Promontorium
11-26-2009, 03:13 AM
I'm currently going to college with my GI Bill and a can-do attitude!
This would normally be wonderful, but I'm watching the system fall apart around me. Certainly, I've heard teachers complain for decades about the built-in failures of public education. All of my grandparents were teachers, two of them making it their lifetime career. I've been hearing about the problems for awhile.
But I think a current issue is pushing the system into a bad downward spiral that will be spitting out idiots for years to come.
It is this, the more students a public college has, the more money it loses. My college, which is experiencing record enrollment (like most colleges in California, because people don't have jobs) is also firing at a record rate. Why? Because California is ridiculous. There are rules capping how much money colleges can receive. And there are rules capping how much colleges can charge. California has this very progressive system, where no one wants to pay for anything. So imagine, for each student, the combined tuition and state funding is too little. So for each additional student, the college loses a little more money. With record enrollment, my college is just flushing entire offices of employees. They are packing more students in, with fewer teachers. Also, because this is a city college, no one can be turned down. There is no cap on enrollment. So this system is literally killing itself.
This reminds me of Ayn Rand, who always advocated taking concepts to their logical conclusion. In this instance, the logical conclusion is collapse. But then, America is now famous for supporting systems that have no natural business functioning, and are sustained only by unearned blood and sweat.
Looking at state colleges, I don’t see much greener grass. The University of California system is raising its tuition $2500 to offset costs of record enrollment (as the state won’t pay them more, but they can charge more). Because California is stiffing the colleges, the colleges are stiffing California students. They are taking in more and more out of state students to make more money. Argh, socialism at its most epic failing.
I suppose none of this is a killer for me personally. I might go out of state, or I might not. I’m just bitching about the overall failure of California.
This would normally be wonderful, but I'm watching the system fall apart around me. Certainly, I've heard teachers complain for decades about the built-in failures of public education. All of my grandparents were teachers, two of them making it their lifetime career. I've been hearing about the problems for awhile.
But I think a current issue is pushing the system into a bad downward spiral that will be spitting out idiots for years to come.
It is this, the more students a public college has, the more money it loses. My college, which is experiencing record enrollment (like most colleges in California, because people don't have jobs) is also firing at a record rate. Why? Because California is ridiculous. There are rules capping how much money colleges can receive. And there are rules capping how much colleges can charge. California has this very progressive system, where no one wants to pay for anything. So imagine, for each student, the combined tuition and state funding is too little. So for each additional student, the college loses a little more money. With record enrollment, my college is just flushing entire offices of employees. They are packing more students in, with fewer teachers. Also, because this is a city college, no one can be turned down. There is no cap on enrollment. So this system is literally killing itself.
This reminds me of Ayn Rand, who always advocated taking concepts to their logical conclusion. In this instance, the logical conclusion is collapse. But then, America is now famous for supporting systems that have no natural business functioning, and are sustained only by unearned blood and sweat.
Looking at state colleges, I don’t see much greener grass. The University of California system is raising its tuition $2500 to offset costs of record enrollment (as the state won’t pay them more, but they can charge more). Because California is stiffing the colleges, the colleges are stiffing California students. They are taking in more and more out of state students to make more money. Argh, socialism at its most epic failing.
I suppose none of this is a killer for me personally. I might go out of state, or I might not. I’m just bitching about the overall failure of California.