Sounds reasonable. However, a better long-term strategy seems to be complete privatization. I.e. to remove the subsidies and tax breaks. I think Brian Caplan would support this strategy (see his book on the education system: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Case_Against_Education).
Arizona State University is embedding innovation into its model. It’s measures outcomes of the people they include as the benchmark they’re tracking, not by the antiquated model of exclusivity as the sole reason to accept one’s resume.
I'm going to argue against you here. I agree that elitism in Ivy League colleges and universities are a problem, but simply "breaking up the college cartel" isn't going to solve it. You can't really evaluate the quality of higher education, as you end up measuring "success" of graduates, which is also very difficult to measure, therefore, brand name and therefore "prestige" becomes the only way one can find a reliable university.
Grants to smaller colleges are far less rare than you think with many silicon valley people exploring new ways of higher education. The problem is, you don't hear about them because they fail. It's impossible to get people enrolled in an "experimental school" whose only selling point is its philosophy. New teaching methods need time to be tested before the people who already anticipate the bright future ahead of them would risk years (and maybe their resume) at a failing university (whose course credits are, obviously, non-transferable).
What people are paying for for Harvard isn't the good education. It's the guarantee the education isn't absolutely horrible, and the guarantee that people you meet there are (on average) good.
If you want to make colleges cheaper, more available, and less prestige-based, you must develop a new way to evaluate colleges' abilities to teach students, and the resources they provide. You must have people understand that there is a minuscule difference between graduates of universities ranked in the top and even middle.
Ivies spend about 5% of their endowment a year on operating costs, so endowments have to increase each year enough to keep the school running AND beat inflation.
If you tax Harvard’s endowment 80% from $50B to $10B, suddenly it’s spending 25% of its endowment per year, so its endowment would need to increase every year by 25% plus inflation — clearly impossible. (So it would have to cut spending, fire faculty + staff, and offer less financial aid to disadvantaged students.)
University endowments aren’t just shoved into a treasure chest somewhere. They are actively reinvested into the economy to generate a return. For example, universities are some of the best VC LPs. They’re actively funding innovation and economic growth.
Sounds reasonable. However, a better long-term strategy seems to be complete privatization. I.e. to remove the subsidies and tax breaks. I think Brian Caplan would support this strategy (see his book on the education system: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Case_Against_Education).
Arizona State University is embedding innovation into its model. It’s measures outcomes of the people they include as the benchmark they’re tracking, not by the antiquated model of exclusivity as the sole reason to accept one’s resume.
I'm going to argue against you here. I agree that elitism in Ivy League colleges and universities are a problem, but simply "breaking up the college cartel" isn't going to solve it. You can't really evaluate the quality of higher education, as you end up measuring "success" of graduates, which is also very difficult to measure, therefore, brand name and therefore "prestige" becomes the only way one can find a reliable university.
Grants to smaller colleges are far less rare than you think with many silicon valley people exploring new ways of higher education. The problem is, you don't hear about them because they fail. It's impossible to get people enrolled in an "experimental school" whose only selling point is its philosophy. New teaching methods need time to be tested before the people who already anticipate the bright future ahead of them would risk years (and maybe their resume) at a failing university (whose course credits are, obviously, non-transferable).
What people are paying for for Harvard isn't the good education. It's the guarantee the education isn't absolutely horrible, and the guarantee that people you meet there are (on average) good.
If you want to make colleges cheaper, more available, and less prestige-based, you must develop a new way to evaluate colleges' abilities to teach students, and the resources they provide. You must have people understand that there is a minuscule difference between graduates of universities ranked in the top and even middle.
That might be the way.
Ivies spend about 5% of their endowment a year on operating costs, so endowments have to increase each year enough to keep the school running AND beat inflation.
If you tax Harvard’s endowment 80% from $50B to $10B, suddenly it’s spending 25% of its endowment per year, so its endowment would need to increase every year by 25% plus inflation — clearly impossible. (So it would have to cut spending, fire faculty + staff, and offer less financial aid to disadvantaged students.)
University endowments aren’t just shoved into a treasure chest somewhere. They are actively reinvested into the economy to generate a return. For example, universities are some of the best VC LPs. They’re actively funding innovation and economic growth.