Remember now, it's the GOP that's moved to the fringe

2024 is going to be special too at that rate....

Dems are tripling down on stupid going further to the left.

SFGbob said:

creepycoug said:

SFGbob said:

UW_Doog_Bot said:

The dems spent 20 yrs radicalizing a generation by indoctrination in the public school system. That generation is now going to eat them.

I think one of the things pushing young folks to the left has been the cost of college and the debt many of these kids are incurring from their school expenses.

But you have to ask, who is running the schools? Who is making college so expensive? What is making housing so expensive in liberal run cities and states? It's not conservatives or conservative policies.

College Expense: I don't know for certain, but I've asked the same thing. I'm aware of a few things that must be drivers. For instance, most faculty get some kind of pension and they tend to have good healthcare coverage. Pensions, as even profitable corporations have found, are expensive af - a promise most wished they'd never made (see the many 8-K filings out there reporting pension transfer transactions numbering in the billions of $). Healthcare is everybody's million $ question. Professors don't make much money relative to their options, and so it seems these benefits have settled in as strongly market driven. It is a long and hard road to get a PhD, and not everyone has what it takes. These people tend to be expensive labor. The other thing that makes it expensive is the government and all the other sources of free money. Not everyone should or needs to go to college. Take the free money out of the equation, and I suspect the price would drop.

Liberal Run Cities: Again, I'm not the expert. But I would surmise that's it's almost entirely driven by good old fashioned supply and demand dynamics. SF, Seattle, Chicago, DC, Boston, Austin, LA, etc. are money towns. Commerce, capital formation, demand for expensive talent, etc. ... these things happen in those cities to a greater extent than they do elsewhere. I just got back from Indianapolis. Not as much going on there as there is here in Seattle, for example. I'm sure the liberal city councils and the extra taxes and fees and bullshit contribute to the expense, but I'm guessing it's a drop in the bucket relative to the main driver.

Administrative staff positions and their pay has exploded college level.

a major factor driving increasing costs is the constant expansion of university administration. According to the Department of Education data, administrative positions at colleges and universities grew by 60 percent between 1993 and 2009, which Bloomberg reported was 10 times the rate of growth of tenured faculty positions.

Even more strikingly, an analysis by a professor at California Polytechnic University, Pomona, found that, while the total number of full-time faculty members in the C.S.U. system grew from 11,614 to 12,019 between 1975 and 2008, the total number of administrators grew from 3,800 to 12,183 — a 221 percent increase.

The rapid increase in college enrollment can be defended by intellectually respectable arguments. Even the explosion in administrative personnel is, at least in theory, defensible. On the other hand, there are no valid arguments to support the recent trend toward seven-figure salaries for high-ranking university administrators, unless one considers evidence-free assertions about “the market” to be intellectually rigorous.

I think the high-priced admins are going to be those people at the tippy top. Running the UW or a UC is akin to running a mid-size city. Large and complex organizations require talented managers, like a CEO of a large corporation. For smaller private colleges, it's a different argument. Colleges are just a different animal. Market explanations have to be really qualified. They don't compete for capital the same way other business organizations do. They aren't evaluated at all like other business organizations are. It's about raising money through donations and gifts, generating prestige (different ways to do that depending on whether you're a large research machine like UW or a small elite college like Amherst) and managing the faculty.

My daughter just graduated from a small private college in New England ... I didn't perceive it to be overly bloated at the admin level, and they have a lot of money to burn. Probably harder to hide the fat when you're at a school with a total student pop. of 2700.

ramenduck said:

creepycoug said:

SFGbob said:

UW_Doog_Bot said:

The dems spent 20 yrs radicalizing a generation by indoctrination in the public school system. That generation is now going to eat them.

I think one of the things pushing young folks to the left has been the cost of college and the debt many of these kids are incurring from their school expenses.

But you have to ask, who is running the schools? Who is making college so expensive? What is making housing so expensive in liberal run cities and states? It's not conservatives or conservative policies.

