(08-30-2015 10:26 PM)He1nousOne Wrote:  Yes, Bernie has a shot. That is why the power people are greenlighting Biden to run. They know he will draw support away from Bernie. Yes, Trump has a shot and we could end up seeing a Trump vs Sanders race. I am actually hoping for it as nothing would please me more than to see the both of them discard their political parties and run a completely Independent Presidential Race. Of course that isn't likely to happen but both the Republican and Democratic Parties need to die.

That being said, it always amuses me to see the "freedom activists" claiming that individuals make the best choices for themselves. Of course, the government often does even worse because our best and brightest do not run things. Our best and brightest often hamstring the government in fact.

Far too many people go to school and get worthless degrees. We have actually reached a period where a lot of people without degrees are living better than people with degrees because of the debt incurred and the inability to pay it off.

Either we fix that problem or nature fixes it. The natural way is more often than not the more painful way. But hey, keep pointing at boogeymen and saying they cant take away your rights! A country full of children.

Amen....

(08-30-2015 09:39 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(08-30-2015 06:29 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(08-30-2015 05:54 PM)58-56 Wrote:  It could be done:

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/arch...on/273801/

The problem isn't "socialism," it would be keeping universities from pocketing the federal money, spending twice as much on bloated administrations and admin salaries, and keeping tuition just as high and still climbing. Here at UAB our bumbling, incompetent piece of **** Ray Watts makes more than twice what Obama does. Is President of UAB twice as hard as President of the US? Would it be that hard to find some wino living in the dumpster behind Tire Engineers who'd do a better job than Ray?

The money is already there. College does not have to cost what it does; it really doesn't have to cost students anything at all. But how are you going to claw the cash out of the greedy grasp of admins making $853,000 a year for a part-time job? Students have already proven they'll indenture themselves for life to pay the going rate, and debt-holders have leveraged exemptions to bankruptcy and even garnishment of Social Security for student loan debt. It's a powerful racket with many, many snouts in the trough, where well-paid college admins have hooked up with the equivalent of better-dressed payday lenders to shake down entire generations of Americans in a massive ring of theft of both cash and dreams.

Yup. Giving university administrators more federal money with no oversight is not going to make higher education better.

What they ought to do to bring the costs down is to stop giving federal guarantees for student loans. Once that trough of money is unavailable to schools, and students and families choose only schools that they can truly afford to pay for, then the cost will drop.

I agree with the first part but without some replacement funding source we cut out a lot of kids who fall between dire need and toward the low reaches of upper middle class.

Spending controls aren't that hard if there is a big purchaser who can force prices. Many states (mine included) fell for the gruff of using lottery money to fund scholarships. What happens if you give every 2.5 and better high school GPA $1000 a semester? It becomes easier to raise prices $500 to $1000 a semester.

What happens if you instead based on a matrix of financial need and academic ability don't make scholarships X dollars but make them a percentage but fix how much is received prices will iron out.

If a school charges $4k and the reimbursement rate is $3800 and a student receives 50% the school receives $1900 and cannot collect more than $1900 from anyone receiving aid prices will work out.

I didn't say that banks have to stop making loans. I said that the federal guarantees should be removed, so that banks bear the same risk they do on other loans and thus make student loans on the same basis as other loans, i.e., if there is a reasonable relationship between the money loaned out and the value received.

Banks loan out all this money without regard to reasonable lending criteria because Uncle Sam guarantees that they'll get their money back regardless, and schools are perversely incentivized to raise costs to the outer limit of what federally-guaranteed loans will finance, and the schools that are shady and/or desperate (e.g. online-based universities or fourth-tier law schools) don't have any incentive to care whether or not students ever get a degree. That ought to stop.

(08-30-2015 03:31 PM)msu_bears Wrote:  Bernie Sanders (who I think will be the next president) is proposing to make tuition to public colleges free.

As a large chunk of many athletic budgets are scholarships, what will happen to that money as scholarships would no longer be needed? With reduced budgets, more schools could claim that they aren't losing money on athletics anymore. I could see schools using this as an excuse to move from FCS to FBS for example as they won't have the added scholarship costs and I'm sure there could be some other ripple effects that effect conference membership.

(08-30-2015 05:32 PM)ken d Wrote:  This just shows that both ends of the political spectrum have their whackos.

Austin experimented with free bus service for a while to encourage mass transit use. People hopped on the bus for a block. The buses were overflowing and couldn't meet their schedules. It was a disaster.

