That whole rankings obsession and the business of selling professional schools to graduates... It's a problem... Schools are so statistic obsessed, profit driven... it's no wonder that they fudge their numbers like ENRON...
Jeez that pisses me off... but this is not just about law schools... the system of higher education in the States is broken, the costs are way out of whack and this is because of the ridiculous profit driven enterprises that are colleges and universities, basically wrecking future graduates: ravaging with debt with disproportionate return on investment from their degrees... and the illusion of prestige and wealth associated with those degrees... basically its worse than sub prime mortgage lenders who caused this mortgage crisis in the first place... People are buying into an inflated substanceless bubble... Universities compete by fudging and inflating their figures, and then inflate their tuition prices to increase profits, while also taking on more applicants, while loans and student debt are allowed to rise unchecked so that graduates are going to be coming out of school with their backs broken and unable to get a job...
I am surprised their is no class action law suit against the ABA or a particularly egregious university for their reporting standards. With a JD and so much free time why not? It would be a case to try and put your education to use. A win would be impressive on your resume. It might lead to a job offer.
Binary Maybe your talking about the cost of an architectural education? The article states that their is a tier system for law schools. It strongly suggests that the lower tiers are a bad investment.
re. 4 year BARCH: i keep hearing rumors that more and more schools are moving towards a 4 and 2 curriculum which concerns me. i can understand the sentiment that architecture requires quite a bit of schooling, but can't help but see this move as a way to glean even more tuition from students.
wrecking - the 4+2 is a compromise at institutions whose internal organization doesn't allow them to offer a 5 year professional degree or who can't muster the internal resources or support from the overall school (or even school system) to make the upgrade. add in the fact that naab has pushed for the masters to be the 'new' baseline for the past 20 years, and it's not surprising.
i know it may sound crazy, but these things take time. one example: uga (university of georgia) has petitioned the board of regents here for decades to allow it to offer engineering degrees comparable to georgia tech. the bor finally, this past fall, relented. uga's argument was that there was an enormous research funding potential that they couldn't tap and that was being unfairly 'directed' to tech. tech's argument has been that, if the state has limited resources, it should be using them to maintain the 'elite' status of the already established program and not potentially diluted down due to more programs competing in the same arena. specious arguments on both sides, but there you are.
architecture programs are one of the worst in terms of being 'self supporting' inside a university. we're not too far from the humanities in that regard. asking an institution to devote all the time and material to convert a 4 year to a 5 year bachelors isn't worth it to most. it's easier, actually, to add in a new masters degree program, especially if both have to subsequently go through the initial accreditation process.
i'm personally not making excuses for these schools - just trying to help explain why it's not as easy as it sounds and why it's not entirely a 'we can glean more tuition' move.
Jan 10, 11 12:04 pm ·
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Adding a 4 year BARCH for professional licensing is a bad idea. It would lead to even more architecture graduates.
A better idea would be if schools had smaller graduating class sizes leading to fewer unemployed professionals. But as it has been since WWII, more students equal more $$$, yo!
great points outed, there's a lot of red tape involved at the university level. i was more alluding to rumors i had heard about abolishing the 5 year program, not existing 4 and 2's. they may be just that, rumors. but i would be very dismayed to see a 5 yr accredited program go away, for many reasons.
wrecking-I dont know how far out of school you are but I graduated in 07 and at my school it def happened, while I was in the program leaving both our class and the class that graduated after us stuck with 4 year degrees after signing up for 5 year ones. I also have heard from others who graduated around the same time that their school had done the same thing or were in the process of changing the program when they graduated.
From what I understand, at the time the school made the decision to switch over there were rumors that within 10 years a masters degree would be required to sit for the exams and a lot of schools were switching over so that kids who were in school now wouldnt be screwed later and have to do a 5-year BArch then a masters if it took them a little longer to go through IDP. I'm not sure if that still a real concern or how much the tanking of the industry and super high unemployment rates have effected that plan.
I know at my school there was a lot of back and forth during the time I was there about what the program would look like and how if would effect the master program. The curriculum requirement changed several times and there were couple of classes that were only offered one semester, and our internship requirements were constantly changing based on who took which class and when. The master degree requirements also changed.
I didnt go to grad school right away but I know it also caused some issues for people who wanted to go to different schools for grad school since a lot of schools only offered 5 year BArch or 3 year masters for people with undergrad degrees not in arch.
I got a 5 year accredited B.Arch back when such things were still in fashion. Sad/funny thing is that my program could have easily been squeezed into 4 years. You always end up with mountain of redundant information in subjective studies such as architecture.
I doubt this NYT article will dissuade anyone from getting a law degree. There's been a lot of warning cries on Archinect about the shittyness of architectural profession, all fully ignored by prospective M.Arch candidates. The egomaniac in us all sees cautionary tales of others as benchmarks of mediocrity that we will surely easily overcome. After all, I am better than most.
The egomaniac in us all sees cautionary tales of others as benchmarks of mediocrity that we will surely easily overcome. After all, I am better than most.
I LOL'ed.
This discussion is a dead horse and people here continue to beat it like a 13-year-old boy discovering himself for the very first time.
What's worse is that many posters have presented many citations and examples in their responses on the subject that have either been wholly dismissed or ignored. There's dozens of papers and recommendations on the subject.
A majority of people who get their doctorates and masters degrees (especially from "prestigious colleges") tend to major in something unrelated or somewhat related to their masters or doctorates.
