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The most surprising thing to me about this idea that I completely agree with, is that it comes from Florida

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/25/state-proposal-vary-cost_n_2014802.html
If you're going to subsidize with state money then weight it towards degrees that can be shown to have more significant impacts on the economy.

Hmmm...I lean toward agreeing, but being in Psychology, I feel it puts a burden on those that genuinely wish to pursue a psychology degree and intend to become (much needed and underpaid) counselors and therapists, not to mention researchers. If the gap was too wide, then I'd probably be against it. I will have to think on this more.

*sits back with some popcorn*

(Engineer btw)

On the surface it sounds good.

However, we see that when we optomize for one result (ie, the economy in this case) then it has detrimental effects in other areas. Take standardized testing in schools. Every curriculum is now geared not to learning, but to passing a rather arbitrary test, one which can't (for political reasons) test for critical thinking, work ethic, etc.

This has damaged our educational system.

By reducing the cost of "economically useful" degrees and increasing the cost of arts we may be forcing more people into a better job market than they otherwise might go into, but I worry that this incentive will actually erode our culture and ability to adapt. There's a reason the school of art and architecture and the school of music is on the engineering campus at the University of Michigan, and it's not just because that's where they had available land.

If they want to make such programs more attractive to students, they should look at making the program more attractive, not simply altering the cost model.

stienman said:

On the surface it sounds good.

However, we see that when we optomize for one result (ie, the economy in this case) then it has detrimental effects in other areas. Take standardized testing in schools. Every curriculum is now geared not to learning, but to passing a rather arbitrary test, one which can't (for political reasons) test for critical thinking, work ethic, etc.

This has damaged our educational system.

By reducing the cost of "economically useful" degrees and increasing the cost of arts we may be forcing more people into a better job market than they otherwise might go into, but I worry that this incentive will actually erode our culture and ability to adapt. There's a reason the school of art and architecture and the school of music is on the engineering campus at the University of Michigan, and it's not just because that's where they had available land.

If they want to make such programs more attractive to students, they should look at making the program more attractive, not simply altering the cost model.

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I was thinking something similar with regards to mental health resources. Counselors serve a genuine need in the community and making it more expensive to create new, proficient counselors may have unintended consequences.

There is an assumption in the idea that limiting supply of liberal arts graduates will hurt culture that I believe is wrong. Culture, as opposed to science, is not predicated on a highly focused education in it. Many of the musicians, writers, and artists who define our culture do not come from a degree in their field. They come from all sorts of places. The same can not be said of our nobel laureates.

I do think that cultural arts, if you will, should still fall into the general curriculum that all students are required to take. Also I am pretty sure that Architecture definitely, and possibly even music, falls into STEM.

ed: Psychology falls into a very strange location though. A bachelors is probably more in the liberal arts, but at the graduate level it rapidly switches to a hard science.

I brought this up with a couple of colleagues and these excellent points came up:

• Undesirable majors already have a financial cost in that they will typically pay more in interest over the life of their student loans. It may not be universally true, but it is well understood that being an English major will make getting a job difficult later.
• There will be a cost to hiring new engineering, business etc. professors, which is not cheap. These kinds of professors usually cost MORE than the english or psychology professor. You have to compete with industry. So your majors are paying less tuition for more expensive education. That will be a tricky balance.
• Universities are not technical schools and are meant to provide a broad education. An educated populace is different than a skilled populace. A skilled populace will provide short term economic gains but with long-term costs that are hard to quantify. I know, we are only talking about the majors and not the entire college curriculum, but I would not be surprised if you found that the electives available to students was reduced in STEM and business-oriented degrees, resulting in a narrower education in general.

In short, I feel like the recommendations might result in short term benefits but with long-term costs at the societal level. On the other hand, I would love to have students that were dedicated to getting their psychology degree. Weed out some of the riff raff for me, sure!

All I know is that human being optimize and that if you aren't careful when choosing your incentives, you may hurt yourself more than you help yourself.[DOUBLEPOST=1358276608][/DOUBLEPOST]

MindDetective said:

Weed out some of the riff raff for me, sure!

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In exchange for flooding the STEM degrees with lukewarm students that have no passion for creative engineering? Talk about STEM industries taking a nosedive with everyone barely able to think at all, nevermind thinking out of the box.

stienman said:

In exchange for flooding the STEM degrees with lukewarm students that have no passion for creative engineering? Talk about STEM industries taking a nosedive with everyone barely able to think at all, nevermind thinking out of the box.

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You would be doing me a great service!