College Expense: I don't know for certain, but I've asked the same thing. I'm aware of a few things that must be drivers. For instance, most faculty get some kind of pension and they tend to have good healthcare coverage. Pensions, as even profitable corporations have found, are expensive af - a promise most wished they'd never made (see the many 8-K filings out there reporting pension transfer transactions numbering in the billions of $). Healthcare is everybody's million $ question. Professors don't make much money relative to their options, and so it seems these benefits have settled in as strongly market driven. It is a long and hard road to get a PhD, and not everyone has what it takes. These people tend to be expensive labor. The other thing that makes it expensive is the government and all the other sources of free money. Not everyone should or needs to go to college. Take the free money out of the equation, and I suspect the price would drop.

Liberal Run Cities: Again, I'm not the expert. But I would surmise that's it's almost entirely driven by good old fashioned supply and demand dynamics. SF, Seattle, Chicago, DC, Boston, Austin, LA, etc. are money towns. Commerce, capital formation, demand for expensive talent, etc. ... these things happen in those cities to a greater extent than they do elsewhere. I just got back from Indianapolis. Not as much going on there as there is here in Seattle, for example. I'm sure the liberal city councils and the extra taxes and fees and bullshit contribute to the expense, but I'm guessing it's a drop in the bucket relative to the main driver.

creepycoug said:

SFGbob said:

creepycoug said:

SFGbob said:

UW_Doog_Bot said:

The dems spent 20 yrs radicalizing a generation by indoctrination in the public school system. That generation is now going to eat them.

I think one of the things pushing young folks to the left has been the cost of college and the debt many of these kids are incurring from their school expenses.

But you have to ask, who is running the schools? Who is making college so expensive? What is making housing so expensive in liberal run cities and states? It's not conservatives or conservative policies.

College Expense: I don't know for certain, but I've asked the same thing. I'm aware of a few things that must be drivers. For instance, most faculty get some kind of pension and they tend to have good healthcare coverage. Pensions, as even profitable corporations have found, are expensive af - a promise most wished they'd never made (see the many 8-K filings out there reporting pension transfer transactions numbering in the billions of $). Healthcare is everybody's million $ question. Professors don't make much money relative to their options, and so it seems these benefits have settled in as strongly market driven. It is a long and hard road to get a PhD, and not everyone has what it takes. These people tend to be expensive labor. The other thing that makes it expensive is the government and all the other sources of free money. Not everyone should or needs to go to college. Take the free money out of the equation, and I suspect the price would drop.

Liberal Run Cities: Again, I'm not the expert. But I would surmise that's it's almost entirely driven by good old fashioned supply and demand dynamics. SF, Seattle, Chicago, DC, Boston, Austin, LA, etc. are money towns. Commerce, capital formation, demand for expensive talent, etc. ... these things happen in those cities to a greater extent than they do elsewhere. I just got back from Indianapolis. Not as much going on there as there is here in Seattle, for example. I'm sure the liberal city councils and the extra taxes and fees and bullshit contribute to the expense, but I'm guessing it's a drop in the bucket relative to the main driver.

Administrative staff positions and their pay has exploded college level.

a major factor driving increasing costs is the constant expansion of university administration. According to the Department of Education data, administrative positions at colleges and universities grew by 60 percent between 1993 and 2009, which Bloomberg reported was 10 times the rate of growth of tenured faculty positions.

Even more strikingly, an analysis by a professor at California Polytechnic University, Pomona, found that, while the total number of full-time faculty members in the C.S.U. system grew from 11,614 to 12,019 between 1975 and 2008, the total number of administrators grew from 3,800 to 12,183 — a 221 percent increase.

The rapid increase in college enrollment can be defended by intellectually respectable arguments. Even the explosion in administrative personnel is, at least in theory, defensible. On the other hand, there are no valid arguments to support the recent trend toward seven-figure salaries for high-ranking university administrators, unless one considers evidence-free assertions about “the market” to be intellectually rigorous.

I think the high-priced admins are going to be those people at the tippy top. Running the UW or a UC is akin to running a mid-size city. Large and complex organizations require talented managers, like a CEO of a large corporation. For smaller private colleges, it's a different argument. Colleges are just a different animal. Market explanations have to be really qualified. They don't compete for capital the same way other business organizations do. They aren't evaluated at all like other business organizations are. It's about raising money through donations and gifts, generating prestige (different ways to do that depending on whether you're a large research machine like UW or a small elite college like Amherst) and managing the faculty.

