Not as universally agreed as I thought, but as you say the argument is not that private schools don’t produce better results, it is that their better results are achieved because they select affluent kids who would do well anyway. However several studies have shown this to be false. Cato conducted a large study of the poorest parts of the earth and found private schools provided better and more accessible education for the poorest classes here
In the U.S. The Success Academy Charter Schools in New York draw their students from lower income families of color in the Bronx, and they achieve results orders of magnitude above that of the public schools. Controlling for income does not change the results.
It is true that, while success academy doesn’t cherry pick students, the parents do pick the school, and to some extent the school pick the parents. However this gets to another problem with public schools. Public schools are a one size fits all solution, but every child has different needs and selecting among private schools allows parents to choose schools that create the type of environment their kids will learn best in, which different for different families. And private schools will continue to cater to these varied needs of parents and students in a way that public schools never will, because the private schools depend on happy customers for their existence.
I realize we’ve gone a little off the original topic of free college education, but there are strong parallels here. The lower-quality one size fits all nature of public k-12 schools will be echoed in higher level education if it is run the same way by the same government.
I’m not sure what schools in the slums of India, Ghana, Nigeria, and Kenya really has to do with American public education. Do you have evidence, for example, to support the assertion that public schools in the slums of Kibera or Hyderabad were spending two to three times more per pupil than the private schools therein?
Your own cite discusses “a troubling pattern of parents who have claimed that they were told that Success Academy does not offer special education services or the classroom settings that their children need.” You push out the kids who need expensive services, who are hard to teach or who would pull down your school’s results, and then express wonderment that your school does better than the public schools who DO serve all kids?
I would also like to get your take on Robert Pondiscio’s opinion on court-ordered desegregation and resultant white flight as reflected in his statement that “Why do we think we know better than parents?”
Almost as if, to achieve their low cost, private schools chery pick who is allowed in (and dismiss any kids who give them trouble) to ensure the only kids at the school are those who will be satisfied with a one size fits all solution.
It’s almost as if public education is forced by law to bend over backwards to accommodate every student while private schools aren’t actually there with the goal of educating anyone - they’re there with the goal of making a profit.
Do you know what an IEP is? Hint: it is quite literally the opposite of “one size fits all”. Do you know what a Services Plan is? Do you know which one is generally more comprehensive?
This is obviously untrue. You were making some decent points so I’m unsure why you threw that in. There are lots of non profit private schools most of them religious though there are certainly other types on non profite private education.
If you’re white, or come from a financially sound family, or live in a good part of town, or have a good job already, or any of a dozen other things that would tend to make college extremely elitist for reasons that aren’t at all related to the student themselves. A free loan market would likely come right back to all the things that might make a student a good or bad credit risk- how well their parents are doing would be chief among them, as would the student’s academic record in high school.
I’m not at all for privatizing the loan system- that would amplify the problems we already have with
diversity and equity.
That’s just stupid. You’re making a lot of business-world assumptions that almost certainly don’t apply to higher education. First, making something like college free doesn’t somehow mean that MORE people will use it. What it means is that financial considerations will no longer be a hurdle for prospective students to cross. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
Look at it this way- if Hillbilly Tech has 3500 slots for admission in their freshman class and say… 9000 applicants, you basically have four intersecting sets of people- qualified, unqualified, can afford, and can’t afford. Right now, they’re basically taking the intersection of qualified and can-afford, and qualified and can’t-afford, who are funding their education through loans, scholarships, grants, etc… But there are still a lot of students who probably don’t even try who may be better qualified than others who can pay.
By making it free, you eliminate that can-afford/can’t-afford division, and Hillbilly Tech can then choose the most qualified 3500 out of the entire pool without having to be concerned with whether or not they can afford it. Similarly, for prospective students, the notion of whether they can afford to go somewhere to college would be a considerably smaller number- more people might not have to live at home with the parents and go to their local school for purely financial reasons. Or they might apply to schools that are somewhat more expensive than their local tier 3 school.
Of course this is probably all concerning public schools; I don’t think the government ought to be in the habit of making private college educations free.
Fine, add the qualifier “for profit” to “private schools”. Though I can assure you that there are many religious schools that make a fantastic profit (one of the largest ones in the country was in my home town, and it charges more for middle school tuition than I paid for college), and schools that are there to indoctrinate kids in their religion rather than give them a proper education aren’t great either.
