Publicly subsidized secondary education in America - funding what's useful?

[Apollet]

So the topic here is a bit of a controversial one. In recent years, there's been a lot of discussion about the true value of a secondary education and how student debt is eventually going to overwhelm the country with many students defaulting on their loans. After some discussion with a few peers, one of the issues brought up was how heavily the government currently subsidizes all secondary education (~90% of loans are publicly held). The debate isn't over the amount of subsidization, rather where should that money be distributed.

So I pose a form of the question here: for a school that is supported by a local government (let's say, 50% of the school's costs), should the government decide the distribution of degrees that the school has?

Let me give you an example: at the U of M TC (which I attend), almost 20% of the entire undergraduate body is a psychology major. Now its obvious that the local (and national) economy can not support 1000+ psychology graduates per year. So if the U of M decides to take 50% funding from the government, should the government be allowed to say: Okay, our economic data shows that in the following years, our economy will need 5% computer science majors, 10% business/marketing/human resources, 20% engineers, etc. to fill all of the positions that will be available. So that's what the University will be required to fulfill." Basically, the U of M would then have to reduce its number of psychology undergraduates from 20% to say, 2%, as long as it's accepting public aide.

This would NOT affect private schools or schools that only take small amounts of government funding. Just large, mostly publicly funded universities.

What do you think? Would this help our public tax dollars go to better use? Perhaps keep those who are just wasting time/money from contributing to the pile of debt that continue to grow?

[Elegiac]

For starters, secondary education refers to High School. University is tertiary education.

You can't fund some majors but not others.

[someotherguy]

Makes sense.
If government is spending money, it should be able to give general guidance how the money should be used.

[Annapolis]

I think the idea might work, but there are a lot of problems to work out with it. If you get funding for a certain amount of X majors then what happens if they all change by senior year?

I think the best solution right now is to just educate students on the market. Let them know where there are jobs and how many and then they can factor that into their decision on which major to choose along with whatever they fancy. This funding for specific majors might be used as a last resort or something.

For starters, secondary education refers to High School. University is tertiary education.

You can't fund some majors but not others.

Why not?

[Elegiac]

Why not?

For starters, commenting on the 'usefulness' of one field over another raises a whole field of ethical and philosophical questions. Not to mention that people often go into fields -other- than what degree they possess, and the simple fact it limits choice and academic liberty.

[Mormolyce]

So if the U of M decides to take 50% funding from the government, should the government be allowed to say: Okay, our economic data shows that in the following years, our economy will need 5% computer science majors, 10% business/marketing/human resources, 20% engineers, etc. to fill all of the positions that will be available. So that's what the University will be required to fulfill." Basically, the U of M would then have to reduce its number of psychology undergraduates from 20% to say, 2%, as long as it's accepting public aide.

How could the government possibly know that? I think you vastly overestimate their ability to predict what skills the market will need.

Currently university courses are determined by supply and demand. Seems like a more sensible setup to me.

[Annapolis]

For starters, commenting on the 'usefulness' of one field over another raises a whole field of ethical and philosophical questions. Not to mention that people often go into fields -other- than what degree they possess, and the simple fact it limits choice and academic liberty.

Ya I'd say commenting on usefulness wouldn't be fair. But you could compare majors based on unemployment of people with each major. Majors with higher unemployment would be the ones less funded to try and drive people away from them. I think they probably have collected those data before. I'm more for educating students on job opportunities rather than resorting to this. But if it got to a point where people still weren't paying attention to job opportunities then maybe government funding for specific majors would be the answer.

[Atrea]

For starters, secondary education refers to High School. University is tertiary education.

You can't fund some majors but not others.

It's called post-secondary in North America.

[Valiea]

Honestly I just called it primary for k-12 and then secondary for College and further lol. Man am I dumb!

The idea is good, but then you're going to have smaller schools basically get phased out because they won't generate enough funding for the specific majors they might provide. If I go to school A because I want to have a major in 1 but because A has only 5 slots able to fill this year I can't go then I choose school B which has 500 spots to fill and then school A becomes less of a noticeable school to people with Major 1.

Let's say instead of switching schools I could just swap majors to something say Major 2. However most people will not just willy-nilly swap majors because their school doesn't provide enough spots for it. So right off the bat you have people not switching to Major 2 from 1 and just going to school B. For those that do swap you have the same issue of how many are available at School A before you look to another college.

The implementation of this idea is not going to be good if it ever becomes real. But yes, it looks good on paper.

[Elegiac]

It's called post-secondary in North America.

Tertiary comes after secondary by definition.

Trust Americans to screw English :-\

[klimon]

If the government were paying for the education through grants, sure. However, they are funding higher education through loans, which the students will have to pay back, typically with interest. As long as the student is taking responsibility for the repayment of their loans, they get to say what careers to pick. The most recent default rate of 9.1% for people who began repayment within the last 2 years is not nearly high enough to start freaking out about this. The fact that one majors in one field and then gets a job or career in another unrelated field is common and not necessarily a negative occurance.

