There's an unmarked snip here - we were talking about self-
instruction.
That's the mechanism. What is the nature of the distortion in the
prices and the "market"?
Is the distortion caused by subsidy of itself bad?
Yes.
The intended effect of the government subsidies is that more students
get an education, and the education they get is better.
On Oct 28, 6:40 pm, James Arthur wrote:
So what conclusion should I have leapt to?
You haven't shown that my conclusion was wrong, merely that you don't
like it.
Do provide some data to support your point of view.
So prove me wrong ...
Simple-minded "perfect market" thinking doesn't work too well with
simple consumables like socks and bread. It works even less well with
an intangible product like education.
And how does this make individual study any more difficult?
Formal
education is a lot easier than studying on your own, simply because in
formal education someone structures the course for you, and monitors
your progress through it. How does your "government intervention" make
this even more difficult?
If nobody knows how much education ought to cost, how can you know
that the price system is distorted?
The educators charge what people can pay, and cannot charge more.
With artificial means, people can pay more than they can afford, and
universities can then charge more than an ordinary person can afford.
Thereafter, ordinary persons cannot afford university.
Yes.
But the result is that prices increase and the education is re-
targeted; diluted, not improved.
But I obtrude--I'll let Simon speak for himself.
Still beating that hysterical drum?
Planning on visiting the 21st century any time soon?
Or in the UK the Open University (self study remote learning) set up
in the 60's by ISTR Harold Wilson's government. It allowed those
without the means to go to university for a degree to learn at home in
their own time. Lectures were broadcast out of hours on TV channels -
these days it is all DVD.
Does the USA have anything comparable?
It has to be subsidised for some of the very brightest but poor
students to stand any chance of getting a decent education. I have had
a couple of guys work for me in the past who should have gone on to
university, but because of their fathers background as badly paid
labourers had to leave school and get a proper job at 16.
Superb opportunities offered only to the kids of the richest in
society is a huge waste of talent.
And the rich kids for the most part
are bone idle and stupid. How very American.
ISTR in the US you have party colleges for them.
In the UK educators charge what it takes to keep the university
running nothing more nothing less. I don't doubt that the popular
courses subsidise the unpopular ones a bit, but overall it is pretty
fair.
In Japan where there are both public and private universities the
degrees from some of the private universities are a complete joke. The
customer is always right! We had one guy with a degree from one of
them who never mastered series and parallel resistors.
It has always been the case that ordinary people could not afford a
good university education at full price. Isaac Newton could not afford
to go to Cambridge without becoming the sub-sizar dogsbody for some
super rich thick and clotted roommate (whose name escapes me). See for
example:
http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/Exhibitions/Footprints_of_the_Lion/learning....
We could easily have been without his brilliant insight into the
physical world had "common sense" and commerce prevailed. No point in
wasting money on a university education for a yeoman farmer is there?
Doubtless he would have made a good farm manager, but he made a much
better world class scientist.
Where a subsidy causes people to be trained in useless subjects like
"meeja studdis" then it is bad. But when the subsidy makes it possible
to train scientists like medics, chemists, physicists and electronics
engineers involving significant lab work with expensive gear then it
is entirely justified. Practical subjects are intrinsically expensive
to teach - and in the UK some universities are dropping the
experimental sciences as a result.
I think the US system is a lot more of a rip-off and different than in
the UK. UK universities exist primarily to do research and educate the
next generation. The staff are not fantastically well paid but do get
academic freedom.
Strange that in the US it is dogma that only the rich deserve to have
a decent education or health service.
Wannbe horrified? Peruse some of this story:
http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=2667532&page=1
Or this, from the Los Angeles Times:
http://www.latimes.com/news/education/la-me-dropout29jan29,0,138315,full.story?coll=la-news-learning
Regards,
James Arthur
The intended effect of the government subsidies is that more students
get an education, and the education they get is better.
On Tue, 30 Oct 2007 16:58:15 -0700, James Arthur wrote:
[snip]
Wannbe horrified? Peruse some of this story:
http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=2667532&page=1Or this, from the Los Angeles Times:
http://www.latimes.com/news/education/la-me-dropout29jan29,0,138315,f...Regards,
James Arthur
Why are you surprised? High school is BORING.
...Jim Thompson
On Tue, 30 Oct 2007 16:58:15 -0700, James Arthur wrote:
[snip]
Wannbe horrified? Peruse some of this story:
http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=2667532&page=1Or this, from the Los Angeles Times:
http://www.latimes.com/news/education/la-me-dropout29jan29,0,138315,f...Regards,
James Arthur
Why are you surprised? High school is BORING.
