/liberty/ - Liberty

>>16612

>Is the ever increasing cost of college the free market attempting to correct itself?

>COLLEGE

>MARKET

Lolno. When you subsidize something exponentially the cost increases exponentially. If every college student was given however much money the college charges, and this is essentially what loans do, colleges can charge ever higher rates to enter the cartel of education. If the government gave everyone a $50,000 car-credit they could only spend on new Toyotas, what do you think would happen to the price of Toyotas relative to every other car..? Increase, obviously.

In a free market, people would be able to get certified as mechanical engineers for at most a few thousand dollars without leaving their room. For some reason, it requires $15,000+ nowadays in debt at time of graduation alone.

The ever increasing cost of college is the result of the ever increasing amount of federally insured loans.

>>16613

>When you subsidize something exponentially the cost increases exponentially

I guess you don't know about dairy subsides and the price of milk in the United States.

>>16614

The ever increasing cost of college is the result of the ever increasing amount of federally insured loans

Please explain how that works. I don't get the point you are trying to make.

>>16618

SUBSIDIZING PRODUCTION NOT CONSUMPTION LE DERP

>>16621

meaning dairy PRODUCTION not CONSUMPTION is subsidized

>>16621

>>16623

How do you subsidize consumption?

Is someone getting paid to drink milk?

Producers get paid money and sell at lower prices.

>>16612

It's certainly a market correction, but I wouldn't call it a free market correction.

If you look at education spending, it has increased rapidly due to federal loans and subsidized education. Employers are not allowed to give tests/"trial periods" on-the-job at no (or low) pay by federal law, so they started relying on degrees. Associates degrees became worth a lot less thanks to the GI bill and women entering the work force en masse, so employers started demanding bachelors degrees.

In comes the Department of Education w/massive subsidized student loans (a consumption product, by the way), and colleges eagerly gobbled them up. Except the colleges failed to realize (in reality they realize and don't give a shit) that those were for students, not them. So the colleges expand their administration and non-teaching staff extensively, start taking on bloat programs, and figure out every which way to get more federal funding.

It's not a free market by any stretch of the imagination, but it is an artificial market trying to correct itself. Employers will continue to demand education because they can't test people (or refuse to train them), students will continue to attend schools in excess of how many should be going, and schools will continue to suck up the extra cash until one of them gives either loans exceeding a rate of ever being pay-backable leading to fewer students and crashing the artificial market, or government "running out of money" to tax because everyone who they want taxes from are in debt and can't afford it, leading to the collapse of the education bubble.

I suppose they could go full socialist and stave off the inevitable for about 5-10 years, but at the end of it, everyone would be far worse off than they would be not going to school in the first place.

>>16630

You subsidise consumption by making the end product artificially cheaper. It's a shift in demand.

You subsidise production by making the costs of production cheaper. It's a shift in supply.

The business of Sallie Mae and relevant Federal programs is in making tuition more attractive, since the product is in guaranteed low(er) interest loans.

>>16632

Socialising the system doesn't change the moral hazard in the market. The inflated costs are merely shifted away from students and onto the state. This is how it is in Europe.

>>16635

>Socialising the system doesn't change the moral hazard in the market. The inflated costs are merely shifted away from students and onto the state. This is how it is in Europe.

That's a given in respect to Europe, bro.

I was just looking at things from the lens of 'Murrica.

>>16612

no, it's just people enjoying that "free" gubmint grant money.

Colleges are shit right now and if you like to go there then you're a fag. (except if your department is highly specialized and gets actual work done without progressive bs)

>>16677

No one said they were actually free.

The "free" part he was referring to was likely the GI Bill fucking welfare whores and FAFSA.

The thing about student loans is EVERYONE takes them out because they tell themselves "oh, I'll be able to pay these off when I get a job, but I need to graduate first because I was indoctrinated for 13+ years into believing I needed higher education to find work!"

So everyone takes 'em out and the universities continue to raise tuition thinking the stream is endless.

The job market isn't slowing down, so much as there is just too damn much degree inflation both to get the job. There's also degree inflation with respect to what degrees people are getting, and how many people are getting degrees.

You're seeing an increase of liberal arts majors whereas the liberal arts lost their main assets back in the 70s/80s. A Liberal arts degree used to represent that you had a viable understanding of how society got to where it is based on ancient history and old literature. Nowadays it represents that you could sit through a dozen "sensitivity" and "gender studies" classes which no fucking employer wants you to have- that shit is literal fucking cancer that turns an asset into a liability at a moment's notice.

>>16678

Apologies for the errors midway through, I realized some shit but forgot to go back and fix the other half.

Seems legible still.

>>16618

Prices for dairy products have gone up. Around 2000 it wad under $2 for a gallon of milk. It went over $4 by 2004.

>>16720

This may be due to the fuel cost increases during that time.