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It\u2019s been known for a decade or two that we have a real problem with the cost of a college degree relative to the financial boon of having one, but at long last our government is catching on as well<\/a>:<\/p>\n \u2026 the U.S. Department of Education released data<\/a> on first-year earnings for thousands of different college programs. The data are both limited and flawed in some ways, but they are also some of the most accurate outcomes information currently available about different academic programs and majors.<\/em><\/p>\n Our \u201cleaders\u201d in higher education have been screaming about how invaluable the degrees they sell are for a very long time. Perhaps so, but cost to acquire the degree needs to be a part of the consideration. Gold is valuable too, around $1550 an ounce today\u2026but just because it\u2019s valuable doesn\u2019t mean you should pay $3,000 an ounce for it, and the same is true for degrees (if you\u2019re getting one for the money, anyway).<\/p>\n So what kind of results do we officially have?<\/p>\n At for-profits, over half of bachelor\u2019s programs resulted in higher debt than earnings. For bachelor’s degrees at nonprofit institutions, that number was only 17 percent, but rose to 71 percent for doctoral degrees.<\/em><\/p>\n There are only two sentences in the above, but several points bear highlighting. The first two points are easy. First, for-profits are already widely considered scams, and every way you measure this, you get the same result; the above is no surprise, but realize that only about 3% of Federal student loan money goes to these places. Second, debt is much higher when it comes to graduate programs. The remaining points are more subtle.<\/p>\n The reason graduate programs have more debt is because accreditation indirectly allows this, by specifying graduate courses \u201cshould be\u201d more challenging. Greater challenge somehow justifies grossly greater expense, even if the program involves, say, reading PDF copies of ancient texts instead of building a miniature atom smasher. Even though the former costs nothing for the school to produce and the latter would cost millions\u2026both cost the same tuition. It\u2019s why \u201cart schools\u201d and \u201ceducation schools\u201d offering useless graduate degrees little our educational landscape.<\/p>\n And what of state schools, the greatest culprits of the student loan scam?<\/p>\n Public institutions fared relatively well under this metric. The data show that 15 percent of associate degree programs, 9 percent of bachelor’s degrees and 13 percent of master’s degrees resulted in higher debt than earnings.<\/em><\/p>\n I smell foul here. The above sounds good, but you can pick up a two year associate\u2019s degree for less than $5,000\u2026I think it sounds pretty awful that 15% of people with such degrees still can\u2019t manage to pull down $5,000 of yearly income. We still see the graduate degrees coming out on top for debt, but it\u2019s not at all clear why doctoral degrees don\u2019t get mentioned here.<\/p>\n Professional programs, such as medical or law degrees, appear to have relatively high debt burdens. Eighty-two percent of those degrees resulted in debt greater than earnings.<\/em><\/p>\n However, because of the common extended pathways to earnings in those fields (such as medical residencies), that may not be cause for concern for all programs.<\/em><\/p>\n Again we have a bit of spin here. Yes, doctors might well make the money eventually, but what\u2019s going with our law schools is downright criminal (metaphorically, of course), even if burying people in debt for useless law degrees is perfectly legal. It\u2019s been a while since I\u2019ve written about this<\/a>, but most people should already know.<\/p>\n \u201cOftentimes, the heaviest debt produces the highest earnings,\u201d said Anthony Carnevale, director of the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, referring to medical and dentistry programs.<\/em><\/p>\n Spin, spin, spin\u2026dentists are going broke<\/a>, because they have basically priced themselves out of the market trying to make enough money to cover the debt. Granted, dubious \u201cdental insurance\u201d and other factors are part of the problem\u2026but don\u2019t buy the \u201cheaviest debt produces the highest earnings\u201d line. The biggest debt is usually held by art students, making nothing.<\/p>\n The article I\u2019m quoting from does have a bit of criticism:<\/p>\n \u201cThere are a lot of programs at the graduate level where you have to wonder how a school could in good conscience hand out the debt they\u2019re handing out to people,\u201d he said, pointing to a master\u2019s degree in social work from the University of Southern California that he said was \u201cimmorally priced.