You can easily extrapolate what would happen with free college tuition. So can most politicians and the college presidents. Given that it would be a disaster for colleges and the federal budget, its not going to happen and thus, there will be no impact on realignment. Just as you can't expect Chinese universities to take up football and that have an impact on realignment.

(08-31-2015 09:08 AM)bullet Wrote:  

(08-30-2015 05:32 PM)ken d Wrote:  This just shows that both ends of the political spectrum have their whackos.

Austin experimented with free bus service for a while to encourage mass transit use. People hopped on the bus for a block. The buses were overflowing and couldn't meet their schedules. It was a disaster.

You can easily extrapolate what would happen with free college tuition. So can most politicians and the college presidents. Given that it would be a disaster for colleges and the federal budget, its not going to happen and thus, there will be no impact on realignment. Just as you can't expect Chinese universities to take up football and that have an impact on realignment.

Are you saying the AAC isn't planning on adding Hawaii in a bid to capture that huge Asian market before the Big Ten does?

(08-30-2015 09:39 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(08-30-2015 06:29 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(08-30-2015 05:54 PM)58-56 Wrote:  It could be done:

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/arch...on/273801/

The problem isn't "socialism," it would be keeping universities from pocketing the federal money, spending twice as much on bloated administrations and admin salaries, and keeping tuition just as high and still climbing. Here at UAB our bumbling, incompetent piece of **** Ray Watts makes more than twice what Obama does. Is President of UAB twice as hard as President of the US? Would it be that hard to find some wino living in the dumpster behind Tire Engineers who'd do a better job than Ray?

The money is already there. College does not have to cost what it does; it really doesn't have to cost students anything at all. But how are you going to claw the cash out of the greedy grasp of admins making $853,000 a year for a part-time job? Students have already proven they'll indenture themselves for life to pay the going rate, and debt-holders have leveraged exemptions to bankruptcy and even garnishment of Social Security for student loan debt. It's a powerful racket with many, many snouts in the trough, where well-paid college admins have hooked up with the equivalent of better-dressed payday lenders to shake down entire generations of Americans in a massive ring of theft of both cash and dreams.

Yup. Giving university administrators more federal money with no oversight is not going to make higher education better.

What they ought to do to bring the costs down is to stop giving federal guarantees for student loans. Once that trough of money is unavailable to schools, and students and families choose only schools that they can truly afford to pay for, then the cost will drop.

I agree with the first part but without some replacement funding source we cut out a lot of kids who fall between dire need and toward the low reaches of upper middle class.

Spending controls aren't that hard if there is a big purchaser who can force prices. Many states (mine included) fell for the gruff of using lottery money to fund scholarships. What happens if you give every 2.5 and better high school GPA $1000 a semester? It becomes easier to raise prices $500 to $1000 a semester.

What happens if you instead based on a matrix of financial need and academic ability don't make scholarships X dollars but make them a percentage but fix how much is received prices will iron out.

If a school charges $4k and the reimbursement rate is $3800 and a student receives 50% the school receives $1900 and cannot collect more than $1900 from anyone receiving aid prices will work out.

I think the technology now exists to build a system that can provide a legitimate 4 year degree (that actually means something) for around $10-15K. Obviously the courses would be largely internet based, but if done right with the same curriculum taught on campus as an arm of a state university, it could be successful. That was part of the conflict between Perry and UT. Perry wanted something like a $10K 4-year degree coming out of UT. I dont think you want to run this out of your state flagship schools. I think such a program would be better coming out of something like Sam Houston State or a secondary campus of UT (maybe like UTSA or UTEP).

Regardless of the details, I think the existence of a respectable state backed $10K on-line degree program that is accepted by the business community is possible and might be almost as big of a game changer as free tuition (and much more likely to happen).

"The problem with socialism is that eventually run out of other people's money."

Margaret Thatcher

(08-31-2015 12:53 PM)XLance Wrote:  "The problem with socialism is that eventually run out of other people's money."

Margaret Thatcher

The problem is that we the people who pay all these different taxes do get hit hard at the public colleges and universities. Hey, we pay state and federal taxes, plus local taxes like sales tax that funds the schools as well. But then we get stuck with paying high tuition money to go to the public schools. As it is, there are wealthy people paying very little or no taxes at all.


Bernie Saunders was on the list as VP candidates for Ron Paul in 2008 and 2012. They did agree on several issues.

(08-31-2015 01:03 PM)DavidSt Wrote:  

(08-31-2015 12:53 PM)XLance Wrote:  "The problem with socialism is that eventually run out of other people's money."

