A modest proposal
By Thoreau
I don’t think this is a good idea for solving our problems, but it’s probably inevitable. After all, we know that in the future Brawndo will own the entire government and Costco will run law schools. But lest you think I’m putting down for-profit schools, rest assured that Costco is one hell of a hard law school to get into.
On a related note, on furlough days those who knock on my office door will hear an automatic recording of this message.
Comment by VikingMoose —
October 6, 2009 @ 7:15 am
yay!!!!!
Comment by Seward —
October 6, 2009 @ 10:12 am
I don’t know if University of Phoenix is the way to go, but it does seem that privatization of at least some portions of the UC system would be appropriate.
Comment by Thoreau —
October 6, 2009 @ 11:52 am
Well, the law schools could be bought by Costco, and science departments could be bought by Brawndo and devote their research efforts to electrolytes and shit. (It’s what plants need.)
Comment by Micha Ghertner —
October 6, 2009 @ 12:21 pm
College: The Brain Mutilator
Comment by joe from Lowell —
October 6, 2009 @ 6:23 pm
Is the movie itself actually as enjoyable as deploying the quotes?
Comment by Joshua Holmes —
October 6, 2009 @ 8:16 pm
joe,
No.
Comment by The Sanity Inspector —
October 6, 2009 @ 10:37 pm
Someone elseweb was bemoaning the ruination of UC Berkeley, due to the budget cuts. Poor California, reduced to eating their seed corn.
Comment by dhex —
October 7, 2009 @ 8:49 am
idiocracy is notable because at a certain point you realize it’s laughing at you for laughing at it. in that sense, it’s worth seeing.
Comment by Seward —
October 7, 2009 @ 1:44 pm
In a lot of ways the eastern US has a much stronger system if private universities than is the case with California (Stanford, etc. being of course exceptions). The former to me doesn’t seem like that disastrous of a situation. Indeed, one could argue that California has put too many eggs in one basket – namely the UC system.
Comment by Kolohe —
October 7, 2009 @ 1:54 pm
The UC and the CSU system are actually two diffferent systems right?
I would say that the East has the advantage of being able to drive no more than 6 hours to get to a state U in a different state. The geography kinda forces Cali into single basket egg-keeping compared to Megalopolis.
Comment by Seward —
October 7, 2009 @ 2:51 pm
Kolohe,
Yeah, it is one of three systems of universities/colleges that California has; I think they suffer from similar problems however and I was sloppily using them interchangeably. The UC system basically came out of the Morrill Act*, the CSU system came out their original “normal schools,” and the community colleges, well, I don’t know where they came from exactly.
So geographic determinism has created this? That sounds unconvincing to me. If you look at a map of the UC system the universities are largely concentrated in the bay area and in and around Los Angeles, where the population base is. The same is true for the CSU system except for four or five universities that run up the middle of the state from Bakersfield to Chico and two-three that lay on the coast between LA and SF. So there is a fair amount of geographic concentration in both systems, even though of course those distances aren’t exactly next door. I would imagine that the CC are more dispersed however.
Anyway, I don’t know exactly what being able to cross state lines has to do with this phenomenon either. If you can explain that please do. I mean, how does that ability out east explain the dominance of private universities in the east? It seems to me that this dominance is largely due to differing historical development, namely that the state wasn’t as involved in starting universities in the 17th and 18th centuries.
Probably what has happened is that private universities have largely been crowded out by public universities, and like I stated above, that may be part of the problem. This has more to do with a change in public policy than it does with geography, some of that change coming out of D.C. (see the Morrill Act).
*I’ve actually been to Morrill’s house; it is pretty neat.
Comment by Thoreau —
October 7, 2009 @ 2:57 pm
Yeah, both systems are primarily around metropolises, with a few other campuses as well. UC schools are large research universities that offer Bachelors, Masters, and Doctoral degrees, and CSU schools are supposed to do Bachelors and Masters degrees. In practice both systems have some funny cases: The CSU has San Diego state, which has a bunch of Ph.D. programs (all of them ostensibly joint programs with some other school so that the CSU is still not technically offering a doctoral degree), and California Maritime Academy, which I know little about except that it’s similar to the service academies. The UC has Hastings College of Law, a stand-alone law school, and UC San Francisco, which is just a med school, not a large mega-campus with undergraduates. But, in general, UC campsues are large research universities and CSU campuses are mid-size to large Bachelors and Masters institutions.
Comment by Seward —
October 7, 2009 @ 3:51 pm
Thoreau,
I actually forgot Humboldt State.
Anyway, thanks for very succinct description.
Comment by Seward —
October 7, 2009 @ 8:57 pm
CATO forum on college costs: http://www.cato.org/event.php?eventid=6423
Comment by All Your Summer Songs —
October 7, 2009 @ 9:55 pm
President Camacho is closer than we think:
George Prescott Bush.
Comment by Kolohe —
October 8, 2009 @ 6:25 am
So geographic determinism has created this?
The DC to Boston corridor contains public universities run by 9 different states and the district. The San Francisco to San Diego cooridor (within 50 miles of the same distance) contains public universities run by a single state. My point was the likelihood of a single state government making poor decisions (or getting caught by circumstances) is a lot higher than 10 different governments simulataneously – even if the 10 are all economically linked.
I agree it’s not geographic determinism that causes the the lack of private universities in the west but the historical factors you stated.
But I disagree that private universities are an example of an ‘egg-basket option’ for most middle class families – not when the cost is at least 4 times more (or at least it was when I decided to go to a state school rather than a private one)
If your state system sucks (or doesn’t have the resources to let you in) the median student is going to seek out-of state, but still public options (more expensive than in-state, but less than private). And you have a greater variety of choices in this regard in East Coast urban cooridor than Califoria. And the most of the rest of the students who are unserved by their in-state public college system are simply not going to go to college at all vice try for a private school.
Comment by Seward —
October 8, 2009 @ 4:30 pm
Kolohe,
Well, it isn’t that private universities are necessarily places where middle class students can go; it is what happens on the margin that is important. So it isn’t that important whether private schools may or may not “serve” or be an option for the median student.
As for competition between state schools, I would buy that argument in a world without airplanes and cars, but in our age of mobility it seems like less robust argument. Anyway, I’d be curious to know how many students on the east coast exercise that out of state option; if the magnitude were large enough I would find your argument more convincing.
Finally, California’s situation isn’t abnormal or an outlier as far as I know; the rest of the country after all has a problem with ballooning college costs as well. Indeed, this is some of the basis for the claim that states are making deep cuts in their funding regimes for colleges, which they have not been. So I think it is less of state specific issue and more of an industry issue. Why are college costs rising so dramatically? The podcast I linked to offered some competing/complimentary theories as to why that is the case.