Too Many College Graduates? 1138
The AP reports on a growing sense among policy wonks that too many Americans are going to four-year colleges, to the detriment of society as a whole: "The more money states spend on higher education, the less the economy grows." "The notion that a four-year degree is essential for real success is being challenged by a growing number of economists, policy analysts, and academics. They say more Americans should consider other options, such as technical training or two-year schools, which have been embraced in Europe for decades. As evidence, experts cite rising student debt, stagnant graduation rates, and a struggling job market flooded with overqualified degree-holders. ... The average student debt load in 2008 was $23,200 — a nearly $5,000 increase over five years. Two-thirds of students graduating from four-year schools owe money on student loans. ... [A university economist said,] 'If people want to go out and get a master's degree in history and then cut down trees for a living, that's fine. But I don't think the public should be subsidizing it.'"
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Who determines what your job will be? (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly.
And with limits on education, you get limits on job opportunities. Fine, as long as it it the person who chooses such.
If it is someone else who is already making decent money at a decent job arguing that too many people are advancing their educations ... fuck you. With a chainsaw.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And with limits on education, you get limits on job opportunities. Fine, as long as it it the person who chooses such.
He didn't say there should be limits on education. He said that there should be limits on how much education the Government will subsidize.
I have a friend who is a professional student. She has two masters degrees and is now entering law school. She's entered the "real world" a few times but can't decide what she wants to be when she grows up (she's 34....) and keeps going back for more degrees. When she finally does figure out what she wants to do she'll be buried so deeply in student loans that she'l
Re:Who determines what your job will be? (Score:4, Funny)
>>>He said that there should be limits on how much education the Government will subsidize.
Precisely. Nobody funded my college degree. It was funded by my dad working long hours in the factory, and then I paid him back later. We did not receive one single penny from government.
Neither should people go study History or Sports Science, only to become tree cutters or walmart employees. The government should not fund this waste, and if it does, it should be tied to the expectation of results (like the ROTC). If you don't use your Pointless degree, then you must repay the money spent.
Re:Who determines what your job will be? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Who determines what your job will be? (Score:4, Interesting)
He didn't say there should be limits on education. He said that there should be limits on how much education the Government will subsidize.
Lots of people say that kind of thing. Why did this guy's statement get reported? Probably because he's a professor of economics ... at a state-supported school, and who most likely got his own education with various types of government assistance. Yeah, I'd say "fuck you with a chainsaw" is pretty much an appropriate response. People who want to pull the ladder up after themselves are scum.
I don't understand that. (Score:4, Insightful)
-and-
So why did you spend 2 years avoiding the money being doled out?
And student loans are designed to be repaid. That's not being "doled out".
I think too many people are confused between "money for education that does NOT have to be repaid" and "money for education that DOES have to be repaid).
Re:Who determines what your job will be? (Score:4, Insightful)
Ok, x% of us should stop at highschool. You first!
This story is long on how college is not paying off.. but conveniently neglects the fact that those without college are even worse off.
Ours is increasingly a winner-takes-all society. By definition, that means most people will be losers. But getting on top is still the best chance you've got.
Re:Who determines what your job will be? (Score:4, Insightful)
I think the point is that some people are not suited to a college education. The current system still encourages those people to go to college and pursue a degree even though the only thing they'll get from it is a mountain of debt after they eventually drop out. The real solution is to increase college admission standards so that the money can be focused on those who are most able to take advantage of a college education while those who are not suited to an academic career can be guided into vocational training that better suits their abilities.
In an ideal world, all barriers to higher education will be based solely on your ability and not on how much money you (or your family) has.
Re:Who determines what your job will be? (Score:4, Interesting)
And with limits on education, you get limits on job opportunities. Fine, as long as it it the person who chooses such.
If it is someone else who is already making decent money at a decent job arguing that too many people are advancing their educations ... fuck you. With a chainsaw.
It's clear from your diction and your lack of analytical ability that if you ever attended college, you derived little benefit from it. In that case, you would be evidence in favor of the position held by "some experts" in the article. If you were prevented from obtaining an education (and decent manners) by extreme poverty, or are a recent immigrant who has an incomplete acquaintance with English and civilized modes of argumentation, I do apologize.
The argument (the one you attempted to address that is contained in the article that you evidently wouldn't—or couldn't—read) isn't that we should arbitrarily limit people's freedom to pursue academic learning, but that getting a four year college degree doesn't benefit everyone, and that some people would be happier and more productive if they were allowed and encouraged to attend a more practical course of studies. For example, a young person such as the Ms. Hodges mentioned at the start of the article, who ardently desires to attend welding school faces an uphill battle against the expectations of parents and of the prejudices of our educational system. Why shouldn't she be encouraged to become a welder if that's what she wants to do?
In my experience, there is a disadvantage to not having a four year college degree. It has nothing to do with the actual capabilities of the people in question, and everything to do with the baseless but widespread prejudice that if you don't have a college degree, then you shouldn't be promoted or well-paid. I've known very capable people who didn't have that "sheepskin", and were denied promotion for that reason. Some of the most intelligent and informed people I've met had no formal education beyond high school, and some of them led very successful lives despite having to combat the stigma of not having a four year degree.
My own kids taught me a lot about the limitations of the U.S. educational system.
One of my daughters hated high school. When we spoke to her about going to college, it was clear that she regarded this about as favorably as a proposal that she should spend four years in jail. She was getting poor grades in her academic high school courses, and had a low opinion of her own abilities and worth. She did like to mess around with make-up and hair...so we (her parental units) got her into a trade school program that taught her how to do whatever it is that professional beauticians do. In six months, her attitude and self-image improved by about a thousand percent. She now works happily in a top-flight shop, and makes scads of money. I'm proud of her—not because of the money, but because of the determination and intelligence she's shown in mastering her trade.
