State Universities vs. Vouchers

>>I expect that over time, for better or worse, many state universities will in effect become privatized. They will remain under nominal state control, but their finances will rely increasingly on private sources of support.

There is nothing here to speculate upon. This is exactly what is already happening. States all across the country are decreasing their support to their state schools, and private sources like endowments are taking up the slack.

Eric,
I don’t know whether your expectation is solving the problem, or running away from it, only Time will tell.

I do think real progress could come through setting higher standards for admittance. I think State Universiities should set Enrollment limits, and insist all positions be allotted by Competitive testing. lgl

Are states now using their control over public universities unwisely? Some state universities are very highly regarded, and in general there doesn’t seem to be a huge level of dissatisfaction with public higher education. To the extent they are being unwise, are you so sure a voucher program would help matters?

After all, there would presumably be some requirements schools would have to meet to be eligible to participate in the voucher program. With vouchers all schools in the state would likely have to meet these requirements as a competitive matter.

Why would this level of control be less onerous than what is in place now with respect to state schools? Given that the legisalture would set these requirements isn’t there still the possibility of some serious abuses of power?

>>Are states now using their control over public universities unwisely?

The problem is this: if states are only contributing a small (say less than 25%) percentage of a school’s budget, does it make any sense to even call it a state school?

There is a lot of state politics involved in this issue, and I am sure every state is different. In the SUNY system, tuition from all schools used to be thrown into one statewide pot. Schools that juiced up their enrollments didn’t get any extra revenue, and there was no incentive to excell.

Recently, the rules were change so that the schools retained their tuition internally. This has hurt the smaller SUNY schools, but has greatly improved the big university centers.

My alma matta, SUNY Buffalo, has made out like a bandit from the change. Revenue from increased enrollment has been flowing in like a tidal wave. This, combined with a rising endownment, has allowed them to expand and build new facilities on an almost unprecedented scale.

New York State has also given the SUNY schools much more freedom to determine their own fate. There is much less meddling in day to day affairs by Albany.

The question that should be asked is, does this all make for a better education. Spending is being increased, even if it isn’t coming from tax revenues. Does that increased spending improve education, or is it a big waste of time and money?

>>The most productive members of society are not necessarily those who possess higher IQ levels.

And the proof of this is… what?

Income is highly correlated to IQ. Income is one measure of productivity. Thus, the most productive members of society are those who possess higher IQ levels.

But I like your point anyway. The only way to address income inequality is to promote education across our entire society. I think that the best way to do this is affirmative action based on family income. Low income students should be given preferential treatment towards admissions to universities.

After all, the high IQ students and high income students are going to go to school SOMEWHERE. Not so the lower income kids.

“Illinois is in a fiscal crisis, and aid to the U iof I system is down significantly. Many of his pet programs are being gutted, so he is leaving.”

But a voucher program wouldn’t avoid funding problems. The state can cut the value of the vouchers as easily as it can cut its contribution to the university.

I’m really having a hard time seeing what the big deal is here. I have no trouble believing that the relatively low cost of state schools encourages students to go there, and that they would make different choices under a different system. That’s common sense – no logit models needed. And common sense also suggests that universities have physical constraints on the number of students they can enroll – something the paper seems to overlook.

We have a pretty successful system of state universities in place. Isn’t this a classic case of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it?”

>>Lincoln, Edison, Ford, and (one of my favorites) Henry Hazlitt all lacked formal educations, but went on to achieve great fame and success.

Yeah, but do you think that any of these men had even average IQs?

And do you think that, if they grew up today, they WOULDN’T get a formal education.

>>The point is that education, particularly in today’s job market, creates opportunities that shouldn’t be limited mostly to individuals with high IQs, which competitive testing would ultimately result in.

Agreed. Everyone needs education, and those from lower income backgrounds should be given more educational opportunities to make up for their income (and IQ) disadvantages.

“Yeah, but do you think that any of these men had even average IQs?”

That might have been their result using standardized testing.

“And do you think that, if they grew up today, they WOULDN’T get a formal education.”

It would depend a great deal on socioeconomic status, as it does for many of the less fortunate today.

“IQ is highly correlated to job performance. The data artifact that the studies you cite are measuring is that job classifications themselves are highly segregated by IQ.”

>>Scores on intelligence tests predict various measures of job performance: supervisor ratings, work samples, etc. Such correlations, which typically lie between r=.30 and r=.50, are partly restricted by the limited reliability of those measures themselves. They become higher when ris statistically corrected for this unreliability: in one survey of relevant studies (Hunter, 1983), the mean of the corrected correlations was .54. This implies that, across a wide range of occupations, intelligence test performance accounts for some 29% of the variance in job performance.

Although these correlations can sometimes be modified by changing methods of training or aspects of the job itself, intelligence test scores are at least weakly related to job performance in most settings. Sometimes 19 scores are described as the ‘best available predictor” of that performance. It is worth noting, however, that such tests predict considerably less than half the variance of job-related measures. Other individual characteristics such as interpersonal skills, aspects of personality, etc., are probably of equal or greater importance, but at this point we do not have equally reliable instruments to measure them.http://www.mugu.com/cgi-bin/Upstream/neisser-apa-IQembedded=yes&cumulative_category_title=Introduction%3BSubjects%3BHumanities%3BPsychology%3BIQ&cumulative_category_id=Root%3BLibrary%3BHumanities%3BPsychology%3BIQ

Eric,

So what you’re saying is that if the state isn’t going to fund education very well it may as well not fund it with vouchers as with direct subsidies. Hard to disagree.

Monte,

I think you’re missing Eric and rvman’s point on IQ/perfomance correlation. A variable may be highly correlated with performance in a specific area, but once you filter out all people outside of a narrow range the correlation seems to go away. Height is correlated with performance at basketball, but if you only look at players who are 6-10 or more, the correlation will show up weakly, if at all, because you’ve compressed the range of values you’re looking at. Throw a proportionate number of guys 5-8 in the sample and see what happens.

The same thng applies to, say, nuclear physicists. There’s no way to know how people of average intelligence do as nuclear physicists, because there aren’t any. You’re looking at a narrow range of IQ. The performance difference between the 148 and the 150 is going to depend on things like hard work and luck rather than IQ, so IQ will seem to be weakly correlated with performance. But it’s not. It only looks that way because by studying nuclear physicists you’ve already thrown out most lower IQ cases.

>>which (according to the study cited)presumably accounts for the weak correlation between IQ and job performance.

Nothing predicts job performance MORE than IQ. At a range of IQs, other factors come into play.

BUT…

We were talking about the overall population, NOT performance between individuals within a certain job classification. Thus, IQ IS strongly correlated to income.

By creating a meritocracy, using tests to give more opportunity to those with more ability (more IQ, in this case), you increase inequality. This was a major point of “The Bell Curve”, one that got overlooked because of the incindiary points about IQ and race.

Of course, I would expect the libertarian economist to explain how the mean is still better off in a meritocracy, even if the bell curve is wider and flatter, or even double humped.