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(08-31-2018 12:18 PM)colohank Wrote:  

(08-31-2018 07:39 AM)BearcatMan Wrote:  

(08-30-2018 05:43 PM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  

(08-30-2018 01:30 PM)BearcatMan Wrote:  

(08-30-2018 12:26 PM)OKIcat Wrote:  Bolded, I think we mostly agree on this point. I'm a product of, and strong advocate for, public higher education. I commend UC (and grudgingly add OSU) for raising standards while increasing enrollment and growing research funding through multiple sources. I feel UC is competing to improve. That's probably the beginning and ending of my free market analogy.

Ohio students are choosing quality and there appear to be winners and losers among the state universities. I fear the politicians will never take the approach you suggested of winnowing majors and programs that duplicate costs many times over across the state. In that scenario, every school could potentially get a little stronger academically in their selected programs.

Exactly...specialization in education would raise the quality of all Universities in my opinion. Schools are attempting to do too much, with too little, and that method is predicated completely on remaining to exist rather than striving to succeed.

Competition has much better results than specialization.

Just look at Boston. Has competition hurt Boston University, Northeastern, Brandeis, Babson, Tufts, or Boston College - all research universities living in the shadow of Harvard and MIT? Not to mention Harvard and MIT? How about the 8 liberal arts masters-level colleges in the city? Or the dozens more in the rest of New England (a region with similar population and landmass as Ohio, if you don't count the empty areas in Maine)?

Of course not. It would be ludicrous to even state such a thing.

Competition forces people to work harder to stay relevant.

Just look at hospitals - another human right where the government has gotten too involved. In California, there are 91 hospital taxation districts, mostly in areas that were rural when they were established in the 1940s. I lived in one of those districts until this year, and even though the district had swelled to 400,000 people over the past few decades, no other hospital opened up because no one can compete with the government. The results were terrible - it was the worst hospital I've ever been in.

Similarly, I've talked with people who lived in West Lafayette (2 hospitals), Urbana-Champaign (1 hospital), and Normal, IL (2 hospitals). The three cities are all college towns with similar populations. Everyone who's been there tells me that Urbana-Champaign's hospital is awful, and I've heard great things about the other 4.

I think you may have missed my point about competition. When two regional schools (say BGSU-UT given my prior example) are competing for the same 25 students in Northwest Ohio looking for Marine Biology as an undergraduate major...no one wins. Both are overspending on redundant programs, rather than reorganizing and using those funds to build nationally competitive programs in specific areas where they are already relatively stable and successful regionally. Essentially, I'm saying that competing against local partners for small populations of students in programs that aren't nationally relevant is a waste of precious resources, when schools could use those resources to compete at a National level in specific areas. If you look at a school like Miami, who has decided to start jumping into Engineering and other technology-based majors, well outside of their 200 years comfort zone, you'll notice that most of their other programs are starting to dip in rankings nationally.

I'm asking for efficiency, which is what our state is trying to do now...inefficiency in education is what causes budget shortfalls like the ones you see at all state schools outside of OSU at the moment. There is no need for there to be 4 comprehensive Universities in the state of Ohio.

Also...I don't know that I'd use 6 private schools who can set their own price every year as a perfect comparison for competitive growth against 14 public schools who can't.

Would someone actually go to either Bowling Green or Toledo to study marine biology? That would be like studying glaciology at UTEP.

(08-31-2018 01:47 PM)OKIcat Wrote:  

(08-31-2018 12:18 PM)colohank Wrote:  

(08-31-2018 07:39 AM)BearcatMan Wrote:  

(08-30-2018 05:43 PM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  

(08-30-2018 01:30 PM)BearcatMan Wrote:  Exactly...specialization in education would raise the quality of all Universities in my opinion. Schools are attempting to do too much, with too little, and that method is predicated completely on remaining to exist rather than striving to succeed.

Competition has much better results than specialization.

Just look at Boston. Has competition hurt Boston University, Northeastern, Brandeis, Babson, Tufts, or Boston College - all research universities living in the shadow of Harvard and MIT? Not to mention Harvard and MIT? How about the 8 liberal arts masters-level colleges in the city? Or the dozens more in the rest of New England (a region with similar population and landmass as Ohio, if you don't count the empty areas in Maine)?

Of course not. It would be ludicrous to even state such a thing.

Competition forces people to work harder to stay relevant.

Just look at hospitals - another human right where the government has gotten too involved. In California, there are 91 hospital taxation districts, mostly in areas that were rural when they were established in the 1940s. I lived in one of those districts until this year, and even though the district had swelled to 400,000 people over the past few decades, no other hospital opened up because no one can compete with the government. The results were terrible - it was the worst hospital I've ever been in.

Similarly, I've talked with people who lived in West Lafayette (2 hospitals), Urbana-Champaign (1 hospital), and Normal, IL (2 hospitals). The three cities are all college towns with similar populations. Everyone who's been there tells me that Urbana-Champaign's hospital is awful, and I've heard great things about the other 4.

I think you may have missed my point about competition. When two regional schools (say BGSU-UT given my prior example) are competing for the same 25 students in Northwest Ohio looking for Marine Biology as an undergraduate major...no one wins. Both are overspending on redundant programs, rather than reorganizing and using those funds to build nationally competitive programs in specific areas where they are already relatively stable and successful regionally. Essentially, I'm saying that competing against local partners for small populations of students in programs that aren't nationally relevant is a waste of precious resources, when schools could use those resources to compete at a National level in specific areas. If you look at a school like Miami, who has decided to start jumping into Engineering and other technology-based majors, well outside of their 200 years comfort zone, you'll notice that most of their other programs are starting to dip in rankings nationally.

I'm asking for efficiency, which is what our state is trying to do now...inefficiency in education is what causes budget shortfalls like the ones you see at all state schools outside of OSU at the moment. There is no need for there to be 4 comprehensive Universities in the state of Ohio.

Also...I don't know that I'd use 6 private schools who can set their own price every year as a perfect comparison for competitive growth against 14 public schools who can't.

Would someone actually go to either Bowling Green or Toledo to study marine biology? That would be like studying glaciology at UTEP.

George Costanza