[reuven]

American universities aren't just about education. Or even research, for that matter. They're often about providing a "life experience" for undergraduates. So you have a huge investment in sports, entertainment, and living facilities that are basically unheard of in other countries. Plus, all sort of administrators and advisors who help students in a variety of different ways.

These add up to a great experience, and arguably make the education better. But they also reflect how little the US government provides vs. other countries. And how much students depend on the university to provide services that in other countries would be provided by other agencies. And how an American university is expected to provide much more than just classrooms, lectures, and research.

I graduated from two American universities (MIT and Northwestern). Each of these had an on-site medical facility (unnecessary in countries with nationalized health insurance), financial aid offices (unnecessary in places where the tuition is lower, or handled by centralized government agencies), student-only shuttle services (unnecessary where public transportation is good), sports teams (unheard of outside of the US), and a wide variety of extra-curriculars (again, basically non-existent outside of the US). Each of these requires a bunch of administrators.

The building in which I did my PhD had a huge support staff. In an Israeli or European university, I think that the 15-20 secretaries, planners, and managers would have been replaced by 3-4 people. Overworked and underpaid people, mind you, but that's how you keep costs low. And my office (as a graduate student) in the US was positively opulent compared to what you'll find abroad.

I used to think that student aid in the US was a great thing. But I do believe that American universities have basically decided that they can raise tuition without any penalty, because almost no one pays that sum out of pocket -- and everyone else just takes on crushing debt for many years to follow.

Now, the fact is that I had a blast in my undergrad years, and my experience editing the student newspaper led directly to my current career. But having met many students and graduates in Israel (where I live), where universities are places to learn and do research, rather than have "life experiences," I'm not at all convinced that the added expense and overhead are worthwhile.

[chrisBob]

The extra features are all based on how US students choose a school. Here undergrads go to the school with the beautiful student union, the gym with a juice bar and climbing wall, and want to live in a room near the nicest 24 hour dining hall with made to order stir fry and sandwiches. Having granite countertops in the dorm room also helps.

This is just how the select the specific university though. The target group of universities will probably be something like "City school in the North East", "Private college with small class sizes", or "Ivy with good greek life".

As a contrast ask a Chinese person how they pick which university to go to in China. You will immediately get a confused look and the answer: "The highest ranked one you can get in to". My co-worker couldn't even imagine picking based on anything else.

[seanmcdirmid]

Which one? PKU? Qinghua? Shanghai Jiaotong? It is not such an easy choice anymore, and the universities in Beijing have poor facilities compared to Shanghai, making it difficult for them to attract shanghainese to come here to Beijing to study.

Even chinese students these days want heated and air conditioned dormitories, a shower in their dorm (at least on their floor! Definitely not in a separate building), and clean water to wash with. Or screw it, the ones that can will just go to some 2nd or 1st tier school in the U.S. or UK anyways so they aren't wasting their time.

[mikebelanger]

I like how you're insinuating that current Chinese students are acting entitled by wanting heating and air conditioning in their dorms. Whereas in Canada/US, heating/air conditioning in dorms is considered a basic :P We really are spoiled in the West.

[bruceb]

He is not saying they are acting entitled. Just saying it is a change from the past when they were ok accepting what we would consider lower standards as they didn't have much choice.

[mikebelanger]

Oh I see, I guess I was just struck by the difference in expectations of students in the west and even (some) of the ones in China - and I leaped to conclusions from there.

[seanmcdirmid]

For the older generation, ha, but the younger generation has higher expectations.

[namlem]

Tons of dorms in the US still have no air conditioning.

[seanmcdirmid]

imagine some place hotter than Atlanta without AC. That damn Yangtze river line: the north of it gets heat in the winter, the south of it gets AC in the summer, it isn't as accurate as you'd think.

[amateurpolymath]

I can imagine it. Went to a university in Florida that had dorms without AC.

[pconner]

I don't think amenities are that big a factor in college choice. For people I know, price and prestige of the school are weighted way more than other factors such as location or quality of the school's buildings.

[jeffreyrogers]

It depends on the environment you're in. At my college everyone came here because of the prestige (and generous financial aid). At my high school people chose schools based largely on size, location, perceived fun, etc. if they couldn't get in to a top tier school. In my hometown people chose based on closeness to home, whether it was a party school or not, etc.

[makeset]

Amenities, even granite countertops, are at least of some actual personal use. Applications to a local college apparently doubled last year because their football team was on a winning streak.

[jakejake]

Some people treat college like a four year vacation with planned activities. In which case the price is really quite cheap.

Looking back, I was guilty of this attitude at various times.

