A few days ago I suggested that one should ask the following question when considering Obama’s proposals to make college more affordable:
How would I subvert this system had I a mind to do so?
I suggested one way in which the proposal was bound to founder: the institutionalized revolving door that guarantees that the person rating colleges this year will be running one the next year and the near certainty that those regulators will act in the interest of the regulated rather than the consumer.
Here’s a more drawn out analysis, gaming the proposal and delivering a verdict similar to mine. Read the full article for the entire indictment, but as a person who believes that people should be taught to think in addition to being taught to make money, I want to emphasize this:
How well graduates do in the workforce
Putting this into your model is toxic, and measures a given field directly in terms of market forces. Economics, Computer Science, and Business majors will be the kings of the hill. We might as well never produce writers, thinkers, or anything else creative again.
Note this pressure already exists today: many of our college presidents are becoming more and more corporate minded and less interested in education itself, mostly as a means to feed their endowments. As an example, I don’t need to look further than across my street to Barnard, where president Debora Spar somehow decided to celebrate Ina Drew as an example of success in front of a bunch of young Barnard students. I can’t help but think that was related to a hoped-for gift.
Obama needs to think this one through. Do we really want to build the college system in this country in the image of Wall Street and Silicon Valley? Do we want to intentionally skew the balance towards those industries even further?
(via Cathy O’Neil: College Ranking Models « naked capitalism)
The thrust of the article is to the effect that it will merely give colleges additional incentive to prioritize money over education.
Patting myself on the back here: O’Neil suggests the same common sense, simple solution that I did:
If you really wanted to make costs low, then fund state universities and make them really good, and make them basically free. That would actually make private colleges try to compete on cost.
Too simple, too effective, and therefore too much out of the question.
Obama’s “solutions” always seem to benefit the people who caused the problems in the first place.
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