Another daughter is (tomorrow) graduating from a good public university. She hopes to get a public school position teaching science. I think her education was suitable for her ambitions, and she'll do fine.
Yet another daughter isn't doing as well as she'd like. She got a baccalaureate in psychology, and now works for the technical support group of a major telecom—a job she hates. I'm proud of her also, but I think she would be happier if she had found a more concrete interest, and pursued that instead of the essentially worthless degree in psychology. I think she was poorly served by the notion that a college degree—any college degree—is better than not having one. If she hadn't been put on those fixed academic rails, she might have discovered her own unique path.
Re:Why not high school? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why not high school? (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, the trend of everyone going to college started after the Second World War with the Montgomery GI bill and trying to reabsorb all those soldiers returning to a roaring economy. Also everybody and their brother has been crowing about how you need college to fill those 21 century jobs as knowledge workers.
Re:Why not high school? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Why not high school? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Why not high school? (Score:5, Interesting)
There really isn't much use for a bachelors in many fields except to please hiring managers who think you must be pig ignorant and stupid if you don't have one.
I think that's half the problem. People get passed over for jobs they are qualified for just because hr departments throw out all the applicants who don't have a degree, even in an unrelated field. It makes it so that these people do essentially 'have to' go to college to get jobs, even though they'll get all the training they need on the job.
Personally (as a person working on a PhD in science) I don't think a lot of people need to be going to college. I grew up in a car town, and a lot of my friends knew they were going to be doing manufacturing, but they went to college anyway. A bunch of them (well some, manufacturing jobs aren't so plentiful these days) did just go on to work in the plants, but they racked up huge debt that is just stopping them from being able to do things like afford a nice place to live. And they didn't get much out of college except alcohol tolerance. No joke, I know one guy who took out an $8,000 student loan basically to spend at bars. Now he has a degree in something or another, but spends his days inserting tab a into slot b so that he can pay off that debt. If he had just gone to work in the first place, he'd be doing the same job and have more money. And he could still go to bars.
The whole education system upsets me. I think we're failing in so many places it's hard to figure out where to start trying to fix it. I'm not saying you can't get anything out of it, but that comes much more from personal motivation than any basic qualities of the set up.
Just rent a time machine. (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Why not high school? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep, he's missing the point. People don't get college degrees in order to go cut down trees, they get them in hopes of making a career in their chosen field. They end up cutting down trees (or, as in my case, driving a truck) only after they've failed to accomplish that goal. Perhaps they didn't make the wisest choice about what to study but sometimes it's kind of hard to know that in advance.
In any case, an economist denigrating a history major is a bit of the pot calling the kettle black.
Re:Why not high school? (Score:4, Insightful)
Not really. An economics degree is useful in virtually all businesses, if only to balance the sheets. Of what value is a history degree to Goldman Sachs or Microsoft or GM?
Re:Why not high school? (Score:5, Informative)
A history degree doesn't provide anything past what you could get from an online, verified information source (I dare not say Wikipedia of course). If you're intelligent, you'll be able to comprehend whatever historical issue interests you, and have no need to spend 4 years on it.
As a history professor, I can safely say it's that kind of thinking that leads students to not come to lecture and instead rely on the interwebs when it comes time to study for exams.
Of course those students fail miserably, while those who attend lecture do much, much better.
Re:Why not high school? (Score:4, Insightful)
In a lecture, you can interrupt the lecturer and ask for clarification, or point out mistakes etc. Online, you have no idea who even wrote the phrase you intend to quote in your homework.
Re:Why not high school? (Score:4, Interesting)
I think the problem lies in that more and more people are going to college, because getting a higher education usually means a better job, because people don't want to be working the minimum wage jobs, or they don't aspire to be a lumberjack, or they don't want to work on an oil rig, or they don't want to be a trucker.
It's because the society has grown to glorify jobs that require an education, that now nobody wants the jobs that don't require an education. Go figure.
It's not that there's too many college graduates, its that some college graduates won't end up in the job markets they trained for. So don't be surprised if your CS degree lands you in construction for a year till a job opens up.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why not high school? (Score:4, Funny)
So I've had to rely on you know... actually working in order to show my competency.
I make now a comparatively enormous amount of money doing a job that's also done by two collegues; both of whom have PhDs. The qualifications for the job are a graduate degree in the field or a closely related one, OR equivalent experience.
I've got the equivalent experience, evidently.
So yes, it is indeed possible to do pretty much what you want without any sort of degree at all (the usual academic exceptions apply here), but the caveat is that you have to actually do a lot of work. And that's the trick, see? The WORK part is the part that a lot of people tend to shy away from. That, and the patience part.
It works in my favor though, and in the favor of anyone willing to do their ten-thousand-hours-to-expert bit. Enough people are unwilling to put in any kind of meaningful work in order to get any sort of meaningful result that I seem to have become a commodity. So don't everyone suddenly get motivated, I'm not retiring for another 20 years at least.
Re:Why not high school? (Score:4, Interesting)
That voids the rest of your post. To show competency by working you have to a actually be able to get into a job that lets you do that. You could do it 20 years ago, these days its a crapshot. Few, if any, places will hire you for a job that lets you demonstrate any competence without experience or a degree and since the only way to get that experience is to get the job in the first place...
