h a l f b a k e r y
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I propose a new fee structure for elite universities such as Ivy League and Oxbridge that is both fair and economically viable.
Say, for the sake of argument, that there are 2000 applicants for 100 places in a course. From those 2000 applicants, 1000 are selected for interviewing and tests. The 1000
applicants are then ranked in order of ability. This is the _provisional_ ranking.
The university has several fee brackets: students with _final_ rank 1-30 pay nothing. Rank 31-50 pay $10,000/year. Rank 51-70 pay $30,000. Rank 71-80 pay $50,000. Rank 81-90 pay $100,000. And the unlucky 10 who are ranked 91-100 pay
$200,000.
The following procedure is used to determine the final rank from the provisional rank: Starting from the top candidate, applicants are asked in turn if they wish to accept the offer. Once the offer is accepted, the applicant's provisional ranking becomes final. If an applicant declines, all applicants below him/her move up by one place in the provisional ranking.
So, for instance, by the time you get to applicant number 50, and s/he declines, applicant number 51 moves to position 50 and is made an offer to study for $10,000 instead of $30,000. If s/he also declines, the process is repeated until somebody accepts.
As offers get more and more expensive, more and more applicants are likely to decline, but since there is such a big surplus, all places will fill eventually.
There are several advantages to this method. a) It will solve the funding crisis that plagues most unis. b) 1/3 of students get to study for free. This means that the university is likely to get a lot applications from talented people from poor backgrounds, which will increase competition and academic standards. c) Only-moderately-talented rich kids only take up a small number of places, but provide a big chunk of the funding.
Stanford reduces / eliminates fees
http://media.www.th...ce=collegeheadlines
A move in the right direction [csea, Mar 12 2008]
[link]
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This is actually not an entirely bad idea.
It does have the disadvantage of rich
kids being able to buy their way in,
though, but perhaps this is only
realistic in today's financial etceteras. |
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I don't know what the situation was or
is in US universities. In the UK, until
recently, university education was free
(in the sense that you didn't have to pay
fees, and the government gave you a
grant which would cover basic living
costs). I went through both Ox and
Bridge, and most of my fellow students
were ordinary but bright kids. |
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This is no longer the case, alas, but of
course it should be. Don't get me
started. |
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In the US, colleges and private organisations give scholarships to students based on all kinds of mixes of needs and merits. Those existing initiatives don't address the same situation in roughly the same, albeit decentralized, way? |
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I wonder if the kid on #81 can convince one of the 71-80s to drop out for a $10,000 share of the profits. If not, $25,000 is a pretty good price for an assassination in many markets. |
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I think the merit of this idea (or at least
its novelty) is the proposal to have a
sliding scale, and to fill it from the top
(brightest) to the bottom (richest). I'd
actually have the top 80% of places free,
and the bottom 20% extortionately
priced. |
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In both Ox and Bridge, there are a
significant minority of students from
extremely wealthy parents, for whom
expense is no object and for whom any
fees would be small compared to the
cost of maintaining their lifestyle whilst
at university. Why not milk them to the
point where supply matches demand?
Of course, if these rich kids get in on
brains alone (and some would) then
good luck to them. |
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// Those existing initiatives don't address the same situation in roughly the same, albeit decentralized, way? // |
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No they don't, because only a tiny minority of genius students in the US get to study truly for free. In my example, 1/3 get to study for free. This means you will not only attract poor students who are 99.9 percentile, but also poor students who are 98 percentile. Which is still better than giving the places to middle class students who are only 95 percentile. |
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Also, the existing initiatives are funded by government and charities, which are unreliable and limited sources. You can get much more funding if you let the rich students subsidise the bright students. |
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I bun this reluctantly, because in any
civilised society, all education should be
free and to the limit of the student's ability
to benefit from it. But, pragmatically, this
proposal is a lesser evil than some others. |
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What [MaxwellBuchanan] said [+] |
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This smells much like a Robin Hood tax, thinly disguised because it’s administered by higher learning. I loathe the idea of charging rich people more simply because they can pay for it. |
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Inequity? I've got all the inequity you need right here... |
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Not bad; there's a market of a kind, and if the figures are set correctly, everything should be fully funded. You would need to set the fees so that if all of the lower-ranking students decline your offers, the higher-ranking places are still funded, so the zero-fee would have to be negotiable. Also, it should be voluntary of course, as far as the universities are concerned; if they prefer high-paying low-ability students over bright but poorer ones, they should be allowed to exercise that preference. I wonder why you limit the idea to "elite" schools though.