Over 60% (67% as of 2019) of U.S. high school graduates go to college – which includes community colleges and technical colleges that teach the trades. Nowhere near 60% of U.S. high school graduates are going to 4-year universities.
There are lots of reasons that private schools may cost more that college that have nothing to do with making money. Most of it comes down to enrichment activities that are expensive to implement and most of the rest comes down to doing it for a very small group of people. While I have no doubt there is some profit seeking institutions from what I can tell the catholic church isn’t doing it for the money and they are #1 by a mile.
It’s also important to note that’s only direct-from-high-school enrollment. Many more returning adults enroll in 2-year colleges. Total enrollment in 2-year colleges is higher than in 4-year colleges.
Perhaps also worth noting is that enrollment in a four-year institution does not necessarily imply enrollment in a four-year program. For example, my local 4-year university, Washburn, offers everything from certificates in welding up to a doctorate in nursing practice, with a number of 2-year degrees in respiratory therapy and other allied health fields. Meanwhile, Pittsburg State University offers a 2-year degree in, among other fields, automotive repair technology. Liberal arts colleges and flagship state universities don’t usually have these sorts of options, but regional public universities in particular can have a variety of degree options.
I agree with this. It is an issue that needs dealt with in any discussion on this issue, but it seems as if it is sacrilege to mention it. As much as loan underwriting is a pain in the ass, it serves to protect the borrower and the buyer. Can you really afford this house or this car? If you don’t get the loan, maybe it was best you didn’t take out a giant mortgage on the McMansion.
Contrary to the above comments, I am not advocating public financing for only STEM degrees, but like any other big financial decision, someone in addition to the borrower should determine if that large outlay of resources is worth it. Colleges routinely lie about job prospects in every major.
And I’m not trying to denigrate any particular degree. Many people, including posters in this thread, have parlayed a “worthless” degree into a nice career. Many people who never went to college at all have a successful career. But roll the dice and hope for the best has never been a part of good lending practices.
Something has to be done on the cost side of the equation. Period. The days of a working family being able to save for their children’s college is long over. Professional requirements should be reined in as well. Lincoln could become a lawyer by being an apprentice to another. Forty-five years ago, my mother became an R.N. by going to two years of night school. Today it would require a four year degree and would have been impossible for her to do with any amount of money as she had a young child (me) to care for–and would have forgone educational opportunities to care for me. AFAIK, she was (before she retired) a great nurse and I’m not sure why she would have been a better or worse nurse by sitting through English 101 or been required to take a course in Indigenous Peoples Studies.
Something has to give somewhere, and I think these issues need as much attention as simply printing money to give to colleges who increasingly offer fewer job prospects because of the printing of the money.
[quote=“UltraVires, post:116, topic:939613”]
Today it would require a four year degree [/quote]
there are many two years associate degree nursing programs, many at community colleges and available at night. Qualifies one to sit for the same licensing exam as a three year or four year nurse.
I was a better nurse in many ways by having had a BS in liberal arts before going to nursing school. I would not have wanted to give up either diploma.
Bit of a sidetrack, but while initial licensure as an RN only requires an associate’s degree, the Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) is preferred in many settings and increasingly required. The BSN is well on its way to becoming the entry-level degree for nursing.
The initial licensure as a RN requires only an associate degree, although a three year or four year diploma also qualifies to take the RN exam. BSN is an academic degree, not a licensing criteria. Employers can prefer BSNs all they want-when push comes to shove they will fill their job slots with an RN regardless of how s/he came by the diploma if an RN with a BSN doesn’t present themselves for the job in sufficient numbers. We are a long way from a BSN being the entry level degree for nursing. Programs delivering BSN degrees might like you to believe that but my 40+ years in the field says we are a very long way from 50 states’ legislatures mandating doubling their requirements for licensing.
Yes, there is evidence in the study I cited. Most of it, predictably, comes from high salaries of the government school teachers. “scores in mathematics were about 22 percentage points and 23 percentage points higher in private unrecognized and recognized schools, respectively, than in government schools. The advantage was even more pronounced for English. In all cases, this achievement advantage was obtained at between half and a quarter of the teacher salary costs.” Its hard to say if public school teachers in the US are overpaid, but it seems clear the public school administrators, BOE, etc. are.
As far as the relation, its a counter to the argument that the private sector only works for affluent families. If we want to see how it works for the poor, where better to look than the poorest of the poor?