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The Higher Education Bubble
America is facing a higher education bubble. Like the housing bubble, it is the product of cheap credit coupled with popular expectations of ever-increasing returns on investment, and as with housing prices, the cheap credit has caused college tuitions to vastly outpace inflation and family incomes. Now this bubble is bursting.
In this Broadside, Glenn Harlan Reynolds explains the causes and effects of this bubble and the steps colleges and universities must take to ensure their survival. Many graduates are unable to secure employment sufficient to pay off their loans, which are usually not dischargeable in bankruptcy. As students become less willing to incur debt for education, colleges and universities will have to adapt to a new world of cost pressures and declining public support.
In this Broadside, Glenn Harlan Reynolds explains the causes and effects of this bubble and the steps colleges and universities must take to ensure their survival. Many graduates are unable to secure employment sufficient to pay off their loans, which are usually not dischargeable in bankruptcy. As students become less willing to incur debt for education, colleges and universities will have to adapt to a new world of cost pressures and declining public support.
56 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 2012
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October 25, 2014
Alarmist and misinformed. The author is so out of touch with higher education administration that many of his comments are laughable, but only to those with a better grasp of reality. Reynolds writes like an embittered white man, and he is an embittered white man, teaching law at the University of Tennessee. His work in this publication has no sources, none. He writes in anecdotes and vaguely refers to articles but there are no sources. Most of the time, he's just wrong.
Problems:
1. Stop building things - that's great advice. He thinks that instead of building new rec centers, etc, all that money should be poured into academics. That's great. Has he ever been on a development team? Does he have any idea that when a big donor says "here's $4 million, but you can only use it to build a new climbing wall/fountain/basketball court" that that's what you do. Beyond that, he is terribly out of touch with the family culture of young adults. Quite frankly, we have created a college culture where it's more than building for education, it is a home and experience and there is the expectation from most families that your campus will be beautiful, well-kept, dorm rooms will be spacious and new, fitness centers and recreational facilities will be state of the art. The pursuit of "college" is not just a pursuit of a degree as he thinks, but pursuit of an experience. That is a reality.
2. More online classes - Yes, could we make things cheaper by offering online classes? Of course. He proposes that students who complete online work are more self-disciplined and therefore more attractive to employers. Reynolds doesn't take into consideration that the in-person experience isn't just about the exchange of information, it's about interpersonal skills. Students grow through collaborative learning, from discussion of ideas, from challenging and being challenged by professors. I'm willing to bet that employers also value people who can work with others. You can't get that from an online degree.
3. Diversity - Reynolds is clearly bitter about this. He comes off as "why do we need this diversity stuff." Well, when you're part of the cultural hegemony and in a position of social power by birth status, I guess you would ask that. He has so little understanding and respect for why diversity initiatives are important, particularly in this economic climate, that it is downright embarrassing. He even goes so far to call diversity initiatives sacred cows.
4. Cheaper is better - an education is an investment, in both time and money. I always find this argument fascinating. Families who want cheap don't want to give up quality faculty, up to date facilities and equipment, nice residence halls and beautiful grounds. You can't have both, it's not economically feasible. Making a decision about college with family financial feasibility is important. However, cheaper just means cheaper.
And much more. In the end, I don't feel better informed about the higher education bubble. He doesn't talk about it much. This is really just an ill-informed rant on his view of the higher education landscape. Perhaps he should spend a little more time doing research before spewing alarmist diatribe.
Problems:
1. Stop building things - that's great advice. He thinks that instead of building new rec centers, etc, all that money should be poured into academics. That's great. Has he ever been on a development team? Does he have any idea that when a big donor says "here's $4 million, but you can only use it to build a new climbing wall/fountain/basketball court" that that's what you do. Beyond that, he is terribly out of touch with the family culture of young adults. Quite frankly, we have created a college culture where it's more than building for education, it is a home and experience and there is the expectation from most families that your campus will be beautiful, well-kept, dorm rooms will be spacious and new, fitness centers and recreational facilities will be state of the art. The pursuit of "college" is not just a pursuit of a degree as he thinks, but pursuit of an experience. That is a reality.
