The general theory of stupidity, university fees and utter baloney

This Irish Times article discusses the Green Party's apparent aversion to a new system of student charges that - apparently- the government is considering introducing. The proposal is for a new "student contribution fee" on top of the existing student registration charge.

According to their spokesman, a Mr Gogarty, this would conflict with the Program for Government which agreed that “This Government will not proceed with any new scheme of student contribution to third-level education.” Yes, it certainly sounds inconsistent.

The spokesman adds " “We have conceded that the new student charge that’s coming in is going to be higher than the registration fee it replaces, but the question is, how much higher? If it is too high, then it’s basically fees by the back door....That’s non-negotiable as far as I am concerned,”

A fee is a fee whatever you call it. Just as calling a tax a "contribution" or a "levy" makes no difference. So if you concede that there is a new charge being introduced then it is a fee on top of the fee that is already there. To say "if its too high then it's basically fees by the back door" is risible in my view. It is fees by the front door and irrespective of the level set.

And what is "too high" anyway? If it was €10 would that be too high? Eh, no. €10,000? Eh, yes. So it is negotiable actually.

In the discussions about how the government's book-keeping deals with expenditures related to the banking rescue it has been emphasized again and again that international markets see through any creative accounting. These people are not stupid. Likewise students and their parents are not stupid: they know a shake-down when they see one. So why is it so hard for politicians to be transparent and honest about such an important issue?

It seems that the "Fees debate" will continue to attract incoherent thinking, dissembling and general woolly-mindedness.

Smoking and drinking while pregnant

Smoking and drinking while pregnant is generally acknowledged to be a bad for the child's health depending, of course, on the extent of it. So how common is it and what are some of the predictors?

Using Growing Up in Ireland data I graph the mothers response to a question which asked about this. About 60% never drank and less than 40% said occasionally. For smoking about 75% never smoked though about 13% smoked daily.

These questions were asked 9 years after the child was born and are probably under-estimates. One is less likely, I think, to overstate one's drinking or smoking.

If one does some simple multivariate (ordered probit) analysis it is striking that there are some very different patterns:

Older mothers are more likely to have consumed alcohol than younger mothers while pregnant but young mothers are more likely to smoke than the older ones. Income also has opposite effects being positively associated with drinking and negatively associated with smoking. The same is true for mothers education. Likewise medical card holders are more (less) likely to smoke (drink). So there seems to be a clear class divide. These effects are simultaneous, remember.

The one factor I found which had a consistent effect (& there are many other possible factors which I didn't look at) was a question that asked the respondent "Would you describe yourself as religious/spiritual?". Those that answered in the higher categories ("very much so" or "extremely") were significantly less likely to have smoked or drank alcohol while pregnant.

It is interesting to speculate whether this has something to do with an association between religiousity and discount rates. It seems there may be positive externalities from religion/spirituality.

Drop-out in Irish Higher Education

Today on his blog, Ferdinand von-Prondzynski discusses a new Higher Education Authority publication: Study of Progression in Irish Higher Education. The study looks at data on student drop-outs broken down by institution and by subject. The Irish Times covered the release of the study yesterday. According to Ferdinand, the study "tells us that there is no significant difference in attrition between those from a better-off background and the less well off (though the latter are much less likely to get to university in the first place)."

Irish Policy Options for New Student Contributions in Higher Education

Readers may or may not be aware of this report to the Irish Minister for Education and Science: "Policy Options for New Student Contributions in Higher Education". The report dates from July 2009 but I have just found it on the website of the recently re-branded Department of Education and Skills. It is not clear whether this report is connected to the National Strategy for Higher Education in Ireland, recently discussed by Kevin on this blog.

In any event, the report outlines a number of issues in it summary, which are relevant to the potential introduction of a student contribution in Ireland. These include:

(i) Affordability considerations: "It is proposed that the level of any new student contribution should be related to current fee levels for Irish/EU students who do not qualify for free fees."

(ii) Top-up Fees: "Consideration could also be given to providing for a premium or ‘top-up’ range within which individual institutions would be free to increase charges for particular programmes. This would allow individual institutions to incentivise participation on particular programmes or to generate additional revenue according to their ability to compete for students. Such an arrangement could have the benefits of promoting competition and quality within the system."

(iii) Transition: "In transitioning to new fee arrangements, it would be important to avoid any potential for immediate shortfalls in institutional budgets by pitching fees at levels that do not match current ‘free fee’ contribution rates."

(iv) Collection of loan repayments: "The involvement of the national tax collection agency has been identified as being a critical success factor for a number of income contingent student loan facility models that operate internationally... It is recognised, however, that there are significant operational pressures on the Revenue Commissioners in the current Irish context which would limit their capacity to take on a role of direct collection agent for an income contingent loan scheme."

Immigrants and accents

Immigrants tend to underperform in the labour market i.e. they are paid less than one might expect. This could be for several reasons. Prejudice is a possibility or their human capital may not be sufficiently valued if there is uncertainty about the quality of their education. The paper below documents another angle, namely that their accent may put them at a disadvantage. After all, foreigners talk funny, y'all know what I mean?

Why don't we believe non-native speakers? The influence of accent on credibility

S Levi-Ari, B.Keysar

Non-native speech is harder to understand than native speech. We demonstrate that this “processing difficulty” causes non-native speakers to sound less credible. People judged trivia statements such as “Ants don't sleep” as less true when spoken by a non-native than a native speaker. When people were made aware of the source of their difficulty they were able to correct when the accent was mild but not when it was heavy. This effect was not due to stereotypes of prejudice against foreigners because it occurred even though speakers were merely reciting statements provided by a native speaker. Such reduction of credibility may have an insidious impact on millions of people, who routinely communicate in a language which is not their native tongue.

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 46(6), 2010, 1093-1096