My daughter just graduated from a small private college in New England ... I didn't perceive it to be overly bloated at the admin level, and they have a lot of money to burn. Probably harder to hide the fat when you're at a school with a total student pop. of 2700.

Bob gets it. Administrative positions in higher ed have trended toward dwarfing the number of faculty positions, and those admin structures aren't top heavy. Think Academic advisers, enrollment counselors, student affairs staff, and on and on. Each position typically full-time benefited with publicly-funded pension attached (at least in the case of public universities. Add in an explosion of free available money (federal loans and grants ear marked largely for one purpose) and institutions have lined up to pay themselves and blown up accordingly.

Watch for an enrollment downturn that will really, really hurt.

What about sports? The vast majority of sports programs are cost centers, not profit centers. And even for those who have a profit-center sport to pay for the others, most don't make real economic earnings.

Coaches, trainers, equipment, academic advisors, travel costs, facilities, etc.

PostGameOrangeSlices said:

allpurpleallgold said:

Nothing says fringe like the same healthcare system everyone else has.

Which isnt perfect either.

No, it isn’t perfect but it’s a lot better than our system.

SFGbob said:

UW_Doog_Bot said:

The dems spent 20 yrs radicalizing a generation by indoctrination in the public school system. That generation is now going to eat them.

I think one of the things pushing young folks to the left has been the cost of college and the debt many of these kids are incurring from their school expenses.

But you have to ask, who is running the schools? Who is making college so expensive? What is making housing so expensive in liberal run cities and states? It's not conservatives or conservative policies.

Foreign students backed by wealthy parents have crowded out many American kids. Add in wealthy Americans who buy their kids’ way into school through six figure donations—bribes. Then you have the societal pressure to subsidize smart low income minority kids. Someone has to cover the difference. Endowment funds swell and institutions bid up high profile professors to draw in the dollars.

Housing costs are driven by the FANGs and Microsoft. Liberalism has nothing to do with it. In Seattle, Amazon and Microsoft employ a shit load of people and they pay. Same with Apple, Google, Facebook, the PAC-12 Network, et. al in the Bay Area.

BleachedAnusDawg said:

creepycoug said:

SFGbob said:

UW_Doog_Bot said:

The dems spent 20 yrs radicalizing a generation by indoctrination in the public school system. That generation is now going to eat them.

I think one of the things pushing young folks to the left has been the cost of college and the debt many of these kids are incurring from their school expenses.

But you have to ask, who is running the schools? Who is making college so expensive? What is making housing so expensive in liberal run cities and states? It's not conservatives or conservative policies.

College Expense: I don't know for certain, but I've asked the same thing. I'm aware of a few things that must be drivers. For instance, most faculty get some kind of pension and they tend to have good healthcare coverage. Pensions, as even profitable corporations have found, are expensive af - a promise most wished they'd never made (see the many 8-K filings out there reporting pension transfer transactions numbering in the billions of $). Healthcare is everybody's million $ question. Professors don't make much money relative to their options, and so it seems these benefits have settled in as strongly market driven. It is a long and hard road to get a PhD, and not everyone has what it takes. These people tend to be expensive labor. The other thing that makes it expensive is the government and all the other sources of free money. Not everyone should or needs to go to college. Take the free money out of the equation, and I suspect the price would drop.

Liberal Run Cities: Again, I'm not the expert. But I would surmise that's it's almost entirely driven by good old fashioned supply and demand dynamics. SF, Seattle, Chicago, DC, Boston, Austin, LA, etc. are money towns. Commerce, capital formation, demand for expensive talent, etc. ... these things happen in those cities to a greater extent than they do elsewhere. I just got back from Indianapolis. Not as much going on there as there is here in Seattle, for example. I'm sure the liberal city councils and the extra taxes and fees and bullshit contribute to the expense, but I'm guessing it's a drop in the bucket relative to the main driver.