...Jim Thompson
I went to a great high school. When I moved to a new, lesser school,
I crammed a year and a half's worth of classes into one semester so as
to graduate and escape a year early.
The dropout problem that kids are *graduating* high school without
even basic math, reading, writing, or critical thinking skills--just
imagine the dropouts' lot. That's a big load of poorly-prepared
citizens loosed by the system every year. That's not good for them,
or for us.
Great luck tomorrow--you're gonna love driving that new suspension
they're putting in!
James Arthur
It has to be subsidised for some of the very brightest but poor
students to stand any chance of getting a decent education. I have had
a couple of guys work for me in the past who should have gone on to
university, but because of their fathers background as badly paid
labourers had to leave school and get a proper job at 16.
Superb opportunities offered only to the kids of the richest in
society is a huge waste of talent.
And the rich kids for the most part
are bone idle and stupid.
How very American.
ISTR in the US you have
party colleges for them.
I got a full, free scholarship to Tulane University. My dad was a
milkman. I had two jobs on the side, to pay for cars and motorcycles
and girls.
Not the ones I know.
I suppose all the electronics and biotech and software stuff happens
accidentally somehow? And the Nobel prizes?
Everybody parties at college. It's part of the process.
John
There has been talk here in AZ of requiring meeting a certain
standard, such as GED, to be able to be employed. I have mixed
emotions about that kind of scheme.
...Jim Thompson
I got a full, free scholarship to Tulane University. My dad was a
milkman. I had two jobs on the side, to pay for cars and motorcycles
and girls.
Not the ones I know.
I suppose all the electronics and biotech and software stuff happens
accidentally somehow?
And the Nobel prizes?
The educators charge what people can pay, and cannot charge more.
With artificial means, people can pay more than they can afford, and
universities can then charge more than an ordinary person can afford.
Thereafter, ordinary persons cannot afford university.
But the result is that prices increase and the education is re-
targeted; diluted, not improved.
But I obtrude--I'll let Simon speak for himself.
Yeah - "intended".
The actual facts are significantly different, but as a zealot, you're
immune to facts.
"Perfect market" is a strawman argument -- I'm not saying that, and no
one I respect does either. The imperfect market does a very good job
at socks and bread. "Intangible product" -- what the heck is that?
Is that someone who is not clear on what they want, or on what they
are getting? When I went to school, what I wanted was very real and
tangible to me.
In general terms, a seizure of assets and resources by government
makes things more difficult for any individual or firm because they
have been made poorer, and the government crowds out investment people
would otherwise make. There is a production possibility frontier,
even if it tends to move outward over time. There is a real
opportunity cost to the government seizure. Both of these are
statements that scarcity is a fact of life.
Think about it. But here is one example: If the government seizes
$10k in taxes that one would have otherwise spent on private education
-- for which one have choice where the money was spent -- how does the
individual recover the money? They can't, it is just gone. About the
only thing that remains as a "choice" is a lengthy and sometimes
expensive government school education for which the student now has
very poor influence on the behavior of both the institution and the
instructor(s), or just foregoing the education altogether. The
government won't give the money back. It has its own purposes.
Because the probability the price is aligned, and stays aligned (since
the market is dynamic), is vanishing. It is related to the knowledge
problem.
http://www.econlib.org/Library/Essays/hykKnw1.html
My dad, the son of a missionary's widow, put himself through the
university. He paid for it working construction as a day-laborer:
digging ditches, plumbing, laying bricks, and walking high steel.
Enlisting in the Army paid for his medical school.
And community colleges are quite inexpensive, a great source of job-
training, and some offer 4-year degree programs. The GF's #1 kid
started in CC, then transferred to university, saving big bucks.
IIRC, Americans work more days and hours than any european country I
know. In fact, europeans criticize us for it, for working *too* hard.
Yeah--and not only our scientists, but even our fattest fat-headed
politicians get 'em!
Likewise, I got a scholarship to MIT... my father was a radio and TV
repairman. Long after I graduated he worked up to owning a hardware
store as well.
I washed dishes at MIT Graduate House Cafeteria until I managed to
wrangle a technician's job in MIT's Building 20.
Aren't these Europeons bright enough to question the pabulum they are
fed by their propagandizing media?
Martin Brown, Why are you so gullible? Why are you so ignorant? Poor
Europeon education?
...Jim Thompson
Likewise, I got a scholarship to MIT... my father was a radio and TV
repairman. Long after I graduated he worked up to owning a hardware
store as well.
I washed dishes at MIT Graduate House Cafeteria until I managed to
wrangle a technician's job in MIT's Building 20.