Everyone gets to be an astronaut fireman rock star (Score:5, Insightful)
We don't need any lumberjacks, sanitation workers, or construction workers. In our new post-productive society, everybody gets to be whatever they want! There are no crappy jobs that need to be done. Everyone is qualified to be a surgeon. Everyone gets to be president. We don't need our garbage picked up.
Look, we tell our children and ourselves that in America, anyone can be whatever they want to be. What did we expect would happen? Some jobs get no respect and shitty pay, despite the fact that they absolutely need to get done. Because, you know, once you've figured out that there isn't really a career in art history, you still need to pay off those college loans. Looks like the DOT is hiring road crews!
Why can't we admit that not everyone gets to be a fashion model, a football star, or a CEO? Why do we emphasize the importance of some jobs, like advertising executive or investment banker, that add nothing of real value to humanity, while denigrating those who pick up our trash? I mean, is my day going to suck if I don't get to see any catchy ads? Probably not, but I've been around a garbage workers strike, and that shit ain't pretty.
We overvalue positions of leadership and expertise, while lying that everyone could do those jobs. And tons of unqualified people rush to fill those jobs, because they were told they could, and that those jobs were more important than hauling garbage. But let's face it: most people don't have what it takes to become a surgeon or a CEO. Does that mean they are worthless? No. It takes all kinds of work to make a complex society run. We should not overvalue certain jobs and undervalue others, because that creates societal inefficiencies where we have too many people trying for the fun, high paying, well respected jobs. And meanwhile, the people actually doing the crucial dirty work get shit on by society.
No marketing drone is worth hundreds or thousands of times what a sewer worker is worth. Yet our society says they are. If we have too many people going to university, maybe the answer isn't to say, "Hey, realistically most of you are fucking plebes who will never work in whatever you majored in. You should practice your table-waiting and ditch digging instead." Maybe we should instead strive for a more egalitarian society where everyone's contribution is respected. I respect a dishwasher who works hard and does a good job more than I respect a CEO who golfs all the time and takes credit for his underlings hard work. But society says this privileged douchebag is worth thousands of times more than the guy who washes dishes. So what do we expect people to do? Everyone wants to be that pampered and privileged CEO, nobody wants to build bridges and roads. And so we have Wall Street profiting while the economy crumbles, and meanwhile, most of our infrastructure is falling apart.
Re:Everyone gets to be an astronaut fireman rock s (Score:5, Informative)
I wasn't going to comment in this thread - I really wasn't, but I couldn't ignore this.
I've studied enough economics that, well, my college education can debunk this right away. ;)
Supply and demand. Let's say "no one wants to pick up garbage". What you're saying is that "no one wants to pick up garbage at such a low pay rate and no respect". (Actually, the truth is, *really* - no one wants to pick up garbage, not even the guys that do it, but that's besides the point...)
Trash company suddenly can't find anyone to pick up trash at the rate they're asking. What do they do? Well - they could go out recruiting (unlikely), or they could up the pay rate. Cycle continues until either the trash company goes out of business, or they find someone willing to work at that pay rate. If enough people are working at the higher pay rate, if the trash company can't turn a profit, they will raise the rate of what they charge their customers. If customers switch trash companies as a result, that one might go out of business, but someone else will step in - the cycle continues. Actually, we're describing rudimentary inflation to an end - but the basic point is this: society won't collapse from too many well-educated people. Sure, I like to work in my field of choice, but at the end of the day I kind of like to eat, have clothes on my back, and a roof over my head. Push comes to shove, even I would go pick up trash if I had to in order to make ends meet. Would I be happy with it? Heck no! Society WILL find a way to adapt. That's the beauty of unmitigated capitalism. The ugliness of it however is that it breeds monopolies over time. That's why we have anti-trust laws, which are clearly socialistic. We have grown into an amalgamatic socialistic/capitalistic state.
Anyway - your point is moot. :P Our infrastructure may crumble - for a time. Pride will eventually give way to necessity. Always does.
Re:Everyone gets to be an astronaut fireman rock s (Score:4, Insightful)
You assume that labor actually operates under the laws of supply and demand. First off, you learned some economics, so you know the paper about lemons? As in, bad cars? It talks about the effects of information imbalance on the market. Well, the labor market is a prime example of this effect. Workers know more about their true value than bosses do, therefore, bosses must assume that all workers are overstating their value and therefore, all bosses systematically undervalue labor.
Capitalism values capital more than labor. It's systemic. And the owning class see each other as valuable, while the working class are replaceable. Thus systematically devaluing labor again. Your theory also assumes people are rational actors, this has been disproven by many, many recent experiments. The owning class do not make decisions based on their rational self interest. Many of them, for instance, would bankrupt themselves rather than give in to worker demands because giving in puts them lower down on the old totem pole, and being high in the social hierarchy is the real reason they became rich in the first place. They would rather go bankrupt and be able to say "Fuck you!" to the workers than pay a fair wage and be seen as an equal. That is culturally systemic to the owning class, and they make the rules because they have the capital.
EVERYONE gets to be what they CAN be. (Score:5, Insightful)
"Maybe we should instead strive for a more egalitarian society where everyone's contribution is respected."
My opinion is that people can think what they want, and it is not up to the government to tell us to be comrades. I don't think about the dishwasher. If someone were to ask me about the job a dishwasher does, I'd ask them if that was a trick question.
"We overvalue positions of leadership and expertise, while lying that everyone could do those jobs. And tons of unqualified people rush to fill those jobs, because they were told they could, and that those jobs were more important than hauling garbage"
It's not up to you to say who can, and cannot, do something. How would you feel if your advisor told you, "No, you can't do this very well - I can tell by just looking at you. You shouldn't go to college either. You should work in the coal mines instead."