[sprogga], I don't see this as a tax, rather as a fee for a service; in theory, it costs more to educate lower-ability students, so they should pay more. There's no mention of rich students subsidising poor ones, other than by voluntarily paying a higher price than their ability dictates. |
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// I loathe the idea of charging rich
people more simply because they can
pay for it.// What [Angel] said. In a
properly-funded education system,
people who were rich but non-academic
would not get into university at all, let
alone a centre of academic excellence.
This idea at least allows them to buy
their way in, in exchange for supporting
the poorer but academically bright kids. |
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Note also that students who are wealthy
but also bright get in on the basis of
their academic performance, and don't
pay a penny. |
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[MB] (and [sprogga]), please be careful not to take my comment out of context. I also "loathe the idea of charging rich people more simply because they can pay for it", but this idea is not really doing that. In a properly funded *anything* system, the people who benefit from whatever it is would pay for it; any other method hides any indicator of value. |
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//In a properly funded *anything* system,
the people who benefit from whatever it is
would pay for it// |
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I disagree. A properly-funded education
system is paid for by the country, and is
free to those who benefit directly. I think
the same should go for healthcare,
policing, the fire service and all other basic
necessities. |
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[MB], obviously we're never going to agree on this; I favour Friedman's first way of spending money while you favour the fourth. You're happy to take money from me to fund something which I don't benefit from. Once you've established that concept, there's no logical end to it; you can keep on taxing me to pay for whatever you wish. |
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Depending on the course in question, it could be argued that it provides a tangible benefit to the country at large. |
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The clear downside to this is that it massively screws over the individuals that are clever, but not geniuses. To be 55th out of a field of 2000 is a great accomplishment, but $30k a year would be beyond most. This system would restrict higher education to the hyperintelligent and the moneyed. |
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An ideal world would be truly meritocratic, with educational being either free, or at least at a manageable level. |
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//Depending on the course in question, it could be argued that it provides a tangible benefit to the country at large.//
So charge me when I avail myself of that benefit. If the student goes on to discover some new drug, I'll pay to use it. If he invents a new detergent, sell me it. If he develops a new bridge design, charge a toll. If he translates Beowulf into proto-Aramaic, I'll pay for a copy (or not). What benefit can not be treated in a similar way?
//This system would restrict higher education to the hyperintelligent and the moneyed.//
Given that it has to be restricted somehow (per the original notion), how else would you do it? |
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//This system would restrict higher
education to the hyperintelligent and the
moneyed.// No, it offers university
education to the fairly intelligent and the
moneyed. Go back fifty years (at least in
the UK), and the situation was no better,
probably worse. |
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"So charge me when I avail myself of that benefit."