2. More online classes - Yes, could we make things cheaper by offering online classes? Of course. He proposes that students who complete online work are more self-disciplined and therefore more attractive to employers. Reynolds doesn't take into consideration that the in-person experience isn't just about the exchange of information, it's about interpersonal skills. Students grow through collaborative learning, from discussion of ideas, from challenging and being challenged by professors. I'm willing to bet that employers also value people who can work with others. You can't get that from an online degree.
3. Diversity - Reynolds is clearly bitter about this. He comes off as "why do we need this diversity stuff." Well, when you're part of the cultural hegemony and in a position of social power by birth status, I guess you would ask that. He has so little understanding and respect for why diversity initiatives are important, particularly in this economic climate, that it is downright embarrassing. He even goes so far to call diversity initiatives sacred cows.
4. Cheaper is better - an education is an investment, in both time and money. I always find this argument fascinating. Families who want cheap don't want to give up quality faculty, up to date facilities and equipment, nice residence halls and beautiful grounds. You can't have both, it's not economically feasible. Making a decision about college with family financial feasibility is important. However, cheaper just means cheaper.
And much more. In the end, I don't feel better informed about the higher education bubble. He doesn't talk about it much. This is really just an ill-informed rant on his view of the higher education landscape. Perhaps he should spend a little more time doing research before spewing alarmist diatribe.
August 13, 2012
"The higher education bubble isn't bursting because of a shortage of money. It is bursting because of a shortage of value. The solution is to improve the product, not increase the subsidy."
A brief but excellent description of the higher education bubble, why we got there, what the fallout will be, and some advice on how to weather it. Great stuff.
A brief but excellent description of the higher education bubble, why we got there, what the fallout will be, and some advice on how to weather it. Great stuff.
May 12, 2019
I paid 40 dollars for this book just to tell me school was over paid. When 48 pages cost about a dollar a page. Which is more costly or who is in resources for this book. I could of told my self this by just recycling paper advertisements and came out with time management of cost just the same with buying the book. To let any one know what 48 pages cost would look like today by getting an education is similar to Going to buy a pack of cigarettes in Canada and see what happens and that’s pretty much what they say post secondary school is like With a 468% increase since the 1970’s( might explain why people are still living in their parents basements). It would be the million dollar habit but you’d most likely quit in 15 years and that would be $150,000, spending 3 dollars on a puck of tobacco runs a $25 dollar price tag with taxes. Figure it out. except for smoking you get to work and pay it off as you go, education well it just accumulates. Then add interest as you pay it off and even a bankruptcy could never make it disappear.
4 years in trades would turn out to be 10 years of slave labour(stipend) with no red seal. Kind of paying some one to smoke except I enjoy smoking with no working in all kinds of weather everyday like in carpentry.
People wonder if the socialist are in politics they might have moved to the institutions and corporation/corporations lobby for their totalitarian means.
Rather the private entrepreneur and merchant voting for change
And if your in the army you get all this paid for if you live in a totalitarian life style pushing the libertarian to procrastination to unitarian with space jamming bait and switches.
Great, that’s inconceivable,
Literally can u not
Is similar to I can not even
That’s grammatically an effort for a conscientious to make this some(that any word is once faith in thought),shut up and listen.
martin luther king jr said once that change is not going be the silent majority but the loud minority which is scary if you look at corporate donation and the struggling private entrepreneur or merchant that gets played with from these corporations.
That corporate mob rule has seen a wage increase of 150% since the 1968 yet the majority have on seen a 3 dollar increase with inflation since 1968
If the small minority of bourgeois that send 6/10 of their kids will go to post secondary while the majority population only 4/10 poverty will.
That 4/5 fail American basic literacy
You’d think the yellow vest will procrastinate long enough to look like the occupy Wall Street and just mess up the widower or single mother.