You know, that's why they tend to refer to these places as liberal arts colleges.
While not a good example of education, some countries-- like Russia-- have very limited numbers of institutions which actually grant things like licenses. In the Russian Federation-- a country of 140,000,000 people-- there are only two schools of optometry.
Whatever the degree, I think there are too many architecture schools. Architecture is an expensive program-- not because of professors or having celebrity staff-- because the technology behind it is expensive.
It's the worst combination of a computer lab mixed with an art studio mixed with a wood shop mixed with metals fabrication.
If you eliminate the amount of redundancy across a state and centralize architectural education, programs would be cheaper just from a economics of scale standpoint.
Jan 10, 11 2:19 pm ·
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Oh wow. I just finished reading the entire NYTimes article and the last couple of paragraphs are startling:
"Unless, somehow, the debt just goes away. Another of Mr. Wallerstein’s techniques for remaining cool in a serious financial pickle: believe that the pickle might somehow disappear.
“Bank bailouts, company bailouts — I don’t know, we’re the generation of bailouts,” he says in a hallway during a break from his Peak Discovery job. “And like, this debt of mine is just sort of, it’s a little illusory. I feel like at some point, I’ll negotiate it away, or they won’t collect it.”
He gives a slight shrug and a smile as he heads back to work. “It could be worse,” he says. “It’s not like they can put me jail.”
Does it really make sense to be wasting tax money putting people in jail for credit card debt? especially during a time of severe unemployment? Even though I am up to date on my debts tonight I am glad I don't live in some idiotic redneck backwater like Minnesota ;)
handsum: reducing the number of graduates due to performance is one thing, reducing the number due to debt load (i.e. more school/graduate school) is another.
i would hate our educational system to get to the point where the only people with prestigious degrees are those who are wealthy or those willing to carry student loans for the rest of their lives. this goes for law, architecture or any other pricey degree with diminished returns.
in light of the current economic climate, i'm VERY thankful that i have a 5 yr. BARCH from an in-state institution that is paid off and i'm eligible to sit for my exams.
Hi all - first post and all - it seems to me the real dilemma in this is the fact that federal laws were re-worked several years ago to make student loans exempt from being discharged. This, on top of the reforms to student loans in the early 1990's, provided a two stage fuel for colleges and universities to hike their tuitions with very little repercussions or drop off in enrollments. The kind of guarantee of repayments associated with student loans make it a brutal catch 22 for anyone who isn't in the top 2% income wise, on scholarships or grants, or who's getting multiple degrees.
Outside of medicine, most professions haven't been keeping pace with expanding school enrollments. Yet, who has the authority to throttle that back, especially given the swings in the economy that may increase/decrease demand so quickly and radically? I don't...
Question:
In this economy, why would anyone acually PAY for an architectural degee? If you're wealthy or mom and dad will pay your way and you frequenly visit the country club to meet your friends (the offspring of billionaires) architecture makes some wierd sense, but only if you want to work to death and go crazy.
Oh, and by the way, that extra year spent to get a M. Arch is quite worthless. What do you want to know about....negative space?
Question:
In this economy, why would anyone acually PAY for an architectural degee? If you're wealthy or mom and dad will pay your way and you frequenly visit the country club to meet your friends (the offspring of billionaires) architecture makes some wierd sense, but only if you want to work to death and go crazy.
Oh, and by the way, that extra year spent to get a M. Arch is quite worthless. What do you want to know about....negative space?
MR
Jan 11, 11 9:14 pm ·
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"Outside of medicine, most professions haven't been keeping pace with expanding school enrollments. Yet, who has the authority to throttle that back, especially given the swings in the economy that may increase/decrease demand so quickly and radically? I don't..."
Good question. Probably no easy answers either. But I would suggest that in America it would be better if government used tax payer funds to directly support schools rather than funding education by entrapping students with loans. If schools finances were more secure, then perhaps they could offer lower tuition rates and focus more on admitting students based on merit. As it stands now, the money for education is funnelled through the young poor & vulnerable students compelling schools to compete for them. More students = more money for the schools. In other words, right now there is little incentive for schools not to expand class sizes and graduate more professionals (whether they are needed or not).
With respect to economic cycles that may impact the profession, the need for fully licensed & trained architects is somewhat limited. Much of the fluctuation in staffing needs within offices is at the level of drafters rather than architects. Even today, many of the employees filling roles that are basically drafting jobs probably have the full architect's education (and it's pricey elite cost) when they could have made due with an associate's degree.
There is something insidious about growing an institution that burdens young people with unnecessary debt. And as I pointed out above, you can go to jail for debt and prisoners are the only exception to the 13th amendment. This leads dangerously close to enslavement. Bait and switch, yo!
Since student loans are a revolving door, anytime someone defaults on them that money is taken out of the system, preventing future students from attending school to infinity. Defaulters rinterrupt that money stream that would otherwise revolve back into the system, paying for subsequent students' tuition. There will not be money for higher education in the future unless it comes from somewhere else. The system was designed to collapse, an acceptable form of a ponzi, in a way.
"Outside of medicine, most professions haven't been keeping pace with expanding school enrollments. Yet, who has the authority to throttle that back, especially given the swings in the economy that may increase/decrease demand so quickly and radically? I don't..."
I suspect that if anything is going to change in this regard it will have to come from the consumer of educational services - i.e. the students and their parents.
