Malcolm Getz
Department
of Economics
Box 351819
Vanderbilt
University
Nashville, Tennessee 37235-1819
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Publications
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007)College education is one of the most important investments a family will make. But between the viewbooks, websites, insider gossip, and magazine rankings, students and their worried parents face a dizzying array of options. What do the rankings really mean? Is it wise to choose the most prestigious school a student can get into? What are the payoffs of higher education and, by the way, how do we pay for them?
In a unique approach to these conundrums, an economist and award-winning teacher walks readers through the opportunities, risks, and rewards of heading off to college. Warning against the pitfalls of numerical rankings, Malcolm Getz poses questions to guide a student toward not necessarily the best college but the right one. Famous professors suggest quality—but do they teach undergraduates? Are smaller classes always better? When is a state university the best deal around?
In a concise overview of decades of research, Getz reviews findings on the long-term returns of college education in different careers, from law to engineering, from nursing to financial management. Sorting through personal, professional, and institutional variables, he helps families determine when paying $40,000 a year might make sense, and when it merely buys an expensive rear window decal. He breaks down the formidable admissions game into strategies to improve the odds of acceptance, and he offers tips on tax breaks, subsidized loans, federal grants, 529 accounts, merit scholarships, and much more.
Shrewd and sensible, Investing in College is an invaluable resource and a beacon of sanity for college-bound students and the families who support them.
e.stat for business and economics
e.stat is a textbook for the first course in business and economics published as a CD-ROM by South-Western College Publishing. It is suitable for a first course in statistics with 26 chapters that address descriptive statistics, probability, sampling, hypothesis tests, regression, and some applied topics. e.stat presents pages of text on the computer screen. The figures click to Excel spreadsheets. Students work interactively in the spreadsheets and gain insight into the statistical phenomena by manipulating graphs, data, calculus, and simulations.
e.stat is available at South-Western College Publishing.
Here is a gallery of student projects from the statistics course using e.stat
Veterinary Medicine in Economic Transition
In a study with serious ramifications for the profession, Malcolm Getz argues that there are too many veterinarians vis-a-vis the demand for their services and that this situation will continue over the next decade. Forecasters had predicted that the growth in the number of pets, the affluence of pet owners, and the emphasis on scientific methods in livestock and poultry farming would mean more veterinarians will be needed.
Using basic economics and common statistical methods, Veterinary Medicine in Economic Transition offers original investigations of supply, demand, practice, geography, market, policy, and schools of veterinary medicine. Getz concludes that, because of excess governmental support, the nation has produced more veterinarians than needed and points out that income for those in private practice has not changed in real terms in the last fifteen years. He proposes solutions for higher education and the industry; similar analyses of other professions and institutions by Getz have been influential and well received. This one will be invaluable to educational planners, veterinary educators and administrators, and practicing and potential veterinarians.
February, 1997. 288 pp., illus. 6 x 9, hardcover
#0-8138-1814-1, $44.95 (s)
Iowa State University Press (515)292-0155 or (800) 862-6657
Highlights of Past Publications
I have a continuing interest in costs, pricing, and the performance of higher education. I am also interested in academic libraries and the use of digital tools at colleges and universities.