Politicians: Let’s hold someone accountable
Here’s where I get to laugh at the usual circus. Politicians deciding they need to hold some other industry “accountable”:
U.S. and state officials are intensifying efforts to hold colleges accountable for what happens after graduation, a sign of frustration with sky-high tuition costs and student-loan debt.
Sens. Ron Wyden (D., Ore.) and Marco Rubio> (R., Fla.) are expected to reintroduce this week legislation that would require states to make more accessible the average salaries of colleges’ graduates. The figures could help prospective students compare salaries by college and major to assess the best return on their investment.
While I agree that colleges do not offer a good return on investment at the moment, since when is it up to politicians to hold them “accountable”.
And how would the politicians fare if the same standards were applied to them?
~McQ
Since they have held themselves above any legal requirements to truthfully inform people of their AWFUL return on investments, and have, in fact, committed active fraud.
Pushing better information and transparency would be good all around. Right, McQ…???
As I recall, we already have laws against fraud.
This sounds like a job for the CFPB
Oh, we do! Not that they are well enforced. We also have many university systems who have (or can certainly claim) sovereign or quasi-sovereign immunity.
When you have a vacuum, you invite the political folks to find a way to fill it. Hell, they will act to fill a NOT vacuum, but one cannot blame them for acting on a real issue.
We also have laws against bribery, but then we merely call them “Campaign contributions”.
I think Eric Holder and President Obama should appoint a Czar to head a task force to monitor Universities defrauding students by recruiting them into low paying professions!
Same way it’s up to the FEDERAL government to stop bullying in the schools.
Most of these colleges are already an adjunct of the federal government
“U.S. and state officials are intensifying efforts to hold colleges accountable for what happens after graduation”
Why don’t we start with elementary and secondary schools? Perhaps they could explain why so many high school grads. need remedial math. & english when they enter college. It irritates me to think of college students borrowing money to pay to learn what they should have been taught in HS. Were I a college administrator I might use the old saying “garbage in, garbage out”.
I notice there is a link attached to “secondary schools”. I have no idea where that came from, but I would like to.
Yeah, when my third enrolled, and had to take remedial math, and found that ALL THE CLASSES WERE FULL for that semester….I knew there was a serious problem.
As I remarked to him, there should be 1 class, it should be less than half full. I recall those classes from 30+ years ago, I had to take one for pre-calc.
Where are colleges even going to get that data?
I don’t know about you, but I’m not telling my alma mater jack all about my life, let alone my income. It took telling them to screw off to get the to stop hounding me for donations – and this was a State university!
I’ve now passed the 35 year mark since my undergraduate degree, and my public university has successfully managed to get those annoying fund-raising emails to me through every single change of address during that time. I’ve never given them a dime and never will, as they were veering too far to the left for my taste even before I got out.
I stopped getting them from my Lama Mater when I sent them back the envelope with a note stating I should sue them for malfeasance.
I notice that commerce comes up with a machine with a million parts and when one part fails 20 years later, that’s “negligence”. Gub’mint, on the other hand, gets one part right in one million….
Well, the governmnt is responsible for the higher education bubble. It is trying to regulate another mess it created.
As it is you nearly need a degree to meet that check mark requirement, yet for most a liberal arts degree is worthless beyond the check mark it provides. But everyone has one, so you need one too.
As an aside, consider some of the crap they teach. Nonesense like the idea that the Founders got their idea for a federal system from native Americans is taught as fact.
Exactly. And, as usual, they created the problem, took over the loans and now it’s out of control. Say, sounds a bit like the housing bubble, doesn’t it?
Colleges are accredited by organizations sanctioned by the government. By doing so, they’ve created a closed club of accreditors that create a once removed closed club of colleges. The marketplace has already been interfered with.
Another example is the FEC. Not anyone can plop down a radio tower or TV tower. You need to be licensed. Licensing takes jumping through hoops and created a closed club of televisions stations and networks. As long as they all walked left politically there was little opportunity for market recourse. FoxNews snuck in there but it is more a placebo than a Conservative station. Anyway, they have relatively massive ratings. If the market wasn’t distorted someone else would have gotten in there to offer another Conservative viewpoint as well. They have not.
I don’t know a solution for broadcasters because an open market could totally mess up the airwaves. But giving consumers a little better information so they can make a more informed choice could be an offsetting move. Well, until that got hijacked into someone’s kickback scheme.
Last part should have read
But college, giving consumers a little better information so they can make a more informed choice could be an offsetting move. Well, until that got hijacked into someone’s kickback scheme.
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Equal Opportunity Employment Act of 2013
In order to ensure a diverse work environment companies are no longer allowed to discriminate on the basis of race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, age, physical or mental disability, or utility of college degree. All employers shall ensure that at least 20% of all positions requiring college degrees are filled by employees with majors in one or more of the the following degrees: Under Water Basket Weaving, Gender Studies, Dragonology, Dead Languages, Shakespeare, and other degrees as determined by the Secretary of Education. Employers failing to comply with this law may be subject to fines as determined by the Secretary of Education but not less than the salaries of the top 20% of employees requiring degrees.
Under water basket weaving is more difficult than you think!
And you left out the degree in Conversational Klingon for Diplomats.
Drop any govt backing for student loans and universities will have to make the loans. Once that happens, degrees in post-industrial critical feminist poetry will wither away…