Students deciding on a major rarely seem to spend much time exploring actual career prospects ... rather, many wake up one day and decide "hey, I'd like to be an architect" because it seems like fun and an appropriate use for aptitude - I confess, that's pretty much what I did.
It's terribly sad today to see so many recent graduates, or near-graduates, coming to the realization that their chosen profession may not provide a decent living, or even a job. That's a bad time to reach that conclusion.
I think that is when ponzi scheme usually gets busted, when purchasers start wondering where the return on investment went. Hope this one goes down gently and graciously!
quizz - my own decision making 20 odd years ago was as equally naive and simplistic and I've certainly seen students today following in our proud footsteps.
What's sinister to me about the current situation, compared to when I was in school, is that college (and advanced degrees in particular) are more of a 'necessity' than ever to help increase the chances of long term professional success. Combine that with the loan obligations provided for under the law, generally stagnant wages in most entry level professional positions (that article should help dispel the notion that every law grad is starting at 150k or above), and we've got a situation where the means are far outweighing the ends.
If the laws regarding loan discharges were modified to allow for them to be wiped out in bankruptcy (along with credit cards, etc.), it would actually put some onus back onto the lenders to make some sound judgments about how much and whom to loan to. If you can't get a loan for 200k to attain a masters in architecture because the actuarial tables all say that it will never be paid back.... maybe that's not a bad thing. It would force the student to look at the risk/reward from another angle if nothing else. It would also begin to start a conversation about pay and expectations within the profession that would have some teeth to it. Mostly, though, it may help put some balance back into what is clearly a lopsided line of easy credit and money. of course lenders will lend anything to anyone - they're guaranteed, even if you die, to get it all back!
What's even crazier, if you think about it, is that we were able (as a society) to rewrite credit card laws so that students wouldn't be as easily tempted into running up tens of thousands in consumer debt (which they could actually be freed from, as painful as it might be). Yet, we don't think twice about making it even easier to accumulate 10x that amount in student loans without any possibility of getting out from underneath it if everything doesn't work out perfectly....
To see the actual impacts of what I'm referring to - in a report last September, the Federal Reserve noted that, for the first time in history, the amount of outstanding student debt exceeded the total amount of credit card debt. 20 years ago? Not a chance it would be even close...
amen, Greg. in fact, many students are ENCOURAGED to take all that debt. comments like "it will be worth it," or "it will pay itself back," and even "it is GOOD debt," abound. but not ONCE did i hear, "this is the total you will owe. with that interest rate, it will really be XX much by the time you graduate. that means you will need to pay YY a month over ten years or yy a month over 25 years."
BUT....the revolving door comment from Strawbeary i must disagree with. although default rates are higher, there are still plenty of people yoked to the system for which it will be a windfall to the government. that is, i have paid on my loans for 12 years now, and have ALMOST paid back what i owed in the first place. BUT because of interest, i have BARELY TOUCHED my principal. over the course of the entire extended repayment, i will pay back more than TRIPLE the amount originally borrowed. this means, all that extra i pay back, which is because of SUPER high interest rates, are PROFIT. sure, some of it goes away when inflation is taken into account, but inflation is at near historic lows right now, AND it would only be a very small portion if you calculated it conservatively. so, for every 3 defaulters, if there is one of me, they still win.
CMNDCTRL, you are right, I intended to simply say that the student loan system is a never-ending stream of buyers that are all using the same revolving money, with schools, gov't and investors making money off the top. Whether or not less students can attend in the future, I guess I don't really know that. But as I understand, those profits don't go to offering future loans to replace the defaults. Maybe I can find out... hold on.
What will give, if the system becomes overburdened and something has to go?
CMNDCNTRL, I agree that the statement "this is what you will owe in total and this is what your monthly payment will be" should be written in bold at the top of every loan application.
Credit cards are now doing this. I don't know if that is in response to the actions of consumer credit activists (Like the lovely and amazing Elizabeth Warren), but hopefully student debt will start to evolve towards more transparency too.
personally, i think nothing WILL give (at least in the near future). there is too much profit in it for the lenders. like i said, they recoup more than they lend for MOST people (just having them pay a little bit over their whole lives). so even if the borrowers don't "technically" repay their principal, the lenders make out like bandits in the holy name of "educating america."
i have been criticized on this site for being too cynical when it comes to this subject. but personally, i think the only way anything will change is for the BORROWERS to do something en masse about it. we need to organize, somehow. IBR.org was a step in the right direction. but it only stopped the bleeding (and only for federal loan holders). the root of the problem (in my opinion) is the incentive for schools to keep the mill churning. if schools spent more of those RIDICULOUSLY big endowments (which are somehow NOT called profits) on STUDENTS, and paid their chancellors/coaches/etc less than rock stars, maybe they'd focus more on education again? i think we need to do something collectively. after all, we are well educated! time for a rally!
you can limit the cost you are willing to spend on education to a point, but if there are limited opportunities and stagnant growth, even the minimum, reasonable cost may seem too much ---- at this point, is an accredited professional degree worth it for $40,000? $30,000? in student loan debt?
it is not like choosing another profession solves the problem, either. the nurse i know who is now graduating says they face the same pressures. doctors, the same. the engineers and software developers, the same. the professors, the same. teachers, the same.