That's not the government's job - that's the job of the hiring manager. They are responsible for filtering unqualified people out. If a person wants to waste their lives trying to do stuff they aren't good at, fine, let them be.
I think it is important that we should pursue what want. We live not to serve the state, but our own interests. It's not up to the government to decide what we should do with our lives.
Although this isn't a career: I want to strap a pulsejet to a bicycle. Not everyone wants to do that. Not everyone should do that. But this is a free country. (And that's just for a hobby. For a living I want to animate- I am teaching myself because the schools that teach animation are prohibitively expensive. My success in this field are completely dependent on my ambition and willingness to work harder than everybody else. -- In the meantime I attend a local college for a degree in Graphic Design.)
They say freedom isn't free. You pay in other ways. If that means my degree isn't worth much, so be it. At least I'll have one. I'll let my brains (provided its not splattered on asphalt) push me the rest of the way through in life - as it should be.
There are 300 million people in the country. They don't need protection from disappointment. If they can't do something, they will find out - and they will look for other work. That's perfectly fine.
Re:Everyone gets to be an astronaut fireman rock s (Score:5, Insightful)
Many, many people have the talent for running a business successfully, but no capital and therefore, no chance to prove it. The illusion that running a business takes some kind of special genius is a self serving illusion perpetuated by the people who run businesses. You know why so many businesses fail? Because shitheads with no skills, no brains, but plenty of good old fashioned daddy-money are the ones who get to start businesses. It's got nothing to do with how hard it is.
In the Mondragon Cooperative [wikipedia.org] in Spain, they have a 90% startup success rate, because everyone is encouraged to start a cooperative, and they are given all the help they need, from cooperative lending, to cooperative staffing, to cooperative business planning. It's not hard. Anyone can do it. Only in capitalist societies where the barrier to entry is set so high only the rich can start a business do we see the reverse, with the majority of startups failing. It's not that rich people are idiots, or even less intelligent than average. It's just that they believe their own lies, and you can't be that delusional and function well.
Re:Everyone gets to be an astronaut fireman rock s (Score:5, Insightful)
Rich people have rich friends and family to lend them money. Poor people don't. When you say, "It doesn't have to be yours" you reveal your own cultural assumptions, which are very different from those of say, a working poor family. You just assume that capital is easy to come by, because for you, it probably is. For most people, not so much.
Re:Everyone gets to be an astronaut fireman rock s (Score:4, Insightful)
Sir,
You make an interesting point. My counterpoint is this: the effect you speak of leads to a winner-take-all society. For example, the sports players that are in the top 1% of their field collect 99% of the money to be made. Minor league baseball players make diddly squat compared to the major league players.
This is due to the effect of mass media and a global society. Everyone watches the major leagues, because the media carries them, while the minor leagues are ignored. And the money follows the media attention.
So there are a VERY FEW "winners" and a lot of losers who barely scratch by.
This holds true for ALL entertainment. Many talented musicians make nothing. The top 1% of their field makes a killing.
With large companies, this is happening too. Executives are cleaning up in companies, everyone else is getting diddly.
This is leading, almost inevitably, to an insane stratification. Someone who outperforms YOU by 5% or even 1% gets paid 1000x what you do. The elite collect ALL the wealth. Everyone else just scratches by. Whole professions are dominated by a few superstars who collect all the money to be made, while the rest (who are almost as good, or BETTER but unknown or unlucky) languish in obscurity.
Yes, this is a result of supply and demand, and a result of mass media and popular culture, and is an "economic" truth. THAT DOES NOT MAKE IT RIGHT OR DESIRABLE. It offends me that some idiot THUG who CAN THROW A BALL 1% better than OTHER BALL THROWERS makes hundreds of millions while the doctor who saves my life by spotting and removing a melanoma makes $200k/year working 80 hour weeks and has to spend 40 of those hours filling out BS health insurance forms. (And incidentally, by catching this melanoma early, this doctor also saves my health insurer $1M in cancer treatment bills!)
This is pure social inequity and I have NO problem fixing this brokenness in the market via VERY progressive taxation at the high end. The capitalist free market is NOT holy, it is NOT moral, and it should serve HUMANS not the other way around!
--PeterM
Democracy needs smart people (Score:5, Insightful)
This guy is forgetting that we live in a (sort of) democracy. How would a democracy where the people aren't educated work?
Re:Democracy needs smart people (Score:5, Insightful)
You think that more than 20% of the people who finish college courses come out educated? Must be nice to be an optimist.
Re:Democracy needs smart people (Score:5, Insightful)
My parents are hardcore religious nutcases. They believe that God created the world 6,000 years ago, that Jesus will return within their lifetimes (which fosters a lack of work ethic, since they think God is coming to take away their problems soon), and that Sarah Palin should be president. That is how I was raised.
After 6 years of college at a somewhat respected research focused school, I no longer believe any of that nonsense and I have successful employment in a good paying job.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
They believe that ..., and that Sarah Palin should be president. That is how I was raised.
In their defence, Sarah Palin probably would have made a much better President back then. It takes time to grow that stupid.
Re:Democracy needs smart people (Score:5, Interesting)
that Jesus will return within their lifetimes (which fosters a lack of work ethic, since they think God is coming to take away their problems soon)
That certainly sounds familiar. Growing up in the Bible Belt (and before anyone accuses me of not being familiar with religion - I went to church nearly every Sunday from birth to the age of 18. In that span I may have missed a dozen services tops), I heard "I choose to store my treasures in Heaven rather than on Earth." until I was sick. It fostered an attitude that they shouldn't even bother worrying about life now because this is just a blip.