On the other hand, when the government pays for your outright training (such as in medical residencies) they DO get a far greater say in how many and what type of spots are available. Limits on medicare funded residencies are part of the reason why there is a physician shortage in the US (though not the only or even the biggest reason).

[Deleted]

Erm, university should be affordable for everyone and it should be governement funded.
In my country I paid 600€ for my studies for this years + 200€ for books and stuff. I can't get my head around the fact that Americans pay 10 000+$ for their studies :S

[Authary]

For starters, commenting on the 'usefulness' of one field over another raises a whole field of ethical and philosophical questions.

I'm fairly sure we can objectively compare Physics and Art History.

A government can't really predict what kind of knowledge its country will need in the future, especially when said government is mostly composed of humanities majors (in my country, at least, it's the case). Everything should be funded but science-y fields like... Well... Sciences and its applications (medicine, engineering, ...) should be funded more.

[Khoranth]

So the topic here is a bit of a controversial one. In recent years, there's been a lot of discussion about the true value of a secondary education and how student debt is eventually going to overwhelm the country with many students defaulting on their loans. After some discussion with a few peers, one of the issues brought up was how heavily the government currently subsidizes all secondary education (~90% of loans are publicly held). The debate isn't over the amount of subsidization, rather where should that money be distributed.

So I pose a form of the question here: for a school that is supported by a local government (let's say, 50% of the school's costs), should the government decide the distribution of degrees that the school has?

Let me give you an example: at the U of M TC (which I attend), almost 20% of the entire undergraduate body is a psychology major. Now its obvious that the local (and national) economy can not support 1000+ psychology graduates per year. So if the U of M decides to take 50% funding from the government, should the government be allowed to say: Okay, our economic data shows that in the following years, our economy will need 5% computer science majors, 10% business/marketing/human resources, 20% engineers, etc. to fill all of the positions that will be available. So that's what the University will be required to fulfill." Basically, the U of M would then have to reduce its number of psychology undergraduates from 20% to say, 2%, as long as it's accepting public aide.

This would NOT affect private schools or schools that only take small amounts of government funding. Just large, mostly publicly funded universities.

What do you think? Would this help our public tax dollars go to better use? Perhaps keep those who are just wasting time/money from contributing to the pile of debt that continue to grow?

I think this is a great idea. We have way too many people going to college just to party, getting arts & crafts degrees, and working at starbucks. Then, of course, they blame everyone except themselves, since it cannot possibly be there fault they cannot get a good job with an arts & crafts degree.

[Catta]

I think if the US was ever to get a real universal healthcare then subsidizing medicine would be essential. Pay the education for X amount of people and require them to work at government hospitals for 7 years or something like that.

[Deleted]

I can see the flaws in it and if anything like this were ever to come even close to happening, tonnes of opposition would be created. Would it be beneficial in the long run? Perhaps.

[Deleted]

No OP, as long as the state gives loans that the people have to pay back, people should be free to chose what they want. When the state will make education free for good (thus paying for it themselves so to say), then they will be allowed to say 10% this, 15% that is free, rest payed and so on. Sort of like "the first 1000 students are free, others pay" or something.

And that would be much better. But that will never happen because the US won't take money from the military.

[Cthulhu 2020]

For starters, commenting on the 'usefulness' of one field over another raises a whole field of ethical and philosophical questions. Not to mention that people often go into fields -other- than what degree they possess, and the simple fact it limits choice and academic liberty.

But if the state recognizes that there are simply more work force positions available to one major over the other, would it not make sense to incentivise selecting certain majors over others? Thousands of people graduate every year with a liberal arts major and then bitch about not being able to find a job, where there is a derth of engineering graduates and almost a surplus of jobs in various engineering fields.

I don't think the OP was suggesting telling people "No, you cannot have that major" but more that subsidizing costs for people to get certain degrees should be more selectively distributed. Post secondary and continuing education is pricey and if taxpayer money is going to subsidize education, I'd think there should be some kind of proposition that would be voted on to more effectively distribute money.

Then again, I think this is something they call "scholarships" except that you'd automatically get it as opposed to having to apply.

[Khoranth]

No OP, as long as the state gives loans that the people have to pay back, people should be free to chose what they want. When the state will make education free for good (thus paying for it themselves so to say), then they will be allowed to say 10% this, 15% that is free, rest payed and so on. Sort of like "the first 1000 students are free, others pay" or something.

And that would be much better. But that will never happen because the US won't take money from the military.

You do understand a large amount of US citizens basically get free college if their parents do not make a certain amount of cash? The only people who have to pay for college in the USA are people from families with money.

[Catta]

You do understand a large amount of US citizens basically get free college if their parents do not make a certain amount of cash? The only people who have to pay for college in the USA are people from families with money.

You'd think that you would have higher social mobility then