The Weekend Interview With Ben Nelson: The Man Who Would Overthrow Harvard. Trapped by $50,000 Degree in Low-Paying Job Is Increasing Lament. Laura Sayer, unsure of what she wanted to do after graduating from college in 2006, figured a master’s degree was “a safe bet.” With $5,000 in undergraduate loans from her time at the University of Cincinnati, Sayer was set back $50,000 more after completing the Interdisciplinary Master’s Program in Humanities and Social Thought at New York University. The 27-year-old now makes about $45,000 a year as an administrative assistant for a nonprofit group, a job that didn’t require her advanced degree. More people are losing the same gamble as a 33 percent jump in U.S. graduate school enrollment in the past decade, coupled with an 80 percent surge in tuition and required fees, runs headlong into a weaker job market.
Universities are fueling the trend by offering more one- and two-year programs in areas from environmental science to sports management that rarely come with financial aid other than the option for loans. Close Open Photographer: Scott Wagner via Bloomberg ‘Making Mistakes’ Student Debt and the Value of a College Degree (PPIC Publication) Investing in Children: Changes in Parental Spending on Children. Americans have been shifting the way they approach parenting and family dynamics over the past few decades. Parents are having fewer children , but they are also spending more “intensive” time with them, and they appear to be investing more money and resources.
These behavioral changes are taking place even as the costs of child care are rising, long-standing problems associated with day care continue to be spotlighted and the work demands for middle-class families have increased. A 2012 study published in the journal Demography , “Investing in Children: Changes in Parental Spending on Children, 1972-2007,” examines the variations in spending and how such investment decisions are linked to factors such as household income, parents’ education and family structure.
The study was conducted by researchers Frank Furstenberg of the University of Pennsylvania and Sabino Kornrich of the Juan March Institute in Spain. The study’s findings include: Tags: parenting, children, youth, consumer affairs. The Missing ‘One-Offs’: The Hidden Supply of High Achieving, Low Income Students. Princeton University (Wikimedia) Many of the most selective colleges in the United States have policies that now make tuition free or very inexpensive for low-income students. This includes Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Stanford. Low-income students who achieve high academic standards are highly desirable applicants for these institutions.
But it turns out that most of these students — who typically benefit the most from selective schools — do not end up applying to colleges that would be a proper “match” with their academic talents. A December 2012 study for the Brookings Institution and the National Bureau of Economic Research, “The Missing ‘One-Offs’: The Hidden Supply of High Achieving, Low Income Students,” quantifies this disjunction between selective colleges and the low-income high achievers they might enroll.
The study’s findings include: Most high-achieving, low-income students do not apply to any selective universities. Tags: higher education, youth Citation: Caroline M. How Bad Is the Job Market For College Grads? Your Definitive Guide - Jordan Weissmann. The problem isn't imaginary. A few days back, the (4) ... But by Less Than You ThinkThat said, while the underemployment problem is real, it's also often over-hyped.
Roughly a year ago, the Associated Press caused a stir when it reported that 53.6 percent of recent college graduates were either jobless, or working in a position that didn't require their skills -- a factlet that even made its way into the Presidential campaign when Mitt Romney repeated it (or something close). The article was based off a not-yet-public analysis by Northeastern University economist Andrew Sum. But this January, the Ohio University economist Richard Vedder and the Center for College Affordability and Productivity released their own report based on 2010 data arguing that, as shown in the graph below, "barely half of college graduates are in occupations requiring bachelor's degrees or more.
" That's all college graduates, by the way -- not just the hapless young ones. Federal Student Loan Debt Burden of Noncompleters: A Statistics in Brief. (iStock) Student loan debt has become an increasing problem in recent years. As the New York Federal Reserve notes in a 2013 report, “Over the last eight years, aggregate educational debt outstanding has almost tripled, rising to nearly $1 trillion and becoming the largest consumer liability after mortgages.” No other form of debt — auto loans, home equity, credit cards — has seen this sort of steady rise for Americans. Between 2004 and 2012, the number of borrowers and the average amount borrowed each went up by 70%. Still, the overall debt for individual students varies significantly; most students end up with a burden of less than $25,000, and nearly 40% have less than $10,000, as the New York Fed highlights: A college degree, particularly one in a science and technology discipline, can lead to increased earnings over the course of a lifetime.
It is not clear to what degree these loans help students complete their education. Study highlights include: By Margaret Weigel | April 11, 2013. Www.thesustainableuniversity.com. Many Colleges and Universities Face Financial Problems. In January, Moody’s Investors Service put a negative outlook on the entire higher education sector, even at major research universities, which had been spared in previous forecasts.
And that came after a year in which the agency downgraded the credit ratings of 22 colleges, including Alabama A&M, Wellesley College and Morehouse College. At the same time, Standard & Poor’s Ratings Service downgraded 13 institutions, including Amherst College, Tulane University and Yeshiva University. Combined, both agencies upgraded only eight colleges in 2012. Bond ratings aren’t scoured like the U.S. “There is a major problem in that the industry has an inability to grow revenue in a way they have for the last 20 years,” says John C.