And our preacher was absolutely convinced that rather than being about research, NASA's space program was REALLY them trying to find an alternate way into Heaven so that they could avoid "serving da Lord".
Overall though, yes, my story largely mimics your own.
Re:Democracy needs smart people (Score:5, Insightful)
Considering the prevalence of Marxism in colleges
[Citation needed]
How is this different than what your Right wing parents believe?
Wait, believing that the earth is 6000 years old and the Rapture is right around the corner is the same as believing that social safety nets promote a stable society? Is this what you have to resort to in order to make your point?
That right here is the problem with America. More than anything. The complete lack of critical thinking skills, desire for rational debate and the equivalence of truthyness and truth.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
This guy is forgetting that we live in a (sort of) democracy. How would a democracy where the people aren't educated work?
Most likely remarkably similar to how it works today with the largely (under)educated populace.
Re:Democracy needs smart people (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Democracy needs smart people (Score:4, Informative)
It still drives me up the wall how much cash I blew for my undergraduate CS degree. Looking at what I "learned" from my classes and what I taught myself in that period of time, I would have been much better off to have saved the $80K I spent on schooling and self taught. Professors even mocked me for the C# books I was reading when it was still in beta, years later *THAT* pays my bills, in dividends. (We can discuss how bad of a language it is in another thread, just the fact the professors couldn't see through the trees).
While college was a great experience, it is far from something everyone should go to. The fact that many businesses require degrees anymore is just plain stupid.
Re:Democracy needs smart people (Score:5, Insightful)
This isn't really related to the argument -- knowing how to program probably doesn't help you vote, most of the time.
College isn't a trade school, you're supposed to get a well-rounded education.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
College isn't a trade school, you're supposed to get a well-rounded education.
In that case, I'd have to question the social utility of colleges in a capitalist economy. The number of English and Philosophy majors capitalism can profitably use is vanishingly small, where the number of Engineers and actual professionals capitalism can use is comparatively huge.
Still more needed, though, is UNSKILLED LABOR, apparently, given the eternal quest by our crony-corporate controlled federal government for i
Re:Democracy needs smart people (Score:4, Insightful)
It's pretty low. That demonstrates one of the problems with capitalism -- and indeed, every other form of hierarchical organization. So long as you have a class of rulers (owner, investors, whatever) and a class of workers, it will be in the interests of the rulers to have the workers educated only to the point of being trained to do their jobs, and no farther.
Re:Democracy needs smart people (Score:5, Insightful)
So you're blaming society for the fact that you didn't pay attention in school?
Re:Democracy needs smart people (Score:5, Insightful)
Well... there is your problem right there.
A civil engineer who never took a history class, a social studies class, a psych class, and most importantly at least one year of philosophy classes is nothing but a trained monkey.
A sort of educated barbarian.
I did two separate and utterly unrelated degrees - and in both cases I chose my electives as FAR as possible outside my fields of study. When I studied English Lit - I got special dispensation to allow me to get credited for doing CS as an extra even (I actually claimed I wanted to become a technical documentation writer to get the dispensation... as if :P )
Here's the funny thing. I became a programmer for the first half of my career, a sysadmin after that (in my country sysadmins get paid better). And through all this, I hardly EVER use anything I learned in C.S. classes, it was all obsolete (except for basic principles) before I finished. What I learned about philosophy and the laws of logic I used every DAY a million times over. What I learned in history class has shaped my thoughts about the world around me (and the apparently incurable stupidity of my species) and what I learned in Literature class has given me a love for Shakespeare and Pratchett and Doctorow and all them... and they taught me how to have a HEART and an imagination and how to use them both to be better at any job I could do. ... I'm here to live and experience in the short bit of time I have... I'll be DAMNED if I am going to spend it doing the same thing for 30 years.
Today I feel like a real renaisance man. I'm 30 years old and on my 3rd major career change - and I plan to do one every 5 years for the rest of my life. I am not just here to make money (though I make a good sum)
Now THAT is what a well rounded education does for you... I pity people who did what you did.
Re:To "school"? Probably none. (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is why CS majors also need credits in the humanities and why art majors need credits in math.
That second bit isn't really true. One of my exit courses for my CS degree was a communication class. It was taught by an English graduate student who didn't know that a nanosecond was a measure of time. I don't have a problem with technical degrees having liberal arts coursework as a requirement, but I'd like to see the liberal arts students take as many math/science classes as I had to take liberal arts classes.
A friend of mine dual majored in Philosophy and Political Science, and he never took any math classes at the university, and only one science course. And the science course was optional.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
One did something long ago, the other advocated killing people of different religions this decade.
As someone not of her religion you might understand why she makes me more nervous than someone who did something bad long ago.
Re:Democracy needs smart people (Score:4, Interesting)
I think the best programmers are those who are motivated to self-teach, because it shows that they really love programming. But I also think there is important stuff taught in computer science classes. It might not be for everyone, but I think it can turn people who just write code without thinking about what actually happens with what they write into better programmers.
Re:Democracy needs smart people (Score:5, Insightful)
College is supposed to teach you how to learn on your own, how to get information and how to digest it.
Everything on top of that is flavor.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
What do you think about your potential for advancement due to your degree? I'm in the unenviable position of doing what you wish you had done. Other than a couple Novell CNA classes I took in high school, and a couple of MCP/MCSE classes that I have taken since, I'm completely self taught. Despite fifteen years of experience in IT and a resume filled with major accomplishments, I've had a really hard time getting adequate compensation and advance opportunities.