Like these corporate mob rule take the mothers kids and denies them parenthood for them toys for the rich or dies with sketched hours pretty much suicide leaving a widow met with their claim with over worked hours get insurance that screws the private entrepreneur or merchant where only corporate mod rule can own business and property.
that a simple union would give good pay less hours and instead in a agglomerate mess instead of a mono/conglomerate mess that could be unionized. So a small minority of wealth can be passed around ruining competition for a welfare industry baited and switch for public support instead of a business supported system.
That’s what happen when the small bourgeois’s grew to spilt up the monopolies so oil wouldn’t have to make advertisements but government cough up for their product mess up a pipeline that no oil company wants to share with the competitors to pay for it done instead of a monopoly. Yeah more are small amount of millionaires grew but for the silent majority and the loud minority that say they are happy with the 3 dollar increase since 1968 and 150% increase in corporate mob rule for aristocracies toys for the rich.
That ad ignorantum politicians puts out really ignorant about
The deregulation went hand in hand with shifting production to lower-wage areas and heeding business school mantra of “just in time” production, leading to mass layoffs.
The final blow was the attack on unions and wearing of labour laws. As noted by the early 1950’s, unions were an accepted part of an economy in which business, government and labour could work together.
While corruption and long strikes diminished popular opinion of unions long before Reagan was elected president, the Reagan administration-together with business -led state “right to work” campaigns-made it more difficult for unions to organize and operate. If union density had remained even at 1979 levels, weekly wages for the typical male worker would have been $2,700 higher in 2013, according to left-leaning economic policy institute. At the same time, the federal mininum wage wasn’t raised during the Reagan years and hasn’t since 2009. At $7.25 an hour from 2009-2018, the mininum wage would have been $3 higher if it had just kept pace with inflation since its high point in 1968, and would have reached around $19 an hour if it had kept up with productivity growth. At 1.30 US dollar to Canadian currency that would have been $25. In addition to their injustice, by comparison with Western Europe, low-skill jobs in USA pay and provide fewer(I.e., usually no) benefits
One way it’s suppose to help culturally is that raising minimum wage will increase people to work. The huge amount of people not working lose most they’re ambition when wages won’t pay for them to go back. You see lots of people claiming disability rather than go back to work the rise of disability and weed for pain relief drugs would decrease if people didn’t think jobs were below them. Or the huge increase in disability and people in pain in the last couple decades is alarming. Are males in general facing an era of hopelessness or what is wrong with males now a-days that 1/2 male Albertians in the (NITLF)of 25-55 are not working and most have stopped even looking for work all together. It could be said like the Dutch disease. It’s not the first time to hit a culture.
The us economy, while less preppy since technology outsourcing and talent being over rated and more volatile than during its golden mid-twentieth century years, has grown in recent decades, but most of the gains have gone to the wealthy and the upper middle class. Between 1993 and 2015, more than half of the nation’s overall income gains went to the 1% of people with highest incomes, with their real incomes soaring by 94 percent. At the same time, the bottom 99 percent saw cumulative gains of just 14 percent. The typical workers wage increased by Just 6 percent between 1979 and 2013, although the increase in this median is almost entire accounted for by the rising pay for women, with wages for those at the bottom declineing. Factor in tax law changes, which have enormously benefited the wealthy and somewhat benefited lower-income Americans, real after-tax and transfer grew by 192 percent between 1979 and 2007 for the top 1 percent compared to only 41 to 46 percent for the bottom 80 percent compare that to the broad-base 100 percent pretax wage gain in the water century between 1948 and 1973. Corporate donations are ruining democracy https://www.intellectualtakeout.org/b...
But
Many other economic and economic policy factors also explain why only half of children born in the 1980s earn more than their parents compared to 90 percent of those born in the 1940’s
https://youtu.be/Bx5Sc3vWefE
It did regards or dis may tax payers use of money where these school get so much of its funding
4 years in trades would turn out to be 10 years of slave labour(stipend) with no red seal. Kind of paying some one to smoke except I enjoy smoking with no working in all kinds of weather everyday like in carpentry.
