed themselves which means they are expensive. Of course, we are warping that basic paradigm by allowing our education system to be staffed by extremely underpaid adjuncts but that's a whole other issue.

In any case, I mostly agree with you here.

Would "free" mean no tuition, but you have to cover your living expenses yourself? Best case would be some kind of financial support for students to cover those as well, but I guess that would be too much too ask in the US.

I'm sorry I don't know the answer because so far the reporting on her plan has been from a high level that doesn't get into the minutiae of her proposal and I haven't done any digging.

The housing questions are very valid and I've got examples from real life of both ends of it - people being stupid with their own loans as well as the system being rigged.

I had an ex-in-law who went to school at an expensive private university for a degree in administration and she chose to live in a penthouse suite in a nice apartment near the university. Her family lived within easy commuting distance to the school but she wanted a real 'college experience' or whatever and ended up taking out over $100k in student loans. It was insanity and it's people like her that feed the narrative: "WHAT ABOUT PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY?!" . She was dumb, people can be dumb, but there are bigger structural issues at play and it sucks her example covers up some of those issues.

Here's a more structural example:
The city council of Irvine just voted to make it illegal to rent an apartment with someone else that is not family. Obviously, students from UCI showed up to city hall to explain this would make many of them homeless and drive up costs for everyone but it fell on deaf ears. Obviously this specific example applies only to Irvine but the cost of housing in much of the country is another serious problem that exacerbates the student loan crisis.

You must be pretty old to have had textbooks in that range
I remember them that was back in the 70's.

Nah, I'm only out of school by 3 years. The books were that cheap because the professor wrote it a decade ago and they printed it on the university press with cheap spiral binding. Most of my books were over $50, I'd say about $100 was the median price.