so you choose to limit your education so you have no debt, you just develop a skill and find a job. now your prospects are even more limited, as well as potential for growth and advancement both economically and socially
and what of the institutions --- except for the institutions with large endowments, most would backslide toward irrelevance at best and insolvency at worst if they start admitting significantly fewer students or truly reducing tuition
i think this situation is symptomatic of what Obama's economic advisory team has stated, which is that the key to so many problems is to get growth into the economy again at the right rate; without it, many of the problems are frankly intractable, and that will cause structural damage to the society
you can limit the cost you are willing to spend on education to a point, but if there are limited opportunities and stagnant growth, even the minimum, reasonable cost may seem too much ---- at this point, is an accredited professional degree worth it for $40,000? $30,000? in student loan debt?
it is not like choosing another profession solves the problem, either. the nurse i know who is now graduating says they face the same pressures. doctors, the same. the engineers and software developers, the same. the professors, the same. teachers, the same.
so you choose to limit your education so you have no debt, you just develop a skill and find a job. now your prospects are even more limited, as well as potential for growth and advancement both economically and socially
and what of the institutions --- except for the institutions with large endowments, most would backslide toward irrelevance at best and insolvency at worst if they start admitting significantly fewer students or truly reducing tuition
i think this situation is symptomatic of what Obama's economic advisory team has stated, which is that the key to so many problems is to get growth into the economy again at the right rate; without it, many of the problems are frankly intractable, and that will cause structural damage to the society
Make that dump that money - as in, if you took the amount of money paid to coaches and various sports accoutrement and put it into other programs you'd need a dump truck to carry it all. If alums want to cheer some school entity for "winning the championship" (whatever that means) they can rally behind the Solar Decathlon team.
NCAA football and basketball are really the minor leagues for the NBA and NFL. I thought they actually brought in money for the schools, at least for the top D1 teams.
Why do they force the students to finish their degree in 4 years instead of taking classes part time for 4 years and then letting them finish up full time after that? My guess is they only care what kind of an athlete the kid is not about their academics.
Jan 12, 11 3:53 pm ·
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The finances of college athletics are really a separate issue and rather complex too. Some of the big programs are money makers but many of the smaller ones are not. It is debatable whether or not these "big-time sports" programs should continue to be affiliated with universities.
If you look abroad, you certainly don't find students warping their education by spending every Saturday drunk at tailgates. And also looking abroad you see schools supported by tax-payer funds offering modest tuition rates. In Europe, the youth may be rioting because of a lack of jobs but at least they are locked into a financial dead end with the burden of six-figure debt. The future of the USA is about as bright as a shiny new penny, yo!
Donna - if they took athletics away from the schools, it would probably exacerbate the problem. The 'halo' effect from those programs is huge - sports allows a high level 'connection' for quite a few donors to other programs at a school. Our firm is certainly the beneficiary of said largess.
Handsum's on to something with the differences in funding, but in the end, at least for the states, it really is going to come down to reworking the loan obligation laws. Otherwise, no one throughout the system has enough incentive to make the necessary changes.
cmnd - totally agree about more transparency and laying out what the obligations mean in plain language. However, I don't think tapping endowments will do much - most schools are far short of what a few ivy league schools enjoy. Granted, there are inefficiencies in most universities, but not enough to dramatically lower tuition costs by anything appreciable.
You people are intellectualizing this issue way to much. The good old USA is in so much debt, trying to find a non-Chinese, non-Indian, non-Arabic client is like having self whipping classes. Forget the Euro too. Why do you think the Chinese can send us poisoned toothpaste, wheat gluten, sulfurous dry wall, lead painted Disney toys and radioactive children's jewelry....because they purchased that right by buying our worthless Treasury Notes. They buy our worthless IOUs in return for sending Wal-Mart loads of crap.
The only benefit to going through the incredible maze of education, testing, and the sadism called IDP is if you're part of a religious sect that believes you will go to Heaven if you work extremely hard enough, for wages that stimulate self-inflicted wounds, and work for other architects that are either: stupid, crazy, manic-depressive, ego maniacal, evil, or just like to yell at employees.
Boys and girls, there is no money out there (if you don't count what the Treasury Department is printing for "Quantitative Easing” and giving to the banks). Learn a trade, make something, anything but guns, missiles, and ammo...we have more than enough weaponry.
Uxbridge,
Speaking of shooting anyone is irresponsible but has anyone considered that we have an overabundance of Senators? That's two from each state. Why two? What is achieved by the redundancy? We could lose a LOT of elected officials and save trillions.
I know we are told that we need all these elected people because then we can hold them "responsible". How is that done? Well Rep. Rangel was "censured" which is similar to being given a good "talking to" by your dad. It also means that any Senate bill will have 100 versions and take twice as long to process instead of only 50 versions and half as long to deliberate.
The House of representatives has cut $35 million from their budget which is like peeing in Lake Michigan and expecting its water level to rise.
However , if we stop the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Federal budget is balanced immediately. It's not like we have achieved anything there anyway. The Shiites still hate, really hate the Sunni Moslems and we will not change that. And Osama Bin Laden...where is that guy after 9 years of looking? Time to cut bait. If we want to kill all the Taliban....wow the friends we'll make and then what do we do with the mountain of bodies?
archi - er lawyers feeling duped.
from the times. I don't think we're as rankings obsessed but many here will identify with the loans, lack of jobs, etc.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/business/09law.html?hp=&adxnnl=1&pagewanted=all&adxnnlx=1294578092-kpwCthGn0I04p9HcMxeX4Q
That's an excellent article. And so many parallels to our profession.