People wonder if the socialist are in politics they might have moved to the institutions and corporation/corporations lobby for their totalitarian means.
Rather the private entrepreneur and merchant voting for change
And if your in the army you get all this paid for if you live in a totalitarian life style pushing the libertarian to procrastination to unitarian with space jamming bait and switches.
Great, that’s inconceivable,
Literally can u not
Is similar to I can not even
That’s grammatically an effort for a conscientious to make this some(that any word is once faith in thought),shut up and listen.
martin luther king jr said once that change is not going be the silent majority but the loud minority which is scary if you look at corporate donation and the struggling private entrepreneur or merchant that gets played with from these corporations.
That corporate mob rule has seen a wage increase of 150% since the 1968 yet the majority have on seen a 3 dollar increase with inflation since 1968
If the small minority of bourgeois that send 6/10 of their kids will go to post secondary while the majority population only 4/10 poverty will.
That 4/5 fail American basic literacy
You’d think the yellow vest will procrastinate long enough to look like the occupy Wall Street and just mess up the widower or single mother.
Like these corporate mob rule take the mothers kids and denies them parenthood for them toys for the rich or dies with sketched hours pretty much suicide leaving a widow met with their claim with over worked hours get insurance that screws the private entrepreneur or merchant where only corporate mod rule can own business and property.
that a simple union would give good pay less hours and instead in a agglomerate mess instead of a mono/conglomerate mess that could be unionized. So a small minority of wealth can be passed around ruining competition for a welfare industry baited and switch for public support instead of a business supported system.
That’s what happen when the small bourgeois’s grew to spilt up the monopolies so oil wouldn’t have to make advertisements but government cough up for their product mess up a pipeline that no oil company wants to share with the competitors to pay for it done instead of a monopoly. Yeah more are small amount of millionaires grew but for the silent majority and the loud minority that say they are happy with the 3 dollar increase since 1968 and 150% increase in corporate mob rule for aristocracies toys for the rich.
That ad ignorantum politicians puts out really ignorant about
The deregulation went hand in hand with shifting production to lower-wage areas and heeding business school mantra of “just in time” production, leading to mass layoffs.
The final blow was the attack on unions and wearing of labour laws. As noted by the early 1950’s, unions were an accepted part of an economy in which business, government and labour could work together.
While corruption and long strikes diminished popular opinion of unions long before Reagan was elected president, the Reagan administration-together with business -led state “right to work” campaigns-made it more difficult for unions to organize and operate. If union density had remained even at 1979 levels, weekly wages for the typical male worker would have been $2,700 higher in 2013, according to left-leaning economic policy institute. At the same time, the federal mininum wage wasn’t raised during the Reagan years and hasn’t since 2009. At $7.25 an hour from 2009-2018, the mininum wage would have been $3 higher if it had just kept pace with inflation since its high point in 1968, and would have reached around $19 an hour if it had kept up with productivity growth. At 1.30 US dollar to Canadian currency that would have been $25. In addition to their injustice, by comparison with Western Europe, low-skill jobs in USA pay and provide fewer(I.e., usually no) benefits
One way it’s suppose to help culturally is that raising minimum wage will increase people to work. The huge amount of people not working lose most they’re ambition when wages won’t pay for them to go back. You see lots of people claiming disability rather than go back to work the rise of disability and weed for pain relief drugs would decrease if people didn’t think jobs were below them. Or the huge increase in disability and people in pain in the last couple decades is alarming. Are males in general facing an era of hopelessness or what is wrong with males now a-days that 1/2 male Albertians in the (NITLF)of 25-55 are not working and most have stopped even looking for work all together. It could be said like the Dutch disease. It’s not the first time to hit a culture.