The other key point that really should be taken into account here is that what we're really talking about here are government subsidies. The states heavily subsidize tuitions at these colleges (some moreso than others). If we have to start seriously looking at cutting those subsidies due to economic shortfalls, shouldn't we also look at those subsidies in terms of the economy itself? If we want to subsidize ephemeral cultural value, so be it, but I think most would agree that we REALLY want to subsidize the investments that show a real and tangible ROI.

Doesn't have to be "either/or", look at them as seperate subsidies. When you do that it doesn't follow with ANY of our government philosophy on funding to have equal subsidies for cultural gains alongside technical/economic gains.

I mean....you don't even do that in a game of Civ.....

MindDetective said:

You would be doing me a great service!

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Not only that, but psych industries would go up as people hit their 30's and 40's and figure out that stem was a bad choice.

Everyone wins! For some value of "win"!

As for concerns about graduating so called "lukewarm" students, how about we cross that bridge when we come to it? Right now the demand outstrips the supply by so much that many industries would still gladly accept a lukewarm STEM major. It's also, frankly, a little bit of an elitest assumption to think that the only students that can handle STEM, or do something of value with it, are those that go into it with an already existing passion. It also assumes that the current graduates of STEM are there because they love the subject. Truth is a lot of STEM majors are already there simply for the money. So why not make the picture a bit clearer?

Necronic said:

The other key point that really should be taken into account here is that what we're really talking about here are government subsidies. The states heavily subsidize tuitions at these colleges (some moreso than others). If we have to start seriously looking at cutting those subsidies due to economic shortfalls, shouldn't we also look at those subsidies in terms of the economy itself? If we want to subsidize ephemeral cultural value, so be it, but I think most would agree that we REALLY want to subsidize the investments that show a real and tangible ROI.

Doesn't have to be "either/or", look at them as seperate subsidies. When you do that it doesn't follow with ANY of our government philosophy on funding to have equal subsidies for cultural gains alongside technical/economic gains.

I mean....you don't even do that in a game of Civ.....

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What's equal? There's the problem. If you have 60 different degrees in the humanities, but 20 in STEM, but you'd rather have a 50/50 split of graduates, then what?


And btw, watch for my wife to come into this thread at some point, given that she's got both a STEM degree and multiple humanities degrees. It's a topic we've discussed a few times, and I find it very fascinating having the input of a person who has literally seen (and worked in no less) both sides of it.

Necronic said:

a little bit of an elitest assumption

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Not just a little bit! I'm going full blown elitist over here!

Necronic said:

As for concerns about graduating so called "lukewarm" students, how about we cross that bridge when we come to it? Right now the demand outstrips the supply by so much that many industries would still gladly accept a lukewarm STEM major. It's also, frankly, a little bit of an elitest assumption to think that the only students that can handle STEM, or do something of value with it, are those that go into it with an already existing passion. It also assumes that the current graduates of STEM are there because they love the subject. Truth is a lot of STEM majors are already there simply for the money. So why not make the picture a bit clearer?

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I don't see it as a concern, because there will always be lukewarm students. They will simply take the path of least resistance. That is frequently through Psychology, as it turns out.

Or Communication.

In terms of cultural significance, let me also point out that STEM itself has massive cultural significance. What has been more important to American, NAY, WORLD cutlure? John Irving? Or the internet?

And let's take it a step further. Would we even have had Kurt Vonnegut if not for the inspiration he drew from the Space Race?

Necronic said:

Or Communication.

In terms of cultural significance, let me also point out that STEM itself has massive cultural significance. What has been more important to American, NAY, WORLD cutlure? John Irving? Or the internet?

And let's take it a step further. Would we even have had Kurt Vonnegut if not for the inspiration he drew from the Space Race?

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You get no argument from me on that.

Let's take it a step even FURTHER

What would Design and Art proffesionals out there prefer? More lukewarm Design and Art students? Or another Apple, which has supplied them thousands of jobs?

Necronic said:

Let's take it a step even FURTHER

What would Design and Art proffesionals out there prefer? More lukewarm Design and Art students? Or another Apple, which has supplied them thousands of jobs?

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No one is denying there would be short term economic benefits to a plan like this.

Ok, so it's accepted that there are short term economic benefits. And by short term we are talking about at least a generation from what I see since we are talking about a working life. If we can have a plan that has obvious benefits in over the course of 40 years, with possible speculative problems centuries from now.....that's about as good a plan as I think government could ever come up with. And while you may be tempted to draw parallels with global warming/environmentalism on that description remember: it took STEM to identify that problem and it will take STEM to fix it.

Necronic said:

Ok, so it's accepted that there are short term economic benefits. And by short term we are talking about at least a generation from what I see since we are talking about a working life. If we can have a plan that has obvious benefits in over the course of 40 years, with possible speculative problems centuries from now.....that's about as good a plan as I think government could ever come up with. And while you may be tempted to draw parallels with global warming/environmentalism on that description remember: it took STEM to identify that problem and it will take STEM to fix it.

