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Marketwatch brings good news for the USA: American workers are finally reaping the benefits of the lowest unemployment rate and best jobs market in decades: Wages and benefits are rising at the fastest pace in a decade. Firms have sought to fill openings by offering better benefits such as more vacation time or flexible hours. When push comes to shove, they are offering higher pay. While bigger paychecks are great for workers, the US Federal Reserve is watching closely to see if rising compensation is stoking inflation. The Federal Reserve could increase U.S. interest rates if it becomes a big worry, but so far inflation remains relatively mild.
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Wages and Benefits are Rising at the Fastest Pace in a Decade
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 08 2018, @01:58AM
I do like that formulation because I think it's more accurate. First, let us note that moving costs of college education from state to student doesn't actually change the cost of education, it just changes who pays. And needless to say, I have no trouble with college students paying the actual cost of their education.
What does change cost of education is overhead that doesn't contribute to the education, such as much of the administrative costs and building construction. That's a common failing of public schools, particularly K-12 level. I've heard many stories over the years of science teachers who have to buy their own supplies while their school system upgrades the local sports infrastructure (such as football stadiums) without a second thought. And a school system like the LA Unified School District has massive bureaucratic overhead.
A second indication is the phenomena of "teaching to the test". This is a common complaint of top-down testing standards. But if a school system suddenly shifts to obsessing over test scores on a standard test, it demonstrates that the school system didn't have education as a priority then or in the past. Because education wouldn't be so easily sacrificed to a test otherwise.
There's the inflated educational costs of classroom materials such as textbooks, lab materials, etc (which is something a school system can easily deal), but too often it's just not a priority to reduce costs of education for their students.
There are teacher unions which are notorious for opposite performance based measures and removing bad teachers from the classroom.
Market dynamics work well at the college level actually. You get a fair bit of inefficiency still and we all hear of the students who borrow way too much (usually via a non-market dynamic, of course). But there is an amazing variety out there and a lot of people getting something relatively useful out of their education. Meanwhile how many public schools, particularly in the heavily urbanized parts of the US, would still exist, if they had to compete? I'm all for getting rid of bad public schools outright. And school vouchers provide a tool for making that happen.