Margaret Thatcher

The problem is that we the people who pay all these different taxes do get hit hard at the public colleges and universities. Hey, we pay state and federal taxes, plus local taxes like sales tax that funds the schools as well. But then we get stuck with paying high tuition money to go to the public schools. As it is, there are wealthy people paying very little or no taxes at all.


Bernie Saunders was on the list as VP candidates for Ron Paul in 2008 and 2012. They did agree on several issues.

WOW!

How do I get that sort of tax treatment?

(08-31-2015 01:13 PM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  

(08-31-2015 01:03 PM)DavidSt Wrote:  

(08-31-2015 12:53 PM)XLance Wrote:  "The problem with socialism is that eventually run out of other people's money."

Margaret Thatcher

The problem is that we the people who pay all these different taxes do get hit hard at the public colleges and universities. Hey, we pay state and federal taxes, plus local taxes like sales tax that funds the schools as well. But then we get stuck with paying high tuition money to go to the public schools. As it is, there are wealthy people paying very little or no taxes at all.


Bernie Saunders was on the list as VP candidates for Ron Paul in 2008 and 2012. They did agree on several issues.

WOW!

How do I get that sort of tax treatment?

That is what Bernie is talking about. These high tech businesses and all that that depends on education and all that refuses to pay taxes and all that, and complains that we do not have qualified people to hire, and they want to bring people in from other countries to take those jobs.

(08-31-2015 01:29 PM)DavidSt Wrote:  

(08-31-2015 01:13 PM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  

(08-31-2015 01:03 PM)DavidSt Wrote:  

(08-31-2015 12:53 PM)XLance Wrote:  "The problem with socialism is that eventually run out of other people's money."

Margaret Thatcher

The problem is that we the people who pay all these different taxes do get hit hard at the public colleges and universities. Hey, we pay state and federal taxes, plus local taxes like sales tax that funds the schools as well. But then we get stuck with paying high tuition money to go to the public schools. As it is, there are wealthy people paying very little or no taxes at all.


Bernie Saunders was on the list as VP candidates for Ron Paul in 2008 and 2012. They did agree on several issues.

WOW!

How do I get that sort of tax treatment?

That is what Bernie is talking about. These high tech businesses and all that that depends on education and all that refuses to pay taxes and all that, and complains that we do not have qualified people to hire, and they want to bring people in from other countries to take those jobs.

I was being sarcastic.

(08-31-2015 12:53 PM)XLance Wrote:  "The problem with socialism is that eventually run out of other people's money."

Margaret Thatcher

Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite.

John Kenneth Galbraith



See, I can quote a random statement by someone too except...mine is relevant, real and....I actually make a comment to go along with it.

He1nousOne

Well, I should have known this would be a disaster. This whole thread is politics and not why I started the thread.

people on both ends of the political spectrum should be able to agree on
1) college costs are out of control and something needs to be done about it
2) kids willing to work hard should be able to attend college regardless of their parents income.

I'm a moderate (left leaning) and think how colleges are funded needs a massive overhaul. I completely agree with the conservatives on here saying that we can't just write blank checks to these college administrators without controls in place or else the cost of education and the tax burden will go even higher. I also am conservative leaning in that we are funding to many "useless degrees". I think the private sector can pick up the slack on theater degrees and such but I'm not completely against the public schools offering a limited number of them or offering as many as they want if they are funded by donations/endowments/etc. But I lean left in thinking that kids of any income background willing to work hard should have their teaching/STEM/etc. type of degrees completely funded by the government.

=====================================

back to the original topic:

schools have massive investments in their brand, sports stadiums, etc that they are going to protect regardless of what happens, and I think the donors, TV money, etc will keep most programs going. The Ivy league seems to have figured out how to do sports without sports scholarships and I'd like to see more schools move in that direction. Personally, I'd like to see Basketball/Football split away from the other sports in terms of scheduling/conference affiliations. It makes sense for Texas to play Ohio State in Football as it's a once in a semester game and on a weekend and a big payday TV wise. Playing Olympic sports on weekdays all over the country and missing tons of classes needs to be eliminated, there is no reason that Texas should ever leave the state in minor sports other than for a few games or tournaments that could be held during off weeks such as between semesters or spring break.

(08-31-2015 07:00 PM)msu_bears Wrote:  I also am conservative leaning in that we are funding to many "useless degrees". I think the private sector can pick up the slack on theater degrees and such but I'm not completely against the public schools offering a limited number of them or offering as many as they want if they are funded by donations/endowments/etc. But I lean left in thinking that kids of any income background willing to work hard should have their teaching/STEM/etc. type of degrees completely funded by the government.