That whole rankings obsession and the business of selling professional schools to graduates... It's a problem... Schools are so statistic obsessed, profit driven... it's no wonder that they fudge their numbers like ENRON...
Jeez that pisses me off... but this is not just about law schools... the system of higher education in the States is broken, the costs are way out of whack and this is because of the ridiculous profit driven enterprises that are colleges and universities, basically wrecking future graduates: ravaging with debt with disproportionate return on investment from their degrees... and the illusion of prestige and wealth associated with those degrees... basically its worse than sub prime mortgage lenders who caused this mortgage crisis in the first place... People are buying into an inflated substanceless bubble... Universities compete by fudging and inflating their figures, and then inflate their tuition prices to increase profits, while also taking on more applicants, while loans and student debt are allowed to rise unchecked so that graduates are going to be coming out of school with their backs broken and unable to get a job...
*disproportionate costs vs. the return on investment from the degree*
hence why you should weigh in your cost of education.....there is too much hype on higher priced schools/etc....
Bring back the 4 year BARCH for licensure
I am surprised their is no class action law suit against the ABA or a particularly egregious university for their reporting standards. With a JD and so much free time why not? It would be a case to try and put your education to use. A win would be impressive on your resume. It might lead to a job offer.
Binary Maybe your talking about the cost of an architectural education? The article states that their is a tier system for law schools. It strongly suggests that the lower tiers are a bad investment.
re. 4 year BARCH: i keep hearing rumors that more and more schools are moving towards a 4 and 2 curriculum which concerns me. i can understand the sentiment that architecture requires quite a bit of schooling, but can't help but see this move as a way to glean even more tuition from students.
wrecking - the 4+2 is a compromise at institutions whose internal organization doesn't allow them to offer a 5 year professional degree or who can't muster the internal resources or support from the overall school (or even school system) to make the upgrade. add in the fact that naab has pushed for the masters to be the 'new' baseline for the past 20 years, and it's not surprising.
i know it may sound crazy, but these things take time. one example: uga (university of georgia) has petitioned the board of regents here for decades to allow it to offer engineering degrees comparable to georgia tech. the bor finally, this past fall, relented. uga's argument was that there was an enormous research funding potential that they couldn't tap and that was being unfairly 'directed' to tech. tech's argument has been that, if the state has limited resources, it should be using them to maintain the 'elite' status of the already established program and not potentially diluted down due to more programs competing in the same arena. specious arguments on both sides, but there you are.
architecture programs are one of the worst in terms of being 'self supporting' inside a university. we're not too far from the humanities in that regard. asking an institution to devote all the time and material to convert a 4 year to a 5 year bachelors isn't worth it to most. it's easier, actually, to add in a new masters degree program, especially if both have to subsequently go through the initial accreditation process.
i'm personally not making excuses for these schools - just trying to help explain why it's not as easy as it sounds and why it's not entirely a 'we can glean more tuition' move.
Adding a 4 year BARCH for professional licensing is a bad idea. It would lead to even more architecture graduates.
A better idea would be if schools had smaller graduating class sizes leading to fewer unemployed professionals. But as it has been since WWII, more students equal more $$$, yo!
great points outed, there's a lot of red tape involved at the university level. i was more alluding to rumors i had heard about abolishing the 5 year program, not existing 4 and 2's. they may be just that, rumors. but i would be very dismayed to see a 5 yr accredited program go away, for many reasons.
wrecking - i would too, being a graduate with one. it's still the most affordable path to licensure and it would be tragic if it's phased out.
wrecking-I dont know how far out of school you are but I graduated in 07 and at my school it def happened, while I was in the program leaving both our class and the class that graduated after us stuck with 4 year degrees after signing up for 5 year ones. I also have heard from others who graduated around the same time that their school had done the same thing or were in the process of changing the program when they graduated.
From what I understand, at the time the school made the decision to switch over there were rumors that within 10 years a masters degree would be required to sit for the exams and a lot of schools were switching over so that kids who were in school now wouldnt be screwed later and have to do a 5-year BArch then a masters if it took them a little longer to go through IDP. I'm not sure if that still a real concern or how much the tanking of the industry and super high unemployment rates have effected that plan.
I know at my school there was a lot of back and forth during the time I was there about what the program would look like and how if would effect the master program. The curriculum requirement changed several times and there were couple of classes that were only offered one semester, and our internship requirements were constantly changing based on who took which class and when. The master degree requirements also changed.
I didnt go to grad school right away but I know it also caused some issues for people who wanted to go to different schools for grad school since a lot of schools only offered 5 year BArch or 3 year masters for people with undergrad degrees not in arch.
I got a 5 year accredited B.Arch back when such things were still in fashion. Sad/funny thing is that my program could have easily been squeezed into 4 years. You always end up with mountain of redundant information in subjective studies such as architecture.
I doubt this NYT article will dissuade anyone from getting a law degree. There's been a lot of warning cries on Archinect about the shittyness of architectural profession, all fully ignored by prospective M.Arch candidates. The egomaniac in us all sees cautionary tales of others as benchmarks of mediocrity that we will surely easily overcome. After all, I am better than most.
I LOL'ed.
This discussion is a dead horse and people here continue to beat it like a 13-year-old boy discovering himself for the very first time.
What's worse is that many posters have presented many citations and examples in their responses on the subject that have either been wholly dismissed or ignored. There's dozens of papers and recommendations on the subject.