The us economy, while less preppy since technology outsourcing and talent being over rated and more volatile than during its golden mid-twentieth century years, has grown in recent decades, but most of the gains have gone to the wealthy and the upper middle class. Between 1993 and 2015, more than half of the nation’s overall income gains went to the 1% of people with highest incomes, with their real incomes soaring by 94 percent. At the same time, the bottom 99 percent saw cumulative gains of just 14 percent. The typical workers wage increased by Just 6 percent between 1979 and 2013, although the increase in this median is almost entire accounted for by the rising pay for women, with wages for those at the bottom declineing. Factor in tax law changes, which have enormously benefited the wealthy and somewhat benefited lower-income Americans, real after-tax and transfer grew by 192 percent between 1979 and 2007 for the top 1 percent compared to only 41 to 46 percent for the bottom 80 percent compare that to the broad-base 100 percent pretax wage gain in the water century between 1948 and 1973. Corporate donations are ruining democracy https://www.intellectualtakeout.org/b...
But
Many other economic and economic policy factors also explain why only half of children born in the 1980s earn more than their parents compared to 90 percent of those born in the 1940’s
https://youtu.be/Bx5Sc3vWefE
It did regards or dis may tax payers use of money where these school get so much of its funding
December 26, 2020
A short book on the crisis of the higher education in US and its prospective dangers and ways to ease the transition to the new reality when the bubble inevitably bursts into a bust. Interestingly, even though it is written at the begging of the second decade of the XXI century, it is still relevant ten years later. The bust did not yet happen, but the writing is on the wall and 2020 crisis does not make the situation any easier.
June 16, 2012
Really good stuff.
March 11, 2017
Could have been more detailed. It provided a good foundation for understanding the world of higher education, how industry bubbles form, and why those same bubbles burst.
December 6, 2012
The laundry list of problems that the higher education faces these days seems to grow on an almost daily basis. Hardly a day passes that I don’t come across a big article or two lamenting the unsustainability of the current model of higher education. Many writers have correctly pointed out some of the main issues that trouble the higher educational industry – from the rampant drinking culture, over obsession with athletics, to the ever decreasing teaching standards – but the ultimate cause of all these maladies is very simple: overly easy access to too much credit. Easy money is a precursor to all major investment bubbles, and the higher education is, indisputably, in a big bubble of its own.
This short book correctly identifies some of the most salient features of the current higher educational bubbly: the unchecked rise in the cost of higher education over the past few decades, the radical increase in the overall college debt, and the decreasing value of college education. There are many similarities with the recent housing bubble, with some important distinctions: unlike mortgages, under the current laws it’s impossible to write off college debt if one files for personal bankruptcy. This reduces the flexibility of borrowers to walk away from their college debts. Instead of preventing the eventual bursting of the higher education bubble, it will only make its eventual demise more painful and devastating.
This short ebook offers several suggestions for the improvement of higher education industry, but I am afraid most of those will either fall on deaf ears or not really implemented. There is a tremendous amount of inertia in higher education, and I am afraid that the painful bursting of this bubble is inevitable. It will almost certainly happen before this decade is over, and perhaps even much sooner than that. I am personally inclined to believe the more pessimistic scenarios.
In my opinion this ebook is perhaps the best account of this problem that I’ve come across. It correctly identifies all the major features of the higher education bubble, the best advice in what should be done about it (but it won’t be), and what lies ahead. However, the account is too brief and it doesn’t go into much depth. I think there is a great need for someone with deep technical economic background to write an in-depth book on this issue, including the detailed description of all the most likely scenarios and their outcomes. Hopefully someone will do that soon, because this problem will only become even more intractable in the upcoming years.
This short book correctly identifies some of the most salient features of the current higher educational bubbly: the unchecked rise in the cost of higher education over the past few decades, the radical increase in the overall college debt, and the decreasing value of college education. There are many similarities with the recent housing bubble, with some important distinctions: unlike mortgages, under the current laws it’s impossible to write off college debt if one files for personal bankruptcy. This reduces the flexibility of borrowers to walk away from their college debts. Instead of preventing the eventual bursting of the higher education bubble, it will only make its eventual demise more painful and devastating.