Our culture shouldn't be determined by rich kids. We need all parts of society contributing to the art, the writing, the music that makes us more than clever animals.

On the other hand, starry-eyed naive students need to be protected from predatory profs who want their hot young bodies to grade papers, teach survey classes and conduct their research for them, all in exchange for a piece of paper that won't even qualify you to flip burgers (funny that faculty is all up in arms about sex, but is just fine with what amounts to theft of labor).

Useless degrees don't have to be useless - but faculty and advisors need to be honest and responsible when telling students what to expect from them.

(08-31-2015 07:00 PM)msu_bears Wrote:  Well, I should have known this would be a disaster. This whole thread is politics and not why I started the thread.

people on both ends of the political spectrum should be able to agree on
1) college costs are out of control and something needs to be done about it
2) kids willing to work hard should be able to attend college regardless of their parents income.

I'm a moderate (left leaning) and think how colleges are funded needs a massive overhaul. I completely agree with the conservatives on here saying that we can't just write blank checks to these college administrators without controls in place or else the cost of education and the tax burden will go even higher. I also am conservative leaning in that we are funding to many "useless degrees". I think the private sector can pick up the slack on theater degrees and such but I'm not completely against the public schools offering a limited number of them or offering as many as they want if they are funded by donations/endowments/etc. But I lean left in thinking that kids of any income background willing to work hard should have their teaching/STEM/etc. type of degrees completely funded by the government.

=====================================

back to the original topic:

schools have massive investments in their brand, sports stadiums, etc that they are going to protect regardless of what happens, and I think the donors, TV money, etc will keep most programs going. The Ivy league seems to have figured out how to do sports without sports scholarships and I'd like to see more schools move in that direction. Personally, I'd like to see Basketball/Football split away from the other sports in terms of scheduling/conference affiliations. It makes sense for Texas to play Ohio State in Football as it's a once in a semester game and on a weekend and a big payday TV wise. Playing Olympic sports on weekdays all over the country and missing tons of classes needs to be eliminated, there is no reason that Texas should ever leave the state in minor sports other than for a few games or tournaments that could be held during off weeks such as between semesters or spring break.

It's not the job of the Federal Government.

(08-31-2015 06:29 PM)He1nousOne Wrote:  

(08-31-2015 12:53 PM)XLance Wrote:  "The problem with socialism is that eventually run out of other people's money."

Margaret Thatcher

Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite.

John Kenneth Galbraith



See, I can quote a random statement by someone too except...mine is relevant, real and....I actually make a comment to go along with it.

He1nousOne

"What's mine is mine! What's your's is negotiable."

This is the way it really works between any governmental form and its citizens. That's all anyone needs to know. It is however the great catalyst for civilization as almost everyone who migrated away from a government that operated by that mantra moved someplace for self governance, which of course their heirs' heirs subsequently forfeited for ease.

(08-30-2015 06:29 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(08-30-2015 05:54 PM)58-56 Wrote:  It could be done:

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/arch...on/273801/

The problem isn't "socialism," it would be keeping universities from pocketing the federal money, spending twice as much on bloated administrations and admin salaries, and keeping tuition just as high and still climbing. Here at UAB our bumbling, incompetent piece of **** Ray Watts makes more than twice what Obama does. Is President of UAB twice as hard as President of the US? Would it be that hard to find some wino living in the dumpster behind Tire Engineers who'd do a better job than Ray?

The money is already there. College does not have to cost what it does; it really doesn't have to cost students anything at all. But how are you going to claw the cash out of the greedy grasp of admins making $853,000 a year for a part-time job? Students have already proven they'll indenture themselves for life to pay the going rate, and debt-holders have leveraged exemptions to bankruptcy and even garnishment of Social Security for student loan debt. It's a powerful racket with many, many snouts in the trough, where well-paid college admins have hooked up with the equivalent of better-dressed payday lenders to shake down entire generations of Americans in a massive ring of theft of both cash and dreams.

Yup. Giving university administrators more federal money with no oversight is not going to make higher education better.

What they ought to do to bring the costs down is to stop giving federal guarantees for student loans. Once that trough of money is unavailable to schools, and students and families choose only schools that they can truly afford to pay for, then the cost will drop.

When I went to college(NIU) in 1982 the Tuition and fees were something around 1500 per year, today tuition and fees at NIU is 12,000. The median income in 1982 was 28,700, today it is 53,000.

College is no longer affordable for even an upper middle class family.