A handful of colleges have closed, merged or been bought by for-profit colleges in recent years — mostly small, tuition-dependent private colleges, which remain at most risk. Other forecasts are equally pessimistic. Jeffrey J. Double Majors: Influences, Identities and Impacts. (iStock) According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the average cost of a four-year university degree in the U.S. has increased nearly 250% since 1980. While college graduates still earn more over their lifetimes than those with only high school diplomas, research has shown that a college degree no longer guarantees landing a high-paying job in today’s difficult job market. The return on having a college degree depends on one’s course of study. A 2011 report from Georgetown University found that median earnings for early childhood education majors were $36,000, while petroleum engineering majors saw median earnings of $120,000. Despite their value in the workplace, majors in science, technology, engineering and math — known as the STEM disciplines — remain less popular than those in the humanities and social sciences.
For a sense of the most popular majors, see data from the government’s National Center for Education Statistics: Key study findings include: How Washington Could Make College Tuition Free (Without Spending a Penny More on Education) - Jordan Weissmann. The federal government already spends enough on student aid to cover tuition for every public college student in America. Maybe it's time to try. (Reuters) It's been a glum few weeks in the world of higher education. We officially learned that states kept slashing their funding for colleges and universities in 2012, and tuition in turn kept on rising.
Student loan debt expanded over the year, and more borrowers are falling behind on their debt. In other words, same as it ever was (same as it ever was). It might be more doable than you think. We Already Spend the Money Here's a little known fact: With what the federal government spent on its various and sundry student aid initiatives last year, it could have covered the tuition bill of every student at every public college in the country. Let's start with a quick survey of the numbers. That's our threshold: About $60 billion. To be sure, a good chunk of that funding already subsidizes state colleges. What We're Doing Now Is Crazy. Clayton Christensen Wants to Transform Capitalism | Wired Business.
Clay Christensen: First the media gets disrupted, then comes the education industry. Clay Christensen literally wrote the book on disruption, so it’s worth paying attention to him when he talks about where the disruption fueled by the web is going to strike next. The Harvard business professor and author of The Innovator’s Dilemma spoke to Jeff Howe — the Wired writer who coined the term “crowdsourcing” — and had some interesting things to say about where disruption is occurring now and where it is likely to strike next. At one point, Howe asks Christensen to name some industries that are “either in a state of disruptive crisis or will be soon,” and the professor says: “Journalism, certainly, and publishing broadly. Anything supported by advertising. Christensen recently co-wrote a study for Nieman Reports entitled “Breaking News,” which focused on the media industry and the disruption< that is going on there. “You know, Harvard Business School doesn’t teach accounting anymore, because there’s a guy out of BYU whose online accounting course is so good.
Grading 13 Ideas From Eric Cantor's Big Speech. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s big speech at the American Enterprise Institute has been analyzed for its tone (warm), its rhetoric (soothing) and its intent (to show that Republicans want to improve life for everyday Americans). What about its ideas? Here is an (admittedly subjective) evaluation of the policy proposals Cantor laid out. Some of them are new, many of them are familiar, and what he has left out on several big issues gives his party some room to maneuver. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. Student-loan delinquency rate hits danger zone, report says. Students borrowing money for college today are much likelier to default than people who took out loans just a few years ago, according to a new report. The student-loan delinquency rate in the last three years has risen to 15.1%, up from 12.4% from 2005 to 2007, according to FICO Labs, a unit of Fair Isaac Corp., which publishes consumer credit scores.
That’s a nearly 22% increase. The report is the latest red flag signaling that monstrous debt is a problem not only for students but potentially for the broader economy as well. STUDY: Is college waste of money for many? “This situation is simply unsustainable and we’re already suffering the consequences,” said Andrew Jennings, head of FICO Labs. “When wage growth is slow and jobs are not as plentiful as they once were, it is impossible for individuals to continue taking out ever-larger student loans without greatly increasing the risk of default. The worsening deliquency rate comes as loan balances surge. Issue 16. Quartz. A funny thing started happening in the face of rising education costs and a looming student debt bubble: massive open online courses (MOOCs). Offered by universities everywhere from Stanford to University of Washington, the model has the potential to upend the traditional education model.
While open online courses are certainly revolutionary, their business model remains uncertain. College education has been considered a luxury. Thousands of classes are taught each day at solid institutions across the world for a relatively high price. With the rise of open online courses, traditional classes may be commoditized. At some point, to compete, these classes will be moved online and can be offered as an open online curriculum, especially when production and technology costs go down.
Not only will students be attracted to the cheapest option, there is a general ethos that education should be free. One way to stand out it to produce excellent content. A Record One-in-Five Households Now Owe Student Loan Debt. Burden Greatest on Young, Poor By Richard Fry About one out of five (19%) of the nation’s households owed student debt in 2010, more than double the share two decades earlier and a significant rise from the 15% that owed such debt in 2007, just prior to the onset of the Great Recession, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of newly available government data.
The Pew Research analysis also finds that a record 40% of all households headed by someone younger than age 35 owe such debt, by far the highest share among any age group. It also finds that, whether computed as a share of household income or assets, the relative burden of student loan debt is greatest for households in the bottom fifth of the income spectrum, even though members of such households are less likely than those in other groups to attend college in the first place. Since 2007 the incidence of student debt has increased in nearly every demographic and economic category, as has the size of that debt.
About the Report. Yes, College Is Worth It — With Some Caveats - Real Time Economics.