This short ebook offers several suggestions for the improvement of higher education industry, but I am afraid most of those will either fall on deaf ears or not really implemented. There is a tremendous amount of inertia in higher education, and I am afraid that the painful bursting of this bubble is inevitable. It will almost certainly happen before this decade is over, and perhaps even much sooner than that. I am personally inclined to believe the more pessimistic scenarios.
In my opinion this ebook is perhaps the best account of this problem that I’ve come across. It correctly identifies all the major features of the higher education bubble, the best advice in what should be done about it (but it won’t be), and what lies ahead. However, the account is too brief and it doesn’t go into much depth. I think there is a great need for someone with deep technical economic background to write an in-depth book on this issue, including the detailed description of all the most likely scenarios and their outcomes. Hopefully someone will do that soon, because this problem will only become even more intractable in the upcoming years.
April 24, 2014
This book is worth reading, not buying. It's a very light (48 pages), fluffy look at the subject, a bit surprised by the lack of depth and kid glove treatment. The author is a law professor and blogger from The University of Tennessee, he's an academic insider whose status depends on him not being too critical of the hand that feeds him. I think the author had a few naive and optimistic assumptions that can be challenged. He doesn't come out and call it a scam or fraud. If you want a harder hitting and darker expose of higher education then check out "Why Johnny Can't Read, Write, Or Do 'Rithmetic Even With A College Degree: An Account Of The Fraud of Higher Education" by Professor Doom or go Professor Doom's blog (Confessions of A College Professor)at: http://professorconfess.blogspot.com/
August 8, 2012
Sobering. Spot-on accurate assessment of everything that is wrong in higher education. What Reynolds describes in his book has been happening at every institution of higher learning where I have been enrolled and where I have taught as a post doc and professor. He makes some predictions about where higher education is headed. In some ways, I find his predictions both disconcerting and encouraging. This is a fast little read and worth the time.
August 24, 2012
(I was tagging a wrong book, damn...)
It's not a long book, but if offers many insightful observations about how the bubble of American higher education was formed, how it is collapsing, and what it will be like after it's gone.
If we agree with the author of this book that adding value to the society is the only true value of higher education, then, the next question here is how librarians can contribute to this goal. Online open course is definitely one excellent idea.
It's not a long book, but if offers many insightful observations about how the bubble of American higher education was formed, how it is collapsing, and what it will be like after it's gone.
If we agree with the author of this book that adding value to the society is the only true value of higher education, then, the next question here is how librarians can contribute to this goal. Online open course is definitely one excellent idea.
August 11, 2013
Not what I expected when I decided to read it. It's very true that the university vibe is changing as far as funding. But, I still see this drive from students to "go to college" for bogus and unneeded degrees. We really need to stir up vocational education in our communities; get local businesses too be more involved in training our work force.
September 28, 2012
Short and interesting. Don't go into debt if you can help it and study something that will be worth it in the market place(not underwater basket weaving with a focus on women's studies). Not sure if all of his predictions will be borne out, but my call is to work, not predict results.
August 17, 2012
Cogent and well-written, this short book articulates many of my own concerns about the state of higher education in the U.S. A must-read for any student or parent contemplating taking on debt to pursue a traditional four-year degree.
October 12, 2012
A thoughtful and provoking summary of the trendlines in higher education - skyrocketing costs and student debt, with decreasing quality of product. A scary thing for those of us in higher ed to consider, to be sure, but the perspective is very good and reasonable.
July 31, 2012
The voice of one crying in the wilderness... who will listen?
January 24, 2013
Quite good. The better we stop denying the bubble, the better off higher education will be in the long run.
January 27, 2013
It's here, ready to deflate. A brief read, essential for anyone that has not been paying attention, and not a surprise for anyone who has.
June 19, 2013
Anti-intellectual, education-as-utility, conservative claptrap.
October 27, 2013
Nice, short synopsis of the state of higher education.
July 6, 2014
Quick read that provides a good introduction into what issues are at the root of our high higher education costs. The question remains - when will the bubble burst?
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews