HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

⬐ api

I find myself having binary reactions to virtually all of Thiel's positions: I either strongly agree or strongly disagree. I guess that's what his methodological contrarianism generates.

I agree with this one. Not only are college costs out of control, but the fact that colleges have seen tuition increase much faster than inflation while simultaneously decreasing the number of real tenure track positions and other academic positions should be a national scandal. It's borderline fraud.

What the hell is all that money going toward? As near as I can tell it's unnecessary vanity buildings, executive salaries, and runaway bloat in administrative offices. It's going toward everything but real tenure track professorships, better teacher/student ratios, and everything else a university should be doing.

⬐ sradman

See The Baumol Effect by Alex Tabarrok [1]:

> After looking at education and health care and doing a statistical analysis covering 139 industries, Helland and I conclude that a big factor in price increases over time in the rising price of skilled labor.

The interesting question, in my mind, is why the United States is an outlier compared to other advanced nation states.

[1] https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/05/th...

⬐ matthewaveryusa

I find that discoverability is the problem. Out of all the classes I took, 2 without a doubt made the whole experience worth it and is still paying dividends: (discrete math and advanced algorithms) -- but I had no idea at the time that they would be the ones that would provide so much value. They were the classes that convinced me that I wanted to write software and not do electrical engineering. I wonder how you can solve this without simply going through the four years and hoping for the best.

⬐ avindroth

Which discrete math class? (Currently trying to decide on a math class for autumn as CS major)

⬐ matthewaveryusa

This one back in 2014 -- just the intro undergrad class. I actually absorb very little from lectures and do most of my learning by reading and doing problems myself -- the book was so good I read it cover to cover and did a lot of the practice problems.

https://wl11gp.neu.edu/udcprod8/bwckctlg.p_disp_course_detai...

https://www.amazon.com/Discrete-Mathematics-Applications-Ken...

⬐ sradman

This appears the final section of a 2014 episode of Conversations with Bill Kristol [1]:

> CH. 6 : THE HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE (1:13:57 - 1:36:39)

> Is American higher education heading towards a major fiscal crisis? Thiel explains he thinks it is.

[1] https://conversationswithbillkristol.org/video/peter-thiel/

⬐ advaita

IMO, adding 2018 in the title would be better.

⬐ ykevinator

Peter Theil is an insulated idiot genius who happens to be right on this

⬐ aklemm

Couldn’t have said it better myself.

⬐ pfkurtz

Hard for me to separate theses Thiel is partially right about from the great harm his existence has done to our species.

⬐ asldkjaslkdj

He's not nearly the first one to make this claim, so I'm not sure why it's even notable... "billionaire believes an oft-feared problem"

⬐ chrisco255

Yes, but Thiel has been saying this for many years, if not decades, and he did put his money where his mouth was, by paying students to drop out as part of the Thiel Fellowship program: http://thielfellowship.org/

⬐ Taniwha

At this point I think Thiel lives in his own wealth bubble so distinct from the experience of most people that his reckons just should be ignored by default.

I suspect that the main reason we see what he has to say so much is that he can pay a publicist to get people to listen to him .... he's essentially trying to buy\ his way into the 'marketplace of ideas' using money rather than actual ideas, essentially trying to skew the marketplace in his favor

⬐ istorical

Seems to me that you failed to address his claims.

⬐ asldkjaslkdj

When you put it that way it sounds really sad.

⬐ Ziggy_Zaggy

Although there's merit to the fact that people can be blinded by their wealth-bubbles to the point that they cannot adequately identify/assess solutions to address problems that seem obvious to the rest of society, to discount someone's views based on their wealth-bubble status is likely ultimately a recipe for division, grid-lock, and a more closed-off society. Perhaps it's more useful to try to evlauate an individual's ideas based on the merits of their feasbility and overall utility versus writing them off by default in order to achieve a more functional society for everyone?

⬐ Taniwha

actually it was because of his expressed ideas that I was saying I think that he doesn't seem to live in the same reality as the rest of us

⬐ baix777

Why should we listen to the ideas of a rich guy rather than an educator? How many times have have you seen an education expert on this site discussing these topics from a critical standpoint?

The bigger issue is why to people want to listen to rich people rather than experts in the field? This reminds me the climate change where some people don't want to listen to the experts but instead want to listen so someone (or news organization) they already know.