A majority of people who get their doctorates and masters degrees (especially from "prestigious colleges") tend to major in something unrelated or somewhat related to their masters or doctorates.
You know, that's why they tend to refer to these places as liberal arts colleges.
While not a good example of education, some countries-- like Russia-- have very limited numbers of institutions which actually grant things like licenses. In the Russian Federation-- a country of 140,000,000 people-- there are only two schools of optometry.
Whatever the degree, I think there are too many architecture schools. Architecture is an expensive program-- not because of professors or having celebrity staff-- because the technology behind it is expensive.
It's the worst combination of a computer lab mixed with an art studio mixed with a wood shop mixed with metals fabrication.
If you eliminate the amount of redundancy across a state and centralize architectural education, programs would be cheaper just from a economics of scale standpoint.
Oh wow. I just finished reading the entire NYTimes article and the last couple of paragraphs are startling:
"Unless, somehow, the debt just goes away. Another of Mr. Wallerstein’s techniques for remaining cool in a serious financial pickle: believe that the pickle might somehow disappear.
“Bank bailouts, company bailouts — I don’t know, we’re the generation of bailouts,” he says in a hallway during a break from his Peak Discovery job. “And like, this debt of mine is just sort of, it’s a little illusory. I feel like at some point, I’ll negotiate it away, or they won’t collect it.”
He gives a slight shrug and a smile as he heads back to work. “It could be worse,” he says. “It’s not like they can put me jail.”
Mr. Wallerstein needs to be informed that, yes, they can put you in jail and they have over debts as little as $85. $250k is a lot of debt to pay back with Unicor's 23¢ wages, yo!
Does it really make sense to be wasting tax money putting people in jail for credit card debt? especially during a time of severe unemployment? Even though I am up to date on my debts tonight I am glad I don't live in some idiotic redneck backwater like Minnesota ;)
that is amazing.
guess we can all stop complaining about our profession from now on.
handsum: reducing the number of graduates due to performance is one thing, reducing the number due to debt load (i.e. more school/graduate school) is another.
i would hate our educational system to get to the point where the only people with prestigious degrees are those who are wealthy or those willing to carry student loans for the rest of their lives. this goes for law, architecture or any other pricey degree with diminished returns.
in light of the current economic climate, i'm VERY thankful that i have a 5 yr. BARCH from an in-state institution that is paid off and i'm eligible to sit for my exams.
Hi all - first post and all - it seems to me the real dilemma in this is the fact that federal laws were re-worked several years ago to make student loans exempt from being discharged. This, on top of the reforms to student loans in the early 1990's, provided a two stage fuel for colleges and universities to hike their tuitions with very little repercussions or drop off in enrollments. The kind of guarantee of repayments associated with student loans make it a brutal catch 22 for anyone who isn't in the top 2% income wise, on scholarships or grants, or who's getting multiple degrees.
Outside of medicine, most professions haven't been keeping pace with expanding school enrollments. Yet, who has the authority to throttle that back, especially given the swings in the economy that may increase/decrease demand so quickly and radically? I don't...
real ra
01/11/11
Question:
In this economy, why would anyone acually PAY for an architectural degee? If you're wealthy or mom and dad will pay your way and you frequenly visit the country club to meet your friends (the offspring of billionaires) architecture makes some wierd sense, but only if you want to work to death and go crazy.
Oh, and by the way, that extra year spent to get a M. Arch is quite worthless. What do you want to know about....negative space?
MR
real ra
01/11/11
Question:
In this economy, why would anyone acually PAY for an architectural degee? If you're wealthy or mom and dad will pay your way and you frequenly visit the country club to meet your friends (the offspring of billionaires) architecture makes some wierd sense, but only if you want to work to death and go crazy.
Oh, and by the way, that extra year spent to get a M. Arch is quite worthless. What do you want to know about....negative space?
MR
Good question. Probably no easy answers either. But I would suggest that in America it would be better if government used tax payer funds to directly support schools rather than funding education by entrapping students with loans. If schools finances were more secure, then perhaps they could offer lower tuition rates and focus more on admitting students based on merit. As it stands now, the money for education is funnelled through the young poor & vulnerable students compelling schools to compete for them. More students = more money for the schools. In other words, right now there is little incentive for schools not to expand class sizes and graduate more professionals (whether they are needed or not).
With respect to economic cycles that may impact the profession, the need for fully licensed & trained architects is somewhat limited. Much of the fluctuation in staffing needs within offices is at the level of drafters rather than architects. Even today, many of the employees filling roles that are basically drafting jobs probably have the full architect's education (and it's pricey elite cost) when they could have made due with an associate's degree.
There is something insidious about growing an institution that burdens young people with unnecessary debt. And as I pointed out above, you can go to jail for debt and prisoners are the only exception to the 13th amendment. This leads dangerously close to enslavement. Bait and switch, yo!
Since student loans are a revolving door, anytime someone defaults on them that money is taken out of the system, preventing future students from attending school to infinity. Defaulters rinterrupt that money stream that would otherwise revolve back into the system, paying for subsequent students' tuition. There will not be money for higher education in the future unless it comes from somewhere else. The system was designed to collapse, an acceptable form of a ponzi, in a way.
I suspect that if anything is going to change in this regard it will have to come from the consumer of educational services - i.e. the students and their parents.