That breaks down when the invention/service isn't available because the person didn't get the education to begin with. |
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Flies in the face of sensible economic models for universal access to education, especially those people who could make a substantial difference to your nation's welfare but can't afford the cost of study. |
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To wit, it's unlikely the absolute cream of the crop intellectually will do something of universal benefit, as "cream" is often a definition for those people who are best at the system and politics of university study. Rather than save the world, they go on to be tenured professors while the real innovators are the slightly above average types who can think laterally and are prepared to make an intuitive rather than a logical leap. |
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[phoenix], on that basis, you'd fund university education for everyone because they just *might* come up with something useful. If they don't, we'd better fund another five years because, well, you never know. Although if *you* think that Joe Biggles has some potential, feel free to fund a place for him; just do it with your own money. |
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\\No, it offers university education to the fairly intelligent and the moneyed.\\ The top 1.5% of applicants to the top-flight universities goes considerably beyond any definition of 'fairly intelligent'. |
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//I loathe the idea of charging rich people more simply because they can pay for it.// |
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a) This is what most businesses do though. Think of airline tickets. On an average flight from London to New York, 20% of economy class passengers pay about $2000-4000 for their seat while the remaining 80% only pay in the region of $600. For exactly the same seats! If airlines use yield-management to "exploit" rich customers, why can't universities? |
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b) It is entirely voluntary. Rich people are NOT excluded to study for a low price, as long as they are equally bright and hard-working as their poor competitors. |
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//1.5% of applicants to the top-flight
universities goes considerably beyond any
definition of 'fairly intelligent'.// Indeed it
does. But the proposal was for the top
30% of applicants to pay nothing. This is
20-fold more than 1.5%, and should cover
most of the "fairly intelligent", I would
think. |
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//To be 55th out of a field of 2000 is a great accomplishment, but $30k a year would be beyond most.// |
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But this is ALREADY what Harvard charges for its middle class students. Don't forget that government grants and loans would still be provided ON TOP of my scheme. |
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Bottom line, there are only so many resources in this world, and so therefore socialism has its practical limits as to how many of whatever can be feasibly supported by it, no matter what way you shuffle the cards around. |
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Bun, but only in the sense that I agree utterly with [MaxwellBuchanan] and despair of ever returning to the civilised and civilising days of universal free education on merit. Fundamentally, I don't agree with the rich and dim clogging up the university system at all. |
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This isn't socialism. The crucial difference between socialism and my idea is that in socialism redistribution is compulsory while here it is voluntary. |
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"[phoenix], on that basis, you'd fund university education for everyone because they just *might* come up with something useful."
That's what was proposed - I didn't say it was a good idea outside that single argument. |
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On the other hand, no one is saying the free education isn't still performance-based. Perhaps tuition is free, but you have to keep up your grades to qualify for continued education? |
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//I wonder if the kid on #81 can convince one of the 71-80s to drop out for a $10,000 share of the profits// |
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I guess the provisional ranking would not be published. |
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It doesn't need to be published. An open offer to exchange could be made, on Cragislist or similar, with the university's offer letter required as proof. |
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The students are made offers in turn (perhaps on the phone), and not all at the same time. Otherwise you wouldn't be able to make definite offers. |
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I wonder why. You're establishing a market for places, which is a good thing, but then you're deliberately restricting that market from operating in the most efficient way. |
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[angel]:
Ah, but the point of this market is not _only_ to maximise the university's profits. The point is to maximise profits while _also_ maximising academic standards. It's a balancing act. The university should be able to set the numbers. In the market that you suggest, where places are freely tradeable, all places would simply auction to the highest bidder. Academic standards would fall dramatically, which would in the long term also reduce demand for the university, reducing profits. |
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Woo.. good old savagely principled HB debate. I'm definitely on the [MB] et al bandwagon here. In the right-hand corner, libertarianism; in the left-hand corner (not even in this debate) is the question of 'meritocracy', a term first coined for pejorative use. Yikes. |
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Bun for this as a vote for 'education as infrastructure', though I'm not entirely sure about the scheme - at Bridge, the rare children of lower-income parents had a hard enough time with rents and other college charges, without having to worry about whether they were going to slip a place and be unable to afford the next year's tuition. |
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//What benefit can not be treated in a similar way?// - social research, philosophy, history, pure mathematics - difficult to commodify and sell, but are they without value? |
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[manicdictator], you cannot *maximise* two factors at the same time unless they're tightly coupled (and if they are, they're really just one factor), you have to compromise on one or the other (or both).
[navel-gazer], if those fields have value, they must be saleable; how else can you identify value? |
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//how else can you identify value?// |
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Third level education in Ireland is still
free for residents. Grants are also given
out for study trips abroad. Clever Irish
yet again. |
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[pertinax], I'm not sure what point you're making there.
