[jedberg]

The biggest downside to the rise of ISAs is the decline of the humanities. There are some majors where the cost of educating the student is simply more than the school would earn in a lifetime of work, but they still have value to society. We would need some way to account for that in a world where ISAs fund all education.

How do we incentive schools/lenders to fund people who want to study art and literature? Or should we?

[mentalpiracy]

You incentivize this by attacking the problem directly - which is to realize that the cost of education is not rising due to scarcity, its rising because of misguided administrative practices and budget allocations.

Quality educational materials are certainly not more scarce today than they were 50 years ago, or somehow astronomically more expensive today.

Quality educators are not astronomically expensive and costing students more. In fact, educators are being chased from the classroom because we treat professors and teachers as a cost center and have systematically eliminated long-term confidence in career stability by replacing career professors with graduate students and adjuncts.

[thfuran]

There is, however, quite a bit more demand for college degrees today than 50 years ago.

[codingdave]

Your comment reminded me of this article from a few weeks back: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/20/business/liberal-arts-ste...

STEM careers are and likely always will be a solid choice. But liberal arts aren't as bad as pop culture would make them out to be.

[dbancajas]

basic supply demand. Less supply, more demand = higher salary = more students. There is obv equilibrium point.