Re:Democracy needs smart people (Score:4, Insightful)
College, I think, is partly about learning your major and partly about learning everything else. It's the environment, the exposure to other cultures and ideas that really make college better than a trade school. When you leave college you should be more open-minded, more theoretically-minded, than when you entered. You should be an idea generator, not only an idea applier. The world needs both and you can be both. You may not be a better coder because of college, but you're probably a better designer.
Re:Democracy needs smart people (Score:4, Interesting)
Businesses require it because it establishes a minimum level of competency. It shows that at least one time in your life you were capable of finishing something without quitting, even though it wasn't always fun. It shows you have a basic level of reading and writing capability. That is worth something.
Just a quick anecdote: we once hired a programmer who didn't have a degree, because he seemed really smart. And he was, he got a lot done. But then we had a big project (not too big, four months or so), and crunch time came along, and he couldn't handle it. He said he felt miserable, so he quit. Had he gone through college, he would have had a lot of experience dealing with crunch time, managing projects that got out of control etc. So college is definitely worth something.
No, too much manufacturing shipped overseas. (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem isn't that there are too many college graduates. The problem is that too much manufacturing that was formerly done in America is now done elsewhere, in third-world nations like China, Mexico and India.
In the past, domestic manufacturing provided the solid foundation upon which the strong American economy was built. People made good wages working in these factories, engineers made good wages designing these factories and the equipment within them, builders made good wages constructing the factories, skilled-trades made good wages making the equipment within these factories, and all of these people provided jobs to many others in the community.
Thanks mainly to Nixon in the 1970s and NAFTA in the 1990s, those jobs are gone. The foundation they provided is gone. They probably won't come back unless the federal government does the right thing and impose trade barriers against nations that have an oversupply of labor, and unsafe working conditions, and unsuitable wages.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Follow the correct path for the career (Score:5, Insightful)
Not everything needs a 4 year degree.
If you are going into a science based field you will need a degree.
Entrepreneur business school might help but it is not necessary.
Blue Collar, tech school can give you a head start.
CS/IT I have see excellent folks with nothing and really crappy folks with a PHD.
Ultimately it is what you make of your life experience.
Re:Follow the correct path for the career (Score:5, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
US colleges don't come cheap (Score:4, Informative)
Most of the issues addressed in the summary actually result from the fact that top US universities are insanely expensive. Harvard is about thirty thousand dollars for an undergraduate degree whereas Cambridge is about three thousand Stirling.
Re:US colleges don't come cheap (Score:4, Insightful)
Harvard is about thirty thousand dollars for an undergraduate degree
Huh? You mean per semester, right? I don't know if even community colleges are cheap enough for $30k to pay for a 4 year degree.
Re:US colleges don't come cheap (Score:4, Informative)
You mean that Harvard is about $30,000 (actually $33,696) for one year. I'm not sure if Cambridge is GBP3,000 for one year or for the degree.
public university (Score:5, Insightful)
Public university is flooded with students who don't care at all about the subjects they are studying; they are in school either because it is expected of them by society or because they want to socialize with people their age for years.
From an economic standpoint, it is absolutely wasteful for these kids to fudge their way through to a BA in Communication or whatever. I've known too many of them. It makes a mockery of academia.
Re:public university (Score:5, Insightful)
And why don't they care about the subject? Because for 9 out of 10 jobs it does not matter. Read the classifieds lately? "College education required" is what they read. So you have a shitload of philosophy masters who can't write a cheque without breaking the pencil or are unable to do anything closely related to anything resembling work, but hey, they got a masters degree!
THAT is making a mockery out of the academia.
College is very well marketed (Score:4, Insightful)
Like you state, too many don't care about what they are studying, they are there because that is "what" they are supposed to do.
However, far too many colleges are there to make money, and scads of it. Hence the push for new lending programs because this allows the to inflate their fees. Whether to build new facilities named after people they like or too keep themselves fat and happy in retirement. I would go so far to say that many colleges don't care what the students study either, just as long as they are there paying the fees. Hell, look at the racket that is course books.
Too many degrees cost more than they can reasonably pay off in short order, by short I mean, less than five years. Sure medical professions if take to their furthest points pay off, but its not like TV, go to school four to six years and be the hero. Marketing drives more to college than need.
Re:public university (Score:4, Informative)
The same thing happens in France. Public university is flooded. I think the main difference is that a lot of students will fail. There is no quota but the required level is high in practice 50% of the student fail each of the first two years. If the student are bad one year, none will graduate.
I am working in a (not prestigious) US university. The grades are a joke. Some student I talk with did not get ANYTHING from some classes and still got B+. Fairly understanding is usually graded A.
Baselines (Score:4, Insightful)
Education and money are very much alike in one aspect: if everyone has at least the same amount, then that amount becomes the baseline, below which it is worthless.
College degrees being required for plumbing jobs and the like are only the symptom of this problem.
Whereas before education was made mandatory in most countries of the world, the baseline was no education at all, now the United States have college as a baseline. And it's rather difficult to get out of this, because you ask someone in college why they're in college and they'll say, "I must, because I can't afford to not keep up with my peers." So people go to college because people go to college, and it's a recursive clusterfuck.
Technical schools? (Score:5, Interesting)
Where are these technical schools that the economists refer to?
The simple fact of the matter is that after decades of short sighted budget cuts, the US education system is geared for college prep, whether you want to go or not. The vocational classes have been slowly cut out of the system, usually perceived as expendable programs. School administrators realized long ago that they can't improve the ranking of their school by having the best automotive class - the only thing that counts is English & Math scores, so why bother fund anything else?