//Third level education in Ireland is still free for residents.//
No, it's paid for by taxpaying residents even if they don't use it. We should get out of this common habit of thinking that something is 'free' just because it's not charged either at the point of use or by amount of use. It's only free for those who use it without paying (for details, see 'parasite'.) |
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[angel], I respect you for fighting your corner here. But without getting into semantic nitpicking about 'value' as opposed to 'worth', or tortuous wrangling about the relationship between 'saleability' and 'commodification': do you value your loved ones? And are they 'saleable'? |
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I'm sure there's an evasive answer involving social transactionalism, but that doesn't really reflect or explain human experience. Things (including the pursuit and fruits of knowledge) can be worth something to a person or community without having a clear pricetag for selective popular consumption. |
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Do I value my loved ones? Of course. Do you? No, there's no reason you should. What monetary value do I put on them? Everything I own. What value do you put on them? Nothing - or at least no more than you do on any other random person. But the difference is that I'm not asking you to fund my wife or my cats; they don't involve a cost to anyone, unlike state-funded education - of whatever subject. |
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Hmm, not sure the 'bakery's the right forum for all this, and as you said to [mb], we may have to agree to differ on this point. My point was and remains this: that the model you offer - 'academic produces a discrete product and is paid for it by consumers' - doesn't easily extend to all spheres of enquiry. The products of these may be effectively noncommodifiable and nonsaleable, like your wife and cats (because after all, if I gave you the equivalent of 'everything you own', you still wouldn't sell me your family), and yet retain widely-perceived 'value'. A simplistic 'academics should generate their own rewards' scheme will select strongly against any such disciplines. |
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I think you're misunderstanding slightly. I'm not saying that those "noncommodifiable and nonsaleable" disciplines should not be funded, I'm saying that they - and all other disciplines - should not be funded from taxation. If you or anyone else thinks that philosophy courses are valuable, suit actions to words and pay for them. They obviously have a cost, and it should be weighed against the benefit.
There's still an issue with the basic idea though, in that [manicdictator] can identify when his fee is too high (student 67 says, "I'm not prepared to pay $31,000 for this course", and goes elsewhere) but not when it's too low (student 74 says "$50,000? Wow, I would have paid far more than that"). |
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"There's still an issue with the basic idea though, in that [manicdictator] can identify when his fee is too high (student 67 says, "I'm not prepared to pay $31,000 for this course", and goes elsewhere) but not when it's too low (student 74 says "$50,000? Wow, I would have paid far more than that")" |
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I don't think a method exists in ANY business that is able to fully eliminate consumer surplus. |
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[angel], you seem possessed of a trenchant opinon that everything you believe governments do is somehow unnecessary or wasteful... just based upon what I've seen over the past few years of watching you here. |
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I would suggest you assess the nature of the social contract governments have with their constituents. A democratically elected government's primary responsibility is to its constituents, particularly to provide those services that are practically impossible for the individual to provide or administer, given the need for them to be universal in design and format. The contract is different in the case of right wing dictatorships, which are a "winner takes all" wealth generation scheme for the ruling elite, as are left wing dictatorships, it has emerged. |
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Anyway, back on topic: Those services are, but are not limited to:
Transport infrastructure
Defence & armed forces
Criminal legislation & crime control
Police and executive government
Commercial regulatory administration
Water reticulation & infrastructure
Health services and management
Sewerage construction and maintenance
Education standardisation & infrastructure
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The inclusion of education in that list is deliberate. |
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You see, it is incumbent upon governments to educate their constituents to a certain level in order to realise the benefits a nation can derive from its population. The higher the level of education, the more sophisticated the manufactures and services that nation can deliver to its end users, be they its citizenry or export markets. In turn, the higher the collective standard of living the constituents of that nation will enjoy. |
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Governments don't do this altruistically. In fact, they commoditise their populations... this is especially evident in their approach to their perceived value of the young men they entice into their armed forces. Likewise, the lifetime value in today's currency values, of a degree graduate in engineering may be worth $10M to your economy, as opposed to $5M for a skilled worker or just $2.8M for a labourer. The government offers the brighter members of its commodity pool the opportunity to achieve a higher level of education at low or no cost, in order to maximise their lifetime value to the economy. |
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When the educated citizen then goes abroad, to sell those skills to a higher bidder, the government laments that decision as "brain drain". The presumption that education is somehow solely to the benefit of the individual is narrow and shortsighted, given its implications for the wealth and prospects of the entire community. Those citizens who stay are doing so because the government has invested in them as a commercial resource, in order to enrich the entire society in which they live, and are being compensated for their effort at a level commensurate with their expectations. |
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There are many examples where governments have adopted a "user pays" model, to the long term detriment of the societies for whose development and care they are responsible. |
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It's not about apportioning cost and allocating value... it's about the mandate governments are given to enrich and enhance the lives of the people they represent. |
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// it's about the mandate governments are given to enrich and enhance the lives of the people they represent.// |
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...and I would add that it's also about the hair-brained schemes that governments can use to get away without paying for such education. |
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(Did I hear anyone say "student-loan-tastic and top-up-fee-debacle"?) |
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[UnaBubba], for a more accurate critique of my opinions you should look in a little more detail, although I would accept your noting that I believe virtually everything government does is wasteful; governments tend to be so, by their very nature (Friedman's fourth method again), and some are more so than others. Regarding necessity, much of what they do is indeed unnecessary but, more to the point, most of the rest is best done by individuals or non-state bodies. Of your list, only the second, third and fourth need be the sole preserve of the state. The remainder could be conducted perfectly well by cooperation of corporate entities by and market choice (given adequate disclosure of data to customers).