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40 years? I'd agree to 10 at most. Really, I will happily trumpet the benefits of STEM right along with you. But to critically assess a proposal you have to poke holes in it. Listing the obvious benefits over and over doesn't strengthen the proposal...only your own commitment to it.

I wonder what kind of legal challenges it's going to have to face. If the government is going to provide tuition help to students, does the government have a right to discriminate based on coursework under the theory that the economic reward balances against the discrimination?

MindDetective said:

40 years? I'd agree to 10 at most. Really, I will happily trumpet the benefits of STEM right along with you. But to critically assess a proposal you have to poke holes in it. Listing the obvious benefits over and over doesn't strengthen the proposal...only your own commitment to it.

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Good point. Ok. So the major issues I see with this proposal:

1) How do you actually identify the degrees that deserve more funding? If it's done solely on the marketplace then you could easily have a situation like the housing bubble, which would have pushed students into Architecture and Finance only to have it bounce them back out again with record unemployment numbers. If you do it by a committee then is it decided through lobbying, or simply throught the sole discretion of men in a back room? Either way that idea is very concerning.

2) It may be fair, or completely unfair, to argue that the humanities provide a social conscience, and without them we may not have the best sense of ethics. This could be toxic to the world (see housing bubble). Is this actually the case? If so how do you ensure that we maintain it?

3) How do you deal with degrees like Biology or Psychology, where the demand is based on the degree level? At the bachelors level these have very limited value, but it's inarguable that the graduate level is very valuable and very much in demand.

God, I am such a fucking drain with my History degree. All I did was become a history teacher. It's not like my degree benefits society in any way! I should be made to pay some form of financial penalty for my crimes.

Interesting point. How do we approach this if it's going to gut primary education? Teachers are already disincentivized by low pay and yowling human larvae.

Again, it brings to fore the short term vs long term benefits.

stienman said:

Interesting point. How do we approach this if it's going to gut primary education? Teachers are already disincentivized by low pay and yowling human larvae.

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When I hear comments on something that will gut primary education I can't help but wonder if that really matters at this point. We've already killed the poor horse and are continuing to beat it. Does it really matter if we stop? Especially with no one caring/willing to actually try and recesitate it.

It's not a one part solution. Clearly we need good teachers, they are in high demand. But History majors/Lib arts majors AREN'T (sorry Tress, nothing personal). There is a clear distinction between the two there. It is necessary to study English to be a good English teacher, but not all English majors are qualified to teach.

One solution that is already partially in place is to have tuition remission programs for teachers that can show high performance after their first X years. That of course requires a good program for actually evaluating teachers, which is not a small task (but at least it is finally being explored).

Ed: And while you personally may not be a drain, as you are working and producing, how many of the people you went to school with actually use their degrees, or are even working? Those people had their education subsidized with our tax dollars and there is nothing to show for it. That is a waste of our money, something we can't afford to do anymore, if we ever could.

I think part of the problem here is one of image for the term "humanities major." The phrase conjures up the image of a loser type, with his scraggy goatee, telling someone how he studied philosophy to get back at The Man and moving home to live with his parents. That term doesn't bring to mind the folks who want to be teachers, counselors, police officers, lawyers, executives, and so on. Most of those fields require a lot of work with crappy (comparative) pay. Do you really want to tell that group they've been singled out to pay more tuition than someone else because a politician decided they aren't contributing enough to society?

How do you identify degrees that deserved more funding? You don't. You give everyone an equal shot at making something of themselves and help them succeed as much as possible. If you want more people to go into STEM fields, make it more attractive. Don't punish people who want to study outside of STEM fields.

We already DO determine who gets an education. It's based on who can pay for it, and that's a subclass that is rapidly dwindling. To me it is far more important that we open access to those that cannot or will not be able to afford college than it is to make sure that the upper middle class all have a chance to study whatever they want.

As someone currently in school for a Psych major (and knows he's going to have to get AT LEAST a Masters if he wants to make a career out of it), I'm getting a real kick out of this. Go on, discuss my future as I slowly acquire more debt trying to better myself...

I have a question:
Is there any price difference between STEM and humanities right now in the US? Around here price is loosely based on cost (mind you, all education is subsidized so we supposedly pay 30 to 60% of cost) and there's a few categories: studies that involve more practical work, labs, etc (such as the ones in STEM programmes) are a bit more expensive. That's natural to a point. If you don't have anything like it, you are already compensating, aren't you? If there is no direct relation between cost and future salary, you already have an incentive to study jobs with higher salaries.

