Sorry guys Im no longer keeping up with my blog

What I should have looked into rather then the research im doing, is what is the real benefit to requiring all non liberal arts majors to have to take 3 writing classes.. and not offer some sort of light writing class in comparison to the demanding classes that already have to be taken. Or rather, why do teachers give you assignment after assignment , without considering the possibility of the student having other assignments due from other classes. College.

Literature Review #2

My second Literature review is about Berkley University's Michael Hout's Social and Economic Returns to College Education in the United States. The reason why I like this literature source is it really translates and outlines the benefits to a college education and uses great visuals of graphs. Hout is a very credible source writing plenty of papers on the economics of college and the returns to an education. Before I begin analyzing the piece I found, I think something equally important to note is that I was able to take away another source: Topel's Labor markets and economic growth, which adresses the social returns to an economy from education. Hutch looks at how a return to education can benefit someone absed on how far of an education they get, where they go.. but also looks at the varying returns to an education , based on a persons origin and performance. What I really like from this article is the graphic images I will be able to use in my paper. I will attach some of them below.
The value these graphs will have to my paper is that they are going to add graphic visuals to my paper and will break up the "boringness" of just reading a 10 page paper with words through out. And for those of you still following my blog, I will be resuming it shortly! Soon to come will be a 3 or so page paper on my reasearch proposal , I hope you guys check it out!

Some Quotes I want to use in my paper:
-"Even the most cautious reading of the evidence confirms that earning a college degree will pay back the cost of obtaining it several times over. In a 40-year work life, men with college degrees can expect to earn $1.1 million more than high school graduates"(Hout 387).

-"Highly selective, elite colleges offer two important benefits to students: graduation is more certain (Bowen et al. 2009) and investment per student is higher (Hoxby 2009)." (Hout 388).
 
   I really like this quote because it shows me that Caroline Hoxby, who I have done a literature review on a different paper, has done a paper that talks about the investment per student being higher in 2009 , and there is no way she can just make a claim like that, so she must have proof and evidence to show that the quality of education must be rising and not merely just the tuition.  The hard part I think im going to face when writing my paper(aside from making time) as quantifying the unqauntifable.. quality. Somehow I'm going to have to make quality something I can measure. I currently do not have a plan for it yet, but stay tuned for my proposal!!!

-"People who pursue more education and achieve it make more money, live healthier lives, divorce less often, and contribute more to the functioning and civility of their communities than less educated people do"(Hout 394).

Work Cited:

Hout, Michael. "Social and Economic Returns to College Education in the United States." Annual Review of Sociology 38.1 (2012): 379-400. Web. 15 October 2017.

Literature review #1: Finding the first source

In addition to the research I am going to be discussing in my blog, I am also going to find some sources I plan on using in my final paper, and tearing them apart here. The reason for doing this literature review is to put each and every source I plan on using through a rigorous test to make sure that when I construct my paper I do not use any bad sources that might affect the overall quality of my paper. To begin what I think is most crucial to any research is solidifying the background knowledge. Why waste time researching and compiling information on background knowledge when someone before you has already done the same thing! So I began my search by looking through various economic databases on college tuition. After reading through the history on college tuition summarized over and over in each paper , each one addressing something different about a time period and the ideas and beliefs on tuition I found what may touch on the history and growth of tuition and the many ideas per time period. The piece is titled How the Changing Market Structure of U.S. Higher Education Explains College Tuition by Harvard professor Caroline Hoxby. This is a great first source to find because she really summarizes the different time periods and their explanations about why tuition is rising. She also does combines various economic beliefs an readings to formulate a hypothesis as to why college tuition is rising. She looks at the increase in the competitive market of higher education and the market integration of universities. She then tries to justify the tuition rising in price due to the colleges having to compete and provide higher quality education which is what drives tuition to go up. She combines this with a study of how the universities who provided high quality education as well high subsidies and charge high tuition.

Here are a few quotes from Hoxby's piece I may want to use for my paper:
-"Market integration causes the average college, and even more the initially selective college, to supply a more expensive education, to students of higher ability who receive higher "wages" for their inputs and pay a higher price for their education"(Hoxby 39).

-"Colleges have been moving away from generic liberal arts curricula towards "market niches", where they serve particular student populations or particular vocational needs"(Hoxby 41).

-"These changes are beyond the control of any individual college are unlikely to be reversed. An increasing share of college choices are constrained by increasingly intense market forces"(Hoxby 41).