[nilkn]

As a typical kid in the US, it's virtually impossible to ever go anywhere on your own without getting a car. And the chances are high you won't get a car anyway, because your parents can't afford to buy you one and, well, how exactly are you supposed to afford your own car as a jobless kid?

The only way is to get a minimum wage job and suck out a considerable amount of time from your high school studies and extracurriculars, all just to have a car. But educational achievement is ranked very, very high in priority in the US, so a lot of kids who understand that are going to choose to just forgo the car completely if their parents can't get them one.

To top it off, most kids in the US have, up until college, never experienced a walkable microcosm of society, outside of shopping malls. The idea of living in this little walkable world is so exciting that it becomes worth the cost. It's like taking a (short) lifetime of observing all the systemic problems with American life and then finding a new little world that recognizes all those problems and fixes every one.

In that sense, in the US, going off to college comes with this tremendous sense of relief, where you feel like finally, for the first time, life is starting to make sense. Almost all college students will ask themselves repeatedly on first matriculating, "why the hell wasn't life like this in high school and earlier?"

[jostylr]

There is no need to feel guilty.

In general, many people need to detox from a childhood that lacked sufficient freedom to explore and become a full human being. Their internal programming then takes college and its new freedom as an opportunity to rectify that. It is quite a reasonable approach given our K-12 schooling setup and its intense control of children's time during the day.

[jakejake]

It's kinda too bad that the expected path is to go right to college after high school. Because,although it can be a lot of fun, it's an awfully expensive way to "detox" if one isn't even taking advantage of the school and its resources. I might have been more productive being a ski bum for a couple of years before heading to school.

[jkestner]

I think the year-off strategy is a good one. Too many people go back to grad school almost just for a re-do. 18 is too young to pick a career - I switched majors twice in the first two years.

I want to formulate a better set of options and incentives for my kids. To start, I could chip in for some tuition if they take a year off, or just minimally support them for that year as long as they leave home. The pull of peers (let's go to college together even though we'll drift apart after!) is strong, though.

gp may be on to something about detox. I'll have to allow them experiences growing up (provided they don't get taken by CPS).

[DougWebb]

18 is too young to pick a career

Pretty much everyone throughout human history, outside of recent Western history, would probably disagree with that. By 18 you were expected to be a self-supporting adult.

I think 18 is too young to pick a career only if you wait until you're 18 to start thinking about it. If you're encouraged and allowed to explore your interests earlier, you should have a pretty good idea of what you'd like to do by the time you're 18.

[jkestner]

After further discussion offline, I came to that conclusion too. Before college, I only had a vague idea of what I wanted to do that had no connection to reality or my temperament ("Building spacecraft is like model rockets, right?"). Doing practical work and going on field trips gave me the real taste of careers, and if I had gotten some of that in high school or sooner, yeah, I would've been looking at schools based on the major I ended up with, and done better, faster.

I was given free reign to explore my interests, but maybe not actively encouraged, especially where you need to go meet professionals in their workplace. I'll try to correct that with the next generation. A car factory or construction site can be just as fun as the zoo.

And if work is fun and part of a balanced diet, there's less need to 'detox' from life for a year, or four years.

[jedrek]

I think people have a completely idealized idea of the past. Yes, by 18 you had a career: you were a farmer or you'd been an apprentice for some time. Your formal education had probably been over for quite a few years. That was 100 years ago, 60 years you would've gone to a trade school.

Youd also probably be living with your parents until you got a job, often longer, depending on how well off you were.

[panzagl]

Sure, if your career is subsistence farmer.

[67726e]

While you obviously have the freedom to do what you wish, I got the impression that colleges are going further along the path of hand-holding to cater to those who can't/won't make that K-12 transition. From speaking with my coworkers who were alumni of the university I was attending and were of the same major, it really seemed like the rigor disappeared. The amount of times a professor would extend deadlines, cull portions of an assignment, or just flat out cancel it because of students complaining became enough to drive me away from classes. In several other courses, we had adjuncts that were former K-12 educators and they frequently treated us as their former students. In fact, the final straw that lead to me leaving the university entirely was an incident where I was castigated by an adjunct German professor for the atrocity of discretely pulling out my phone in order to translate a word so I could properly ask a question of the professor. This was only a few years ago, and having tutored a few friends through the years, I have a good idea of the state of things. They haven't changed.

[gumballhead]

I upvoted this comment because this is all very true and gets to be very expensive as enrollment rates increase, which was also mentioned in the article.

But, despite all of this expense, I don't feel like I got a great education while I attended a public university. My classes were taught by grad students and adjuncts in 400 person auditoriums.

I ended up transferring to a small private school about the size of my high school. The tuition was about four times what I was paying at a public school (though I didn't pay near that much out of my own pocket) and the quality of teaching was night and day.