Students deciding on a major rarely seem to spend much time exploring actual career prospects ... rather, many wake up one day and decide "hey, I'd like to be an architect" because it seems like fun and an appropriate use for aptitude - I confess, that's pretty much what I did.
It's terribly sad today to see so many recent graduates, or near-graduates, coming to the realization that their chosen profession may not provide a decent living, or even a job. That's a bad time to reach that conclusion.
I think that is when ponzi scheme usually gets busted, when purchasers start wondering where the return on investment went. Hope this one goes down gently and graciously!
quizz - my own decision making 20 odd years ago was as equally naive and simplistic and I've certainly seen students today following in our proud footsteps.
What's sinister to me about the current situation, compared to when I was in school, is that college (and advanced degrees in particular) are more of a 'necessity' than ever to help increase the chances of long term professional success. Combine that with the loan obligations provided for under the law, generally stagnant wages in most entry level professional positions (that article should help dispel the notion that every law grad is starting at 150k or above), and we've got a situation where the means are far outweighing the ends.
If the laws regarding loan discharges were modified to allow for them to be wiped out in bankruptcy (along with credit cards, etc.), it would actually put some onus back onto the lenders to make some sound judgments about how much and whom to loan to. If you can't get a loan for 200k to attain a masters in architecture because the actuarial tables all say that it will never be paid back.... maybe that's not a bad thing. It would force the student to look at the risk/reward from another angle if nothing else. It would also begin to start a conversation about pay and expectations within the profession that would have some teeth to it. Mostly, though, it may help put some balance back into what is clearly a lopsided line of easy credit and money. of course lenders will lend anything to anyone - they're guaranteed, even if you die, to get it all back!
What's even crazier, if you think about it, is that we were able (as a society) to rewrite credit card laws so that students wouldn't be as easily tempted into running up tens of thousands in consumer debt (which they could actually be freed from, as painful as it might be). Yet, we don't think twice about making it even easier to accumulate 10x that amount in student loans without any possibility of getting out from underneath it if everything doesn't work out perfectly....
To see the actual impacts of what I'm referring to - in a report last September, the Federal Reserve noted that, for the first time in history, the amount of outstanding student debt exceeded the total amount of credit card debt. 20 years ago? Not a chance it would be even close...
Lovely little clock illustrating this here: http://www.finaid.org/loans/studentloandebtclock.phtml
amen, Greg. in fact, many students are ENCOURAGED to take all that debt. comments like "it will be worth it," or "it will pay itself back," and even "it is GOOD debt," abound. but not ONCE did i hear, "this is the total you will owe. with that interest rate, it will really be XX much by the time you graduate. that means you will need to pay YY a month over ten years or yy a month over 25 years."
BUT....the revolving door comment from Strawbeary i must disagree with. although default rates are higher, there are still plenty of people yoked to the system for which it will be a windfall to the government. that is, i have paid on my loans for 12 years now, and have ALMOST paid back what i owed in the first place. BUT because of interest, i have BARELY TOUCHED my principal. over the course of the entire extended repayment, i will pay back more than TRIPLE the amount originally borrowed. this means, all that extra i pay back, which is because of SUPER high interest rates, are PROFIT. sure, some of it goes away when inflation is taken into account, but inflation is at near historic lows right now, AND it would only be a very small portion if you calculated it conservatively. so, for every 3 defaulters, if there is one of me, they still win.
CMNDCTRL, you are right, I intended to simply say that the student loan system is a never-ending stream of buyers that are all using the same revolving money, with schools, gov't and investors making money off the top. Whether or not less students can attend in the future, I guess I don't really know that. But as I understand, those profits don't go to offering future loans to replace the defaults. Maybe I can find out... hold on.
What will give, if the system becomes overburdened and something has to go?
CMNDCNTRL, I agree that the statement "this is what you will owe in total and this is what your monthly payment will be" should be written in bold at the top of every loan application.
Credit cards are now doing this. I don't know if that is in response to the actions of consumer credit activists (Like the lovely and amazing Elizabeth Warren), but hopefully student debt will start to evolve towards more transparency too.
personally, i think nothing WILL give (at least in the near future). there is too much profit in it for the lenders. like i said, they recoup more than they lend for MOST people (just having them pay a little bit over their whole lives). so even if the borrowers don't "technically" repay their principal, the lenders make out like bandits in the holy name of "educating america."
i have been criticized on this site for being too cynical when it comes to this subject. but personally, i think the only way anything will change is for the BORROWERS to do something en masse about it. we need to organize, somehow. IBR.org was a step in the right direction. but it only stopped the bleeding (and only for federal loan holders). the root of the problem (in my opinion) is the incentive for schools to keep the mill churning. if schools spent more of those RIDICULOUSLY big endowments (which are somehow NOT called profits) on STUDENTS, and paid their chancellors/coaches/etc less than rock stars, maybe they'd focus more on education again? i think we need to do something collectively. after all, we are well educated! time for a rally!
you can limit the cost you are willing to spend on education to a point, but if there are limited opportunities and stagnant growth, even the minimum, reasonable cost may seem too much ---- at this point, is an accredited professional degree worth it for $40,000? $30,000? in student loan debt?
it is not like choosing another profession solves the problem, either. the nurse i know who is now graduating says they face the same pressures. doctors, the same. the engineers and software developers, the same. the professors, the same. teachers, the same.
