alt Hacker News> But this new test, known as "do no harm," raises some thorny questions about the purpose of college. Like: Is it just about making more money?
If this is a fair question to ask students, then it is a fair question to ask the schools as well. They are the ones charging enormous amounts of money to students for this.
This doesn’t prevent people from learning to paint or play the clarinet. It prevents students from taking out enormous loans for it.
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If I want a philosophy degree then it's my God-given right to pay $240,000 plus interest for it. Maybe it shouldn't be subsidized, though.
Is United Airlines “just about making more money”? Yes. Has it done so by offering people a valuable product and generating massive consumer surplus? Also yes.
If it’s your own money, college can be whatever you want. When it’s someone else’s, they get to be involved in making a decision as to what college is for.
Yeah it is absolutely despicable to tell students that they shouldn't make a profit off their education, while the colleges are allowed to inflate tuition fees and profit as much off the student's education as possible.
If you look at the music teacher example you see the end result of these perverse incentives turning into a pyramid scheme. Being a music teacher at the college is one of the few profitable ways to pay off your student debt while staying in your preferred career so of course she doesn't want to give that up, she's still in debt.
If college isn't about money, that turns college into a consumer good, but if college is a consumer good, why should the government let people borrow money for their consumption?
By that logic the government should lend money to young people so they can go on expensive vacations and enjoy their youth.
I think the corollary is about taxpayer accountability.
It's easy to make the argument:
"If we invest $1M in education, we will have $10M in additional future economic output, $4M in future taxes, and $20M less in law enforcement / criminal prosecution / jail fees. It improves global competitiveness."
That's a no-brainer. Education is a very high ROI investment for a country. Like infrastructure spending or industrial policy, it's about cold, hard economics.
One step more complex -- but equally high ROI -- is towards having a functioning democracy. That's economics, but a bit more squishy.
Investing in the arts, humanities, and music is a good thing as well. However, that's a very different bucket of money. I wouldn't lump it in with the former two.