Dem Congress Wrong Focus: Ultimately limiting loan choice and not pushing educators

[TheDanold]

As usual when it comes to higher education, the Liberal Democrats only answer is to attack profit of lenders, but by doing so less will be inclined to lend and there will be less choice, ultimately making things worse.

Meanwhile the real problem in higher education is that professors have a lighter load but are getting more pay and benefits, in other words there is a productivity problem, NOT a funding problem.

"Critics still find the bills defective. Higher-education costs have risen much faster than inflation or aid increases, so students have been paying more out-of-pocket and taking more private loans. Yet both bills do little to tackle the rise in tuition costs. Richard Vedder of Ohio University points out that productivity is a major problem; professors in many schools have a weekly teaching workload that is a third lighter than 40 years ago, but their pay and benefits have increased."
http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9587850

 

[uscitizen]

lighter loads ? Hmm I have 2 sisters that teach at 2 different universities and they work at least 60 hours a week.
One teaches both online and in classroom.

 

[uscitizen]

From Dano's posted article:
many lenders like Student Loan Xpress have been caught handing illegal kickbacks to college aid officials—and by the fact that a private-equity consortium, led by J.C. Flowers, is in the process of buying out Sallie Mae, the largest student lender. This has put a spotlight on the fat margins of the $85 billion-a-year student-loan industry, where Sallie Mae's five-year average return on equity was an astonishing 52% per year.


Now who do you think is paying for that 52 % profit ? And kickbacks...

 

[Cypress]

lighter loads ? Hmm I have 2 sisters that teach at 2 different universities and they work at least 60 hours a week.
One teaches both online and in classroom.

Well, note that the article says their teaching load has decreased, not that their work load has decreased.

I think that as modern universities have evolved, professors spend more time on research, supervising grad students, and writing grant proposals than they once did. Consequently, less of their time is actually teaching in classrooms.

 

[uscitizen]

Yep as I said one sister taught about 800 students online last semester.
No classroom time but a lot of work.

 

[Lao Tse]

Let me redo your thread title.

Lazy Profs!, says study