(Here, the requirements to renew a scholarship are a quite lower -pass 60% of subjects instead of 80%- for for people in engineering programmes. I was always offended that they made the lower requirements for engineers, as if engineering was easier than physics! I am now offended because I see engineering is seen as much more important to society).


Besides all of this, I've come to think that the problem nowadays is in primary education. You have a problem of demotivated or lukewarm university students, and you have that problem everywhere. Really, the medium term solution is to drastically improve their education before they get there. You'll probably be able to get better quality professionals later on, plus if you consider there's not enough interest in STEM you can change that at this level (whereas a purely economic motivation has all the inconvenients already discussed for the field itself)

Ps.: I just woke up, I'm sorry if you need to make an effort to see my actual arguments somewhere in these words.

EDIT: "Some universities do charge more for STEM degrees, because they are typically more expensive to run." I guess I should've read the article first...

AshburnerX said:

As someone currently in school for a Psych major (and knows he's going to have to get AT LEAST a Masters if he wants to make a career out of it), I'm getting a real kick out of this. Go on, discuss my future as I slowly acquire more debt trying to better myself...

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English and Classics here.

I'll probably be preparing for medical in a year or so, my shit's expensive no matter what I do.

AshburnerX said:

As someone currently in school for a Psych major (and knows he's going to have to get AT LEAST a Masters if he wants to make a career out of it), I'm getting a real kick out of this. Go on, discuss my future as I slowly acquire more debt trying to better myself...

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Exactly this for me.

Right now STEM classes cost students slightly more than other degrees due to extra fees for labs and computer labs etc. They also may cost the school more since the professors are paid more than other programs, and the class sizes are often smaller. However STEM programs are much much more likely to being money to the school in the form of grants or generated IP. So as a net I have no idea which students/programs cost more, but my guess is that for a lot of schools the grant/IP funding STEM generates makes STEM substantially cheaper for schools

.

AshburnerX said:

As someone currently in school for a Psych major (and knows he's going to have to get AT LEAST a Masters if he wants to make a career out of it), I'm getting a real kick out of this. Go on, discuss my future as I slowly acquire more debt trying to better myself...

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I'm detecting some snark here, so let me just say that the structure of the state university system is something we all have a right to discuss. It may be more personal to you as a student, but those of us who pay for your studies have a right to be interested in how the money can be best used, and every American has a responsibility to be concerned with our slowly flagging university systems.

-didn't read the whole thread.

I don't like the idea of this, because it could push underachievers or people without the talent to succeed into fields where they can do more harm than good. Or into fields where they will not be pleased with their career.

We talked about this on the last page.

First off there is the implication that a lot of the people in non-STEM are underachievers, or unable to do the work, which I disagree with. There are many high achievers in other fields that may choose STEM instead if there is an upfront advantage as opposed to an ephemeral long term advantage (most people simply can't plan that well, consider the so-called "tax hike".)

Second you're assuming that the universities/processors will be graduatin lower quality students, which I disagree with. If there's one thing I've come to appreciate about science professors it's that they have little problem with failin large portions of their classes. That said the universities should not be encouraged to artificially inflate its graduation rates to show success in the program, that could be devastating.

Third you're implying that the people who are in STEM now are more likely to have long term career satisfaction than other potential students, because they will be there for purely financial reasons. In my experience this is already true. Many STEM majors (more than any other field at least) are there purely due to financial planning or family pressure. This can be negative, but the highly effective and highly Asian coworker demographic I have would suggest otherwise.

Necronic said:

Second you're assuming that the universities/processors will be graduatin lower quality students, which I disagree with. If there's one thing I've come to appreciate about science professors it's that they have little problem with failin large portions of their classes. That said the universities should not be encouraged to artificially inflate its graduation rates to show success in the program, that could be devastating.

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I fully agree with this. It's already happening to a slight degree, in terms of 1st-year "dropout" rates that have been "Addressed" in the worst way possible: making 1st year easier.

To summarize, a university is sometimes measured by the dropout rate of 1st years. It was found that engineering programs had a high 1st-year dropout rate, so they were "directed" to correct it by university administration. But because accreditation requirements did not go down (thank God), what they did is make the 1st year courses easier, but the 2nd year courses were "harder" as a result, so the "weeder" year is 2nd year. This is an improvement to the metric the university wanted. Unfortunately it's harder to move faculties if you only start failing 2 years in. It's a lot easier if after one semester you go "oh shit, this math is f'n impossible, I'll take flower arranging instead!" (No insult intended to people who do that) But after your 3rd or 4th semester of engineering? You already have piled on debt, and thus you feel you have to "keep with it" in that degree, leading to more overall dropouts anyways when they can't cut it in the long run.

So I hope the curriculum isn't being changed, just the costs.