⬐ badhabit

don't discriminate much, take every idea, the odd idea that gots strong reaction (in a good, strange, nonobvious way), probably is on to something.

same idea with anova, the variable that causes a lot of variance is probably significant.

⬐ jb775

I agree college is overpriced, but I doubt Thiel's companies often hire people without a formal college education. He's really just stating the obvious here without mentioning any viable alternatives.

⬐ cinquemb

I don't think hes the type of person to offer the next religion that people should crowd into… maybe less focus on working for companies that filter on "formal college education" above all else, even if they are "his" companies (its debatable the level of control an owner has over the day to day operation of companies esp if you own a lot of companies [principle-agent issues]).

⬐ rsj_hn

Agreed. And it's not just "overpriced", because "overprice" says you are not getting enough output per input. In this case, with higher education, the economy (and nation) needs skilled workers, and universities are not producing them in the quantities needed even as they graduate more and more students who have degrees that don't help them succeed in the job market.

I think the solution should be a combination of things:

1. Make universities cheaper. Say fire 90% of non-academic staff, and force universities to have more academic staff than non-academic staff. Also make admission more rigorous, so they are more selective. Also get rid of the non-tenure track slave labor in academic staff. Ideally roughly 1/3 of the population should go to university, say 30% fresh from college students and 5% older students.

2. Provide vocational training so that people can have as option vocational education such as electrical work, carpentry, plumbing, machine tools, and yes, programming, day care, medical assistant, accountant, etc. Vocational training should be max 3 years of focused training with an apprenticeship period in the last year, and unlike universities, these vocational schools should be setup so that everyone can access at least a couple of vocational school options, at government expense. Ideally 2/3 of the population should go to a vocational school.

3. Stop providing government loans to universities entirely. Universities can provide scholarships and there should be government scholarships available based solely on merit. There should also be student aid based solely on financial need, but with high academic requirements, otherwise route the student to a vocational school, which should be fully paid for by the government.

4. Safety valve. If someone goes to a vocational school there should be an option to go back to university based on academic merit. Say a construction worker really takes to it and wants to become an architect, etc. The safety valve should be rare, say 5% max.

5. Online learning/certifications for people switching specializations roughly within the same field.

⬐ mkoubaa

I agree with most points but I don't think admissions should be more rigorous. retention should be more rigorous, you should not be guaranteed four years because you had a good SAT. they should let in more freshman's and mercilessly cull each year. I don't get why they hold hands for some students when so many would have loved to be in their place.

⬐ rsj_hn

So if you want school to be more expensive, then a good way to do that is to let in twice as many people as can cut it, and then have half of them drop out. Basically what we are doing now. That more than doubles the cost and also screws a lot of people out of good years of their lives, since those who drop out then have to seek education elsewhere.

⬐ blablabla123

I think other countries do well without such expensive universities, like Germany for instance where students are much more on their own. So I disagree with reducing "non-academic staff" and making admissions more difficult. In my opinion class sizes could be even larger and moved online completely. After all students only spend a fraction of their time in classes. Most of the time needs to be spent actually learning the stuff from the lectures, both alone and in groups with other students. Universities are there to facilitate the latter, it's just not possible with pure online learning - yet. To me most valuable are tutoring classes that are lead by staff or just more senior students, so it's possible to get qualified feedback and help with exercises and to actually understand things on a deeper level. At least for CS, Math, Natural Sciences.

There is a tendency to automatize a lot of basic work. Speaking for myself, I moved out from home 15 years ago and had to hire someone to repair something at my place only once. And that was because they messed up an installation that was initiated by the landlord. Societies as a whole are economically much better off when people get a higher education and should strive to enable it for everybody who wants to get it. (Many people actually don't want to study.)

⬐ rsj_hn

The reason why education in Germany is affordable whereas education in the US is not, is precisely because we have 7-10 non-academic staff per academic staff, whereas Germany has less than 1. These proposals of reducing non-academic staff, increasing rigor, reducing time to graduation, etc, is an attempt to be more like the German model.

You might want to look at this comment where I provide some numbers:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23817814

⬐ blablabla123

Thanks for sharing, this is really interesting.

Still, I wonder how German and U.S. universities compare for example in numbers of tutors. ("HiWis") I would estimate there is one per 20-50 students per course and they might fall into both groups since those helping out in 1st or 2nd semester courses might not have a university degree yet. Also the payment is typically quite low, although considered good enough for a first student job.

They are actually quite an important part of studies like Physics and Mathematics.

Regarding time of gradution/number students: in the past German model (which is now obsolete) where people studied for diploma, the typical lazy student would mean basically no extra cost for univsersities. Since this person usually doesn't occupy any lecture room or tutoring capacity... ;-) But the introduction of Bachelor/Master introduced quite some changes, in particular closer support for the students and more stringent time lines. But still, the Bachelor usually takes 3 years and the master an additional 2 years. Basically the curricula for diploma studies were just being split.

⬐ rsj_hn

So people like tutors, graders, TAs, are considered academic staff, and you can add them up in terms of FTE (full time equivalent), so 5 tutors that each work 8 hours per week add up to a single FTE.

It turns out not to make much of a difference to look only at full time staff versus FTE -- I didn't know this when I started looking at the data, but the slices of time by tutors end up being a marginal correction to counting just full time staff when you look at things like student-teacher ratios or total expenditure per staff.

In the US, there is a meaningful difference between tenure track and non-tenure track, as universities shift ever more funds away from academic staff and towards non-academic staff, one way this is accomplished is to pay the academic staff less, and this is accomplished by keeping the old professors at current pay but hiring mostly non-tenure track instructors as headcount is increased. The other way this is accomplished is by identifying some problem that needs an immediate solution, and then creating multiple vice provost positions which require their own department position, etc. Say community relations, gender equality, many different types of "outreach" positions, etc. European universities have so far resisted this type of cannibalization of tuition dollars by non-academic staff.

Thus the extra cost of non-academic staff is a good first order explanation for the diverge in annual tuition between US and Europe, and the fact that our students take 5-6 years to graduate and many don't graduate is another multiplier that explains differences in total spending on tertiary education per bachelors degree holder.

Taken together, these three factors: non-academic staff, longer time to graduation, much higher dropout rates, basically explain the full difference in spending between the US and Europe.

Another unintended consequence I could see is this could be a lead up to a debt crisis by the US government. Right now we are running 1 trillion budget deficits. If people can start discharging student loans then that will be a loss of revenue for the federal government so unless there is an equal amount of budget cuts then this will most likely result in the budget deficit increasing. If creditors get worried it could spook the debt markets. US debt won't be viewed as "safest" in the world....then starts the chain reaction series of events.

I also like to think back to what Peter Thiel says about higher education. It could be something similar to the 2008 housing crisis....where people were borrowing money to buy overvalued housing. Higher education to a certain extent could be people are borrowing large sums of money to get degrees that don't hold much value in the market place....so it becomes impossible for these people to ever repay the loans....overvalued assets and leverage spells bubble. I know people who borrowed 100k+ to get a degree in sociology only to realize after the fact that sociology is a worthless major. They then went back to spend another 100k to get a degree in nursing to finally become gainfully employed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crAHDXdBCXg

⬐ simonh

>I know people who borrowed 100k+ to get a degree in sociology only to realize after the fact that sociology is a worthless major.

And that decision is made when they are legally children, and they're bound to it for the rest of their lives.

⬐ JamalW

Well if Trump get’s elected again then at least they will have jobs and be able to pay off their debt

⬐ blaser-waffle

You're not usually obligated to choose a major until you're 2+ years in. By then you're probably 20 years old.

Hell, most Uni students are 18, which means they're a legal adult. Most of them have been driving cars and fucking for years before then -- why wouldn't they be able to make choices about a career?

⬐ Kye

They make equally misinformed decisions about sex and driving.

⬐ Kaiyou

I don't expect them to make any better decisions years later. Unless given the opportunity, how are you supposed to grow up?

⬐ Nasrudith

Despite the defecit hawk rhetoric it isn't the actual finances that damaged the credit worthiness. It was the GOP and their sheer sociopathic brinkmanship to make the debt ceiling a regular event to try to force their pet issues that harmed the credit rating.

There is a reason why debt in nations is always mentioned as a percentage and not a raw number - the raw number is meaningless.

⬐ RockIslandLine

Revenue is an obsolete concept at the Federal level. Currency issuers are not dependent on taxes to fund spending. Taxes have other roles, like controlling inflation.

All currency issuers can always pay any debt denominated in their native currency.

Whether higher education is producing a quality product at a fair price is a completely different discussion.

Whether the degrees being produced align with the workforce needs is yet another different discussion.

Whether jobs actually require the degrees that employers specify is yet another different discussion.