Universities are backing themselves into a dangerous corner by becoming more expensive at the same time they're becoming less necessary.
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Should we focus on the cost of what they provide or on the price they charge for it? Cost of providing an MIT undergraduate education is around $90k/year, average price they charge is around $20k/year.
I believe universities' costs have grown significantly faster than inflation, so that's one source of trouble. Another is that a lot of the courses are a waste of time. (And by that I mean intellectually, not just in the narrow sense of teaching marketable skills.)
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Universities' costs grow faster than inflation because of Baumol's law, the same reason that health care costs grow faster than inflation and all services that require skilled workers. And I can honestly say I didn't take a single class at MIT that was a waste of time.
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(There are a few classes I didn't like and didn't get as much out of, including organic chemistry, intro to microeconomics, and intro to linguistics. But in all of those cases I'm still really glad I took one class.)
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The most prominent proponent of, "School is a waste of time, and look, I have these cool black turtlenecks," is going off to jail soon. I'm not going to say college is essential for everyone, but every Thiel Fellow I've met would get more out of college than what they are doing.
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I agree with you about Thiel Fellows.
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Also, "The cost to provide a University of California education is lower today than it was two decades ago, a result of educational efficiencies made by UC in response to reduced state funding."https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/uc-educational-expenses-lower-today-20-years-ago-report-finds …
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The universities costs have increased in part due to construction of highly sophisticated buildings by starchitects. In addition to initial costs maintenance of high performance custom buildings can also be high.
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Also in part because they build wheelchair ramps now. But that's still not more than a tiny, tiny factor in the increase.
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