-"Tuition rises with demand, but market power explanations suggest that colleges take advantage of increased demand to increase their rents. If instead colleges are losing market power over time, then tuition is rising because the open market has ignited quality control"(Hoxby 7).

This material overall comes from a credible ivy league professor who has written 2 other papers on the topic of tuition rising in colleges. As well as publish many papers she has done a TED talk. I plan to use this in my research proposal in attempt to provide an example of how the cost of tuition is not in fact rising but due to the demand increasing has increased in dollar value but not for nothing. 

Work Cited: 

Hoxby, Caroline. “How the Changing Market Structure of U.S. Higher Education Explains College Tuition.” NBER digest, 1997, doi:10.3386/w6323.

Update #2: Getting a feel for things

Update​ ​us​ ​where​ ​you​ ​stand​ ​on​ ​your​ ​topic​ ​idea​. Has it changed since Blog #1? Have you refined it somewhat already? For some of you, your topics may have changed completely from the first time you wrote. Talk about why you changed the topic and why the new topic suits you better.

Since my last post I have spent hours checking the internet for scholarly articles on rising tuition costs. It is almost as if no one wants to say that it really is not too bad. The message seems to be hidden behind big words such as opportunity cost and inflation and a lot of other economic terms that don't simplify it. In the past in an economics class I did research on the same topic, but this time around I want to be able to tell it simple, so that way the typical person can understand without needing an economic background. Some of the articles found online compare the rise of tuition prices relative to the rise of inflation each year and point out that it is significantly rising faster than inflation. Being that this is a very money-related topic there will be some challenges trying to make it simple but rest assured, through this blog you will become more than educated on the topic! A common google search of tuition rising rather than an article based search seems to show that the blame is not on tuition , but on slowing wages and extra fees of college rising rather than the tuition itself. Its almost as if someone is trying to hide the fact that tuition is rising as if it were not. One article even describes tuition as a frozen rate which as we may all know is clearly not true. The best keywords to search that revealed unbiased results were:  Real tuition price and real cost of tuition... although the unbiased results required some basic knowledge of economics. Alot of the research done seem to analyze tuition over time in comparison to wages rather than a snapshot per year basis. The college board has an excellent table that illustrates it. Which can be found here: https://trends.collegeboard.org/college-pricing/figures-tables/tuition-and-fees-and-room-and-board-over-time-1976-77_2016-17-selected-years.  A popular book on the subject seems to have be released in 2002, when tuition had first began to rise, and is still an important and widely referenced book on the topic. If interested in purchasing it , here is a link to it on amazon https://www.amazon.com/Tuition-Rising-College-Costs-preface/dp/0674009886/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1507051937&sr=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=tuition+prices+rising. This search has led me to want to show that tuition is no really expensive and is worth it now more than ever. I want to be able to reference some of the books I want to provoke emotion, so I am going to write against everyones ideas and beliefs in an effort to shed more light on the topic itself. Especially with something like tuition which will affect the majority of people stepping up into  society. This controversial topic is going to be interesting to research and provoke, stay tuned!

Some great sources are : https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=LFLtjqvqHFEC&oi=fnd&pg=PR9&dq=tuition+rising&ots=89adMHZIT1&sig=8_JVvNFTnvJBGyTOgyL2eaX11qY#v=onepage&q=tuition%20rising&f=false

http://www.airitilibrary.com/Publication/alDetailedMesh?docid=23044624-201312-201312260038-201312260038-1-11

http://www.nber.org/papers/w5164

http://www.educationexchangeltd.org/documents/Is%20College%20Tuition%20Really%20Too%20High_%20NYT.pdf

Putting Tuition Prices Under the Spotlight for a Class Project

I have been given the opportunity to do a class research project on any topic about college. My project will be about tuition costs and if they really are rising. I will be approaching tuition costs from an economist's point of view, rather than a broke college student, so no bias here. This blog is going to serve the purpose of documenting my research, ideas and progress. As seen in the software and many other communities open source works, so I invite anyone following to comment on any post with their own ideas, as it may shed light on something new I have not seen. Tuition prices have been in the hot seat recently, with many people thinking they are parabolically increasing, showing no signs of stopping anytime soon. I believe this is false, tuition prices, although rising are actually falling in terms of "real" dollars and affordability. I think this is important to look into because some people(a lot) are beginning to opt out of going to college because it is no longer what it used to be. As a younger member of society, I believe it is important for further expansion to ensure all are properly educated and by shining light on this infamous topic, I hope to assure many that college is worth it, in fact, now more than ever.