In other countries, you make a choice on whether you choose to learn a trade or go to college, and then spend your high school years towards that goal. The repercussion for the US system is that students who are interested in a trade aren't being educated towards their dreams, and spend their time in school either frustrated or years behind.
The whole concept of "No Child Left Behind" only works when there is an unlimited budget, and it presses everyone to a standardized education that may not actually help serve them towards what they really want to do in life. Instead of trying to get every child the same cookie cutter education, we'd be far better off giving more specialized education (whether it's vocational or college prep) by the high school level, help them take advantage of the skills they have, remove the blue collar stigma of trade work, and stop trying to make every kid be a perfect college graduate that the state wants them to be.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Where are these technical schools that the economists refer to?
They are often called Community Colleges, or Junior colleges. Most of them have Excellent programs doing just what you are lamenting is lost.
Problems is, in many states, these colleges fall under the same umbrella as Primary education, and not under higher education for funding. Also, there are perception problems. They are often in the community, so people drive to campus, take their classes (they usually also have an excellent selection of w
Re:Technical schools? (Score:4, Insightful)
There are all kinds of technical and vocational schools - realize that fundementally, this is a discussion about education vs. training. I don't know about where you're located, but in the Minneapolis area, some training/vocational schools include:
Dunwoody ...and I know I'm leaving several out.
Minnesota State Colleges & Universities (MNSCU - NOT part of the University of Minnesota system)
Le Cordon Bleu Culinary Institute
MN School of Business
Normandale Community College
Anoka-Ramsey Community College
Metropolitan State University
North Hennepin Community College
Hennepin Technical College
Inver Hills Community College
Dakota County Technical College
If it's EDUCATION you want (to be well-rounded, in other words), there's: ...and so on.
Macalaster
St. Thomas
University of Minnesota
Augsberg
Bethel
Hamline
These schools exist. They're not hard to find.
Moody's Economists? (Score:4, Insightful)
What happened to the new deal from shit for brains?
Necessity of a 4-year degree (Score:5, Interesting)
With that said, I have a 4-year degree in Computer Science. Having the degree was definitely key to getting a job in my case, since I was a raw graduate when they hired me. However, I've learned that experience in the field is by far the preferred rating factor. There are guys on my team working along side me who have 4-year degrees in Business Management and even English, but they happened to gain some (5+ years) programming experience somewhere along the way. There's also a new guy who got his 2-year degree from a local community college. That's okay, but his real selling point was the amount of experience he had, which he gained while I was finishing up the other half of my education.
In a way, this annoys me, because I'd really like to think that my degree choice sets me apart from people who made different choices. I guess if I chose to work for an actual software business or found a job that utilized more advanced CS techniques, I might have the upper hand. However, in the real world where software usually plays a support role, I have to come to terms with my place in the business world. In another respect, the possibility of gaining experience in another field and being able to potentially change career paths without getting a new degree (within reason) is a rather freeing thought.
Well duh. It is simple economics (Score:5, Insightful)
The vast majority of college attending individuals are there because they have been told that the only way to successful employment is to become a college graduate. The fatal flaw in the logic is that when everyone has a degree, the degree no longer holds any prestige over any other job candidates. You are, again, competing against everyone else.
People need to stop equating education with employment. If you are honestly interested in a subject and feel academia is the only route to fulfil your desires, by all means, please do peruse further education in that area of study. If getting a great job is your goal, however, college is not the place to achieve that. The time would be better spent learning what it takes to get the job you desire.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I recently saw a job ad from Apple that did actually state that no degree is required. I will add that it actually looked like an interesting position, not some kind of menial labor job. I think many people would consider a good job at Apple to be reasonably successful. Heck, there are people who have degrees that would dream to have a job like that.
I've been saying this since 1994 (Score:5, Insightful)
Combine that with some HR mandates that college degrees are required for anything above minimum wage, and you've got a perfect storm for devaluing a B.S. or B.A. An Associates degree is already worthless; it says "I went to college, but dropped out after it got too hard."
Blame the employers, not the students... (Score:5, Interesting)
Employers started raising the bar on a living wage a long time ago. From "high school diploma" to "some college" and now "four year degree" are bare minimums just to get the resume past HR into the manager's hands. Hell, we just hired people with four year degrees into operator apprentice slots. I know a professional welder working on a BA on the side just so that he can't be fired for NOT having a degree.
And all that debt, gee employers really LOVE them some college debt. They know their new hires won't be striking out on their own to compete with them anytime soon. Same logic for why Silicon Valley corps love them their H1-Bs.
You want two-year schools to come back, find some freaking employers willing to hire the graduates.
Education is a goal, not a mean (Score:5, Insightful)
I always felt that education was the goal of a society, not a mean to achieve a good economy. I always felt Universities should teach you what a field is, not train you to get a job. Optimizing the economy IS NOT what a society wants. If it was the primary goal, we would never have abolish slavery.
Absolutely! (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm a big proponent of not forcing people through college. The problem is the lack of economic diversity now.
Think about this from a historical perspective:
And oh yeah, every job above service-level requires a bachelors' degree now. So the office receptionist needs a degree in communications, and the HVAC guy needs a degree in engineering.
This really is the dirty little secret of globalization. Some people just are NOT built for further study. There is a normal distribution of IQ. These people can often do a great job as a general contractor, skilled tradesman, etc. Instead, we force-feed everyone into the white collar world. It makes no sense. And for those who really do want the life experience, and are built for further study, they either have to deal with lower-skilled peers holding up college classes, or go to a private school and rack up mountains of debt for no guaranteed payoff.