The reason we disagree on this is evident from the remainder of your comment which is, of course, perfectly well-argued and internally consistent. However, its basis is the conception that because we elected our government, we are at its disposal. This is a fundamental, irreconcilable difference in viewpoint.
[jinbish], governments don't pay for anything; we pay for it, but we have no say in the purchasing decision. |
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I would point out that whether or not you believe we should be at the disposal of our governments is effectively immaterial... we are and shall remain so, as far as they are concerned. |
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If that is to be the case then I say we take 'em for what they're worth. They can not control your mind. |
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Quite; but I understood you to be questioning my ideology, not my perception of reality. |
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I reluctantly forced myself to slog my way through John Varley's "Red Lightning" last night, and an idea much akin to this one was detailed in there. |
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Easier to leave your idealogy alone... let sleeping idealogues lie ;) |
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You're at odds with me on:
Transport infrastructure, which includes ports, airports, bridges and roads (though the situation in the UK is effectively beyond repair, as your road have evolved from footpaths that were old when the Romans arrived.) |
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Education... unless you're comfortable with it being hijacked by fringe right idealogues and creationists. |
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Water & Sewerage... which are and should be the bailiwick of governments. If you put that in the hands of private enterprise they find a way to bill progressively more than it's worth, in the name of responsibility to shareholders. That's happening in a couple of Australian states at the moment, with disastrous consequences. The model used is one they've imported from the UK. |
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Health: You may whine about the NHS with good reason.I think you'd be dismayed at the free-for-all that is the US health system. |
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[UB]: at the risk of bringing down [jutta]'s wrath with further digression, I would point out:
Transport: we have a toll-only motorway and numerous toll bridges. Many of the roads in towns (including one not far from me) are 'unadopted', meaning that they're not maintained by the local authority but by a levy on residents. There are 40,000 miles of such roads in UK.
Education: no state administered funding does not necessarily mean no state control; the government could easily prescribe standards which every licensed school must maintain (as happens now in UK). I would argue, though, that even this would be unnecessary if parents were to be given the choice as to where their children were educated. (To forestall a possible objection, the fact that some may choose badly is no reason to deny a choice to all.)
Water: again, ownership need not be conflated with regulation, but actual privatization has been successful in Ontario.
Health: the US is by no means a free-for-all; it is, in fact, hugely regulated, to the extent that state legislatures can oblige residents and employers to purchase insurance of certain defined forms, and insurers to provide it. They can also 'outlaw' other forms of insurance. Again, state regulation does not imply state funding. Healthcare, like education, functioned perfectly well before it was socialised; Charles Gordon's schools and the Ragged School Union educated the children of the poor long before the 1870 Education Act. It was the introduction of state-owned schools that destroyed private education in UK by using public funds to under-write lower fees, just as state-administered healthcare took privately-run hospitals into public ownership. State involvement did not result in great improvements in either field; quite the reverse in many ways. |
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Hmmm... my prescription medicines cost me AUD124/mth, for branded (not generic) product. In the US the same basket of products is USD853/mth. I hear what you're saying but it looks like a free-for-all to me. |
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