\u201d The program’s debt levels drew criticism<\/a> when the feds released those data earlier this year. Median earnings for the USC master’s in social work were about $50,000, but median debt reached over $115,000.<\/em><\/p>\n Now, sure, theoretically you could just give up 2 years\u2019 pay to pay off that debt, but the reality is you have bills to pay. And taxes to pay on the income. You also have to service that debt, and no, you don\u2019t get to deduct those payments from your tax burden. Most student loan payments are structured so that the payments strictly address interest, it\u2019s why commonly you find people who have made their payments for years, but still owe just as much (if not more) than when they graduated.<\/p>\n Another great criticism:<\/p>\n Michael Itzkowitz, a senior fellow of higher education at the think tank Third Way, said certificate programs showed some of the most troubling earnings results. \u201cThe average high school graduate makes around $28,000 a year,\u201d he said. \u201cMost certificate programs show students earning less than that.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cGo to community college, we\u2019re cheap!\u201d is the cry, but getting those job training certificates still don\u2019t pay as much as nothing at all. We really need to reconsider what we\u2019re doing in our community and technical college system, because it shouldn\u2019t be this obvious that things are very wrong here.<\/p>\n Among public university bachelor’s programs, the communications bachelor’s degree at Grambling State University and the social work bachelor’s at Mississippi Valley State University, both historically black colleges, took worst honors, with debt outweighing earnings by over $20,000 in both programs. Neither university responded to a request for comment.<\/em><\/p>\n You know, our social justice warriors, if they honestly felt the way they do, would speak up about this. They don\u2019t, of course, even though, again, it\u2019s long been known how our student loan system has been targeting minorities for optimal exploitation.<\/p>\n Now let\u2019s talk about the stuff that really matters: the degrees and schools which make sense:<\/p>\n On the opposite end of the spectrum — public and nonprofit bachelor\u2019s programs where earnings exceeded debt by the greatest magnitude — the list contains many computer science and engineering programs at highly selective institutions, such as Brown University, Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pennsylvania.<\/em><\/p>\n Note the word \u201cselective\u201d in the above. This has always been what made higher education valuable: the scarcity created via selective admissions. Any parents reading this, please only consider sending your kids to schools which have entrance exams or otherwise restrict who gets to come on campus.<\/p>\n What about professional programs, what works there?<\/p>\n However, many nursing or health programs at smaller public or less selective nonprofit private institutions also rise to the top of that category. The bachelor\u2019s program in nursing at Sonoma State University, for example, features a median debt of $12,500 and $110,300 in earnings.<\/em><\/p>\n While medical training for doctors is ridiculously pricey, nursing programs so far haven\u2019t been exploited. The reason here is much like before: not everyone is cut out to be a nurse. Having spent so much time on my back in hospital beds this last year, I\u2019m speaking from experience.<\/p>\n At the associate level, Kelchen’s analysis found that the lowest-earning fields included criminal justice, health administration and teacher education.<\/em><\/p>\n Many reasons for the above, but no, \u201clow teacher pay\u201d isn\u2019t an issue. Education programs are notoriously wide open for admissions (as is criminal justice, I have no input on \u201chealth administration\u201d beyond my suspicions), and so the market is flooded with people with teaching degrees.<\/p>\n At the graduate level, educational administration broke the top five in earnings, mostly, Kelchen said, because school superintendents tend to do quite well.<\/em><\/p>\n Now wait just one second here. I\u2019m quoting from a higher education-specific site. They know full well how ridiculously outrageous the pay is for administrators in higher education. Yes, \u201cschool superintendents\u201d tend to do well, but let\u2019s not forget the legions of deanlings on campus here, shall we?<\/p>\n Getting back to those good professional degree programs, one thing not well measured here is how many people flunk out of those programs. Yes, engineers and nurses get good pay relative to debt, but a good overall consideration would account for the wide swaths of students who enroll in those programs and then drop out\u2026ending up in those poor yielding other programs.<\/p>\n Still, at least our government is finally noticing what most people knew a generation or so ago.<\/p>\n www.professorconfess.blogspot.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"