"After borrowing for school but failing to graduate, many of those students may be worse off than if they had never attended college at all."

source

In my experience, failure is caused by anything that takes time away from studying. Therefore a student has to eliminate anything that takes time in order to succeed. However, I've come to realize that the the ultimate problem is the university's monopoly on people's time, forcing people to lead an unnatural existence, obsessing over a single thing for at least 4 years of their lives, and even longer if courses have to be repeated.

Furthermore, consider the opportunity cost of this kind of education. A high school graduate can earn $30,000 (Canadian dollars) annually doing even a simple job if he/she puts in the time, say 40-50 hours per week. Over 4 years this totals $120,000. Add the cost of tuition, books and supplies and you get $150,000. This is money that could have been spent elsewhere to improve that person's quality of life. The person could have purchased a car, easily made a downpayment on a house, and lived life more fully. But our society keeps telling high school students that they need to be rocket scientists with a degree to get a job as a carpenter, or a cashier, or a line worker. And they certainly need a degree if they want to make more money. So many students sacrifice all that income for a chance to earn a somewhat higher wage after they graduate.

Optimistically a university graduate might earn $40,000 per year. That is an increase of $10,000 per year over the high school graduate, or 30 percent, a full one-third higher annual income. Wow! But how long will it take to earn back the lost wages from the 4 years of full time study? Answer: 15 years. But suppose the university graduate isn't so fortunate, and only earns $35,000 per year working for a smaller company (which are much more plentiful). It would then take 30 years to earn back the lost wages. If a person graduates at the age of 23, he/she will be 53 years old before any benefit is realized, just short of retirement age. Some people won't earn any more money than if they hadn't graduated at all. To these people, higher education is a total loss. They are poorer for it. They are worse off than those who never tried to achieve anything with their lives. Meanwhile those who simply got a job after high school are zipping around in their new Jettas and bought their first home before any of the above overachievers graduated from university.

The argument might be made that if all students graduate after 4 years when they are supposed to, that 15 years break-even isn't so bad, that eventually they will be better off. Ok. But not everyone graduates. So the argument then turns to figuring out why not:

Problems:

1. Time, including attendance, and professors without an after-class office hour.

Many students are distracted bacause they want to do other things. It is not natural for them to sit and study all the time. Perhaps they have hobbies, or friends they like to get together with, or a favorite tv show they like to watch. Many students also have imperfect attendance, and so rely on classmates for photocopies of lecture notes. Developing the discipline to overcome these time-consuming problems takes years, and a student can fail before they achieve it. Also, many students have classes all day, without a single spare. It is impossible to see a professor for extra help during their scheduled office hour, if they even have one, because they have to attend classes. The professor and the university administration can be blamed for this.

2. Mismatched assignments and exams.

Many, many students brag to each other during the school year that they are getting 90 percent or higher grades on their assignments. The same students often fail the exams. Why? Because the exams are harder than the assignments! Duh. In fact some exams are insanely difficult. There is no way I'd pin that problem on the student.

3. Group work.

Groups often have a slacker. They do nothing. Sometimes they even sabotage the group effort. It is not fruitful for an individual grade, based on how much the individual learns taking classes that the individual paid for, to be dragged down by the other guy. Some people benefit from working with others, in fact alot of students cheat this way. But to force one to depend on another isn't right.

4. Poor quality texts and lecture material.

Some professors have been teaching so long that they have photocopied their overhead projector sheets/slides, had them bound, and sell them at the university bookstore. Their "texts" are so poor quality that often the margins are truncated, the writing is illegible, and the professor is inclined to "pick up the pace" in the classroom because he figures everyone has a copy of his notes anyway. The problem here is that writing things down is a powerful way to learn that students are denied. If the notes are poor quality, and the photocopier failed to print a math symbol here and there, the student is guaranteed to make errors in any calculations that he/she attempts in assignments. There is no way I'd pin this problem on the student.

5. Noisy neighbors.

Man, they really piss me off.

Proposed solutions are often the same 'ol. Nobody knows how to deal with opportunity cost, so they propose tuition caps instead. The responsibility for passing the course is always the student's, especially since nobody wants to piss off the professor by blaming them - for the obvious reason that they could fail them by any number of tricks.

MY PROPOSAL:

There are two kinds of people who go to university (1) The curious; and (2) The ambitious. To the people of the first group, university is just another thing that they purchase, like a car, or a house or a new shirt. They don't care about the payoff, it's a non-issue. They just want to learn something. To the people of the second group, university is a ticket to the big time. They're gonna be rich. Yeah, this degree is really gonna pay off in the long term. Some will shout out to the highest mountain that they in fact DID make it big, that they are pulling in $60,000 -$80,000 per year salaries and are head honchos of multi-national conglomerates. And alot of them are gonna be really, really, really, disappointed. They get a seriously raw deal. In fact, they may come close to calling the result fraudulent.

So how do we fix this? Deal with the opportunity cost. The biggest problem, and most if not all the other problems will be eliminated. How? By reducing the time that people spend in school. A 4-year degree is really just eight 4-month terms. If you eliminate summer vacations and switch to 3-terms per year, you can squeeze a degree into a period of just 2 years 8 months. That will save a full year of wages, a whopping $30,000 per student. Putting all those people to work early will improve productivity, adding tens of thousands of man-years to the country's GDP each year. It will also reduce the living expenses for the time students are studying which, although aren't a true cost of education, are still something that students have difficulty finding the money to pay bacause they weren't working! So this will be big savings for anyone who goes to university. Their debt is reduced enormously, including the interest payments they would have to pay. The payback period of education is reduced to between 12 to 24 years from 15 to 30 years. Years and years of savings.

Why stop there? Why should people have to quit their jobs just to study? Answer: they don't. Certified General Accountants have a part-time study program that lasts 6 years, classes are attended on weekends when students are not working. If anyone knows how to save money, it is an accountant. Modelled after this system, an engineering student would work full time 36-48 hours per week, and take a 50-percent course load of study. Many courses could be converted to online study, with assignments submitted either electronically, or during weekend labs and lectures that have mandatory attendance. This "co-op" program would take 5 years 4 months to complete. The graduate would have a degree, little or no debt, and over 5 years of full-time work experience. The university could even have students swap jobs every 8 -12 months to ensure they get a variety of experiences, assuming employers agree to it.

So we have a two-pronged education paradigm being proposed:

1. Full time degree (2 years, 8 months).
2. Co-op degree (5 years, 4 months).

Only with opportunity cost eliminated (or very nearly), will the tuition cost really be the highest cost of education. And then everyone can complain as bitterly as they please about that. But how does this address the other problems listed above?

Loss teaches people discipline faster than anything else, especially financial loss. When you miss a day at work, or even if you are late, your paycheque is docked. If work and education are superposed, the discipline learned at work may benefit discipline at school. Perhaps employers could send paycheques to professors to distribute to co-op students who show up for class. Online course material may also reduced scheduled class time so students can get extra help. A student will not always have a class interfering. Flexibility is an appropriate term for this situation.

The other problems are really easy to solve. I don't feel the need to suggest anything.