I agree that there is a supply and demand component driving university costs, but I would argue this from the perspective that there are too many youths attending college. I employ people who have college degrees and are performing jobs not related to their degree, and which do not require a degree to perform them. More trade schools, less college.

I would guess about 10% of those with BS degrees are actually working in a field that is related to their major. Most companies care about college because it proved that you could see something through for 4-5 years. I'd say it's a pretty expensive and mostly unnecessary litmus test for 81% of the jobs out there.

salemcoog said:

BleachedAnusDawg said:

creepycoug said:

SFGbob said:

UW_Doog_Bot said:

The dems spent 20 yrs radicalizing a generation by indoctrination in the public school system. That generation is now going to eat them.

I think one of the things pushing young folks to the left has been the cost of college and the debt many of these kids are incurring from their school expenses.

But you have to ask, who is running the schools? Who is making college so expensive? What is making housing so expensive in liberal run cities and states? It's not conservatives or conservative policies.

College Expense: I don't know for certain, but I've asked the same thing. I'm aware of a few things that must be drivers. For instance, most faculty get some kind of pension and they tend to have good healthcare coverage. Pensions, as even profitable corporations have found, are expensive af - a promise most wished they'd never made (see the many 8-K filings out there reporting pension transfer transactions numbering in the billions of $). Healthcare is everybody's million $ question. Professors don't make much money relative to their options, and so it seems these benefits have settled in as strongly market driven. It is a long and hard road to get a PhD, and not everyone has what it takes. These people tend to be expensive labor. The other thing that makes it expensive is the government and all the other sources of free money. Not everyone should or needs to go to college. Take the free money out of the equation, and I suspect the price would drop.

Liberal Run Cities: Again, I'm not the expert. But I would surmise that's it's almost entirely driven by good old fashioned supply and demand dynamics. SF, Seattle, Chicago, DC, Boston, Austin, LA, etc. are money towns. Commerce, capital formation, demand for expensive talent, etc. ... these things happen in those cities to a greater extent than they do elsewhere. I just got back from Indianapolis. Not as much going on there as there is here in Seattle, for example. I'm sure the liberal city councils and the extra taxes and fees and bullshit contribute to the expense, but I'm guessing it's a drop in the bucket relative to the main driver.

I agree that there is a supply and demand component driving university costs, but I would argue this from the perspective that there are too many youths attending college. I employ people who have college degrees and are performing jobs not related to their degree, and which do not require a degree to perform them. More trade schools, less college.

I would guess about 10% of those with BS degrees are actually working in a field that is related to their major. Most companies care about college because it proved that you could see something through for 4-5 years. I'd say it's a pretty expensive and mostly unnecessary litmus test for 81% of the jobs out there.

I agree with this brother Cuog.

But I still see value in a well rounded college education. My kid, who majored in physics, will likely not wind up in a job requiring that line of education. But although she was a smart kid when she went in, she is a transformed person now. Better spoken, better critical thinking skills, more polish, more insight, better informed ... all of that stuff that is so fun to scoff at. It all depends on whether you go to school to really get an education (which I concede can be accomplished anywhere) or whether you go to school to check the box. Taking pictures of yourself with your buddies at frat parties and centering your life around the Greek system is now the "check the box" crowd.

I've had the pleasure and displeasure of having a ton of people work on my teams. I will take someone who took their college education seriously and who majored in math or classics to do a job that neither major "prepares" you for any day of the week over an average person with technical training. In my experience, smarts and generalized education always wins in the long run (though not always in the short run).

Of all the paralegals I've employed, I've had four or five real superstars. Every one of them lacked a "paralegal certification", and the best of them all who helped me with securities and M&A had never been near those areas of practice. She was a math major at UC Santa Cruz and all I ever had to do was explain what we were doing and why, once, and she was off and running.

That said, some things simply require technical training. Cleaning teeth, working on cars, and many other things. I get that. But the value of a solid liberal arts education, while easy and fun to mock, is still a great thing to have over the long run. It's good to stretch your brain.

So both of you are in agreement with salemcoug's comment?