so you choose to limit your education so you have no debt, you just develop a skill and find a job. now your prospects are even more limited, as well as potential for growth and advancement both economically and socially
and what of the institutions --- except for the institutions with large endowments, most would backslide toward irrelevance at best and insolvency at worst if they start admitting significantly fewer students or truly reducing tuition
i think this situation is symptomatic of what Obama's economic advisory team has stated, which is that the key to so many problems is to get growth into the economy again at the right rate; without it, many of the problems are frankly intractable, and that will cause structural damage to the society
you can limit the cost you are willing to spend on education to a point, but if there are limited opportunities and stagnant growth, even the minimum, reasonable cost may seem too much ---- at this point, is an accredited professional degree worth it for $40,000? $30,000? in student loan debt?
it is not like choosing another profession solves the problem, either. the nurse i know who is now graduating says they face the same pressures. doctors, the same. the engineers and software developers, the same. the professors, the same. teachers, the same.
so you choose to limit your education so you have no debt, you just develop a skill and find a job. now your prospects are even more limited, as well as potential for growth and advancement both economically and socially
and what of the institutions --- except for the institutions with large endowments, most would backslide toward irrelevance at best and insolvency at worst if they start admitting significantly fewer students or truly reducing tuition
i think this situation is symptomatic of what Obama's economic advisory team has stated, which is that the key to so many problems is to get growth into the economy again at the right rate; without it, many of the problems are frankly intractable, and that will cause structural damage to the society
<inflammatory statement>
Personally I think dissolving the NCAA would be a strong step in the right direction. Screw sports and instead ump that amount of money into research.
Make that dump that money - as in, if you took the amount of money paid to coaches and various sports accoutrement and put it into other programs you'd need a dump truck to carry it all. If alums want to cheer some school entity for "winning the championship" (whatever that means) they can rally behind the Solar Decathlon team.
NCAA football and basketball are really the minor leagues for the NBA and NFL. I thought they actually brought in money for the schools, at least for the top D1 teams.
Why do they force the students to finish their degree in 4 years instead of taking classes part time for 4 years and then letting them finish up full time after that? My guess is they only care what kind of an athlete the kid is not about their academics.
The finances of college athletics are really a separate issue and rather complex too. Some of the big programs are money makers but many of the smaller ones are not. It is debatable whether or not these "big-time sports" programs should continue to be affiliated with universities.
If you look abroad, you certainly don't find students warping their education by spending every Saturday drunk at tailgates. And also looking abroad you see schools supported by tax-payer funds offering modest tuition rates. In Europe, the youth may be rioting because of a lack of jobs but at least they are locked into a financial dead end with the burden of six-figure debt. The future of the USA is about as bright as a shiny new penny, yo!
Donna - if they took athletics away from the schools, it would probably exacerbate the problem. The 'halo' effect from those programs is huge - sports allows a high level 'connection' for quite a few donors to other programs at a school. Our firm is certainly the beneficiary of said largess.
Handsum's on to something with the differences in funding, but in the end, at least for the states, it really is going to come down to reworking the loan obligation laws. Otherwise, no one throughout the system has enough incentive to make the necessary changes.
cmnd - totally agree about more transparency and laying out what the obligations mean in plain language. However, I don't think tapping endowments will do much - most schools are far short of what a few ivy league schools enjoy. Granted, there are inefficiencies in most universities, but not enough to dramatically lower tuition costs by anything appreciable.
Hello,
You people are intellectualizing this issue way to much. The good old USA is in so much debt, trying to find a non-Chinese, non-Indian, non-Arabic client is like having self whipping classes. Forget the Euro too. Why do you think the Chinese can send us poisoned toothpaste, wheat gluten, sulfurous dry wall, lead painted Disney toys and radioactive children's jewelry....because they purchased that right by buying our worthless Treasury Notes. They buy our worthless IOUs in return for sending Wal-Mart loads of crap.
The only benefit to going through the incredible maze of education, testing, and the sadism called IDP is if you're part of a religious sect that believes you will go to Heaven if you work extremely hard enough, for wages that stimulate self-inflicted wounds, and work for other architects that are either: stupid, crazy, manic-depressive, ego maniacal, evil, or just like to yell at employees.
Boys and girls, there is no money out there (if you don't count what the Treasury Department is printing for "Quantitative Easing” and giving to the banks). Learn a trade, make something, anything but guns, missiles, and ammo...we have more than enough weaponry.
Real RA
Wow real...
What's next? Shooting a senator?
Uxbridge,
Speaking of shooting anyone is irresponsible but has anyone considered that we have an overabundance of Senators? That's two from each state. Why two? What is achieved by the redundancy? We could lose a LOT of elected officials and save trillions.
I know we are told that we need all these elected people because then we can hold them "responsible". How is that done? Well Rep. Rangel was "censured" which is similar to being given a good "talking to" by your dad. It also means that any Senate bill will have 100 versions and take twice as long to process instead of only 50 versions and half as long to deliberate.
The House of representatives has cut $35 million from their budget which is like peeing in Lake Michigan and expecting its water level to rise.
However , if we stop the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Federal budget is balanced immediately. It's not like we have achieved anything there anyway. The Shiites still hate, really hate the Sunni Moslems and we will not change that. And Osama Bin Laden...where is that guy after 9 years of looking? Time to cut bait. If we want to kill all the Taliban....wow the friends we'll make and then what do we do with the mountain of bodies?
Donna, check out Beer And Circus by Murray Sperber. Sperber was a good friend of Bobby Knight at Indiana.
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