I really think our leaders need to take a step back and see that a country that can do nothing but manage projects and do other white collar tasks isn't healthy. I'm in the IT field, and I'm decent at what I do. But I also realized as I was getting my degree that I wasn't sailing through the material like my peers. Every grade I got, I worked hard for. Maybe 50 years ago, I would have been better off taking on an electrician's apprenticeship or something similar. Bottom line is that the lopsided economy we have is not good for society, and everyone's addicted to cheap labor, so there's not much to do about it.
Things that make your college degree less valuable (Score:4, Insightful)
Things that are making college degrees less valuable, and therefore necessary for an even wider range of jobs:
1. High school degrees are now worthless. "Bill showed up for four years."
2. Affirmative action. "Even though Jake got a 950 on his SAT, he can go to Harvard."
3. Grade inflation. "We wanted Suzy to feel on par with her classmates, so the lowest anyone can get is a B."
4. Politicization. "If you want an A in English Literature with Dr. Rosenberg, you'd better write about feminist theories of hermeneutics."
5. Dumbing down. "The staff decided it's too hard to code up a parser on a 64k Apple II, so we're going to start you off on Logo for Windows 7."
Thanks to the feelgood policies of the 1970s, every precious snowflake feels entitled for just showing up. Schools have responded by making sure everyone has a place. The result: college degrees are no longer worth much, since they're easy to get.
Rarity of college degree = value of college degree
It's like having $100. If you give everyone in America an extra $100, the value of your $100 declines because there's more money floating around.
Counterpoint (Score:4, Insightful)
4. Politicization. "If you want an A in English Literature with Dr. Rosenberg, you'd better write about feminist theories of hermeneutics."
Actually, there's a valuable lesson to be learned from that situation. Specifically, at some point in your life you're going to have a boss who gives you a task you don't like and tells you to do it in a way you don't want to. Suck it up and do it well anyway.
Do we want a society of rich and poor? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it's a great idea to take a year off after high school and work as a welder if you feel like it.
But I also think college is a great mind-expanding experience, and that everyone should have the opportunity to go to a 4-year college if (and when) they feel like it too. How good a welder can you be if you don't understand basic physics and chemistry? What happens when the welding jobs disappear (as they did in Germany)? What happens when she gets tired of welding?
And everybody should go to a 4-year college without going into debt. Talk about the road to serfdom. $20,000 in debt that you can never discharge in bankruptcy, and that will accumulate exhorbitant interest for years, sounds like serfdom to me.
Up to the 1970s, America used to be a land of opportunity. Free access to college education was a big part of that. Now America is turning into a two-class society. http://www.economist.com/world/united-states/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15908469 [economist.com] People in the middle will move up or down, and most of them will move down.
Traditionally, a college degree has been the way out of poverty, and the great equalizer. If these economists have data that it doesn't work that way any more, I'll look at it carefully. That's what I learned how to do in my 4-year college. But I wouldn't accept a major reversal of a long-established social goal based on a couple of associational studies.
We just spent $3 trillion on the war in Iraq (according to Nobel-prize winning economist Joe Stiglitz). That's about $10,000 for every American. So we can certainly afford to spend $20,000 or so for a college education for anybody who is capable of it. And the rich are doing extremely well. We can tax the rich to pay for the poor. There's more of us than there are of them. All we have to do is vote.
If you're middle-class in America today, you're taking a crap shoot, according to The Economist. You might move up. And you might move down. In the European social democracies, you don't have that risk of moving down.
In the 1960s, John F. Kennedy committed us to the goals of sending a man to the moon and eliminating poverty. We sent a man to the moon but we didn't eliminate poverty. There's no excuse for that. The Scandinavian countries have basically eliminated poverty. We have whole cities where people can't get out of poverty. If you don't want to just transfer a lot of money from the rich to the poor, the other way to eliminate poverty is to give everyone a good education, and a free college education is a centerpiece of that.
These economists are trying to talk us into giving up on the goal of eliminating poverty and educating our population the way the wealthy European nations do. I don't buy it.
Read the Economist article (Score:4, Interesting)
That article is worth a read. The elephant in the room is that real income per hour worked in the US peaked in 1973. Real income per capita doubled from 1947 to 1973; it's only gone up 20% since then, and that gain is only because there are more two-income families and longer hours.
Think about that. All the progress since 1973, and there's no payoff. Nobody talks about that much. Until the 1970s, annual improvements in per-capital real median income were trumpeted in the press. Today, it's tough to find those numbers in Department of Labor tables.
Until the 1980s, the US had very few homeless people. Now that's accepted as normal.
There's an illusion that things are getting better, because one of the classic measures is whether income is increasing for an individual. Income increases with age, but today's thirtysomething makes less than the thirtysomething of twenty years ago.
So doing better with your life requires getting ahead of someone else. That's where a college education comes in. It's not so much the useful skills; it's a product differentiator for people.
Re:Ok, but (Score:4, Funny)
Telling Americans to do something because Europe's been doing it is a lot like telling a 5-year-old not to go near the cookie jar.
huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you meant something more like:
Telling Americans to do something because Europe's been doing it is a lot like saying "But mom! All the cool kids ARE jumping off the bridge!"
Re:huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is going to come off as a troll, and I don't mean to say that European societies are perfect in any way; but frankly on the whole, Europeans run their countries, societies and economies a lot better than Americans do. I realise patriotism, Ryandianism and past performance may lead many Americans to believe otherwise, but you need only look at objective metrics in any of a number of fields to see just how far modern America has fallen behind its contemporaries. All these newspapers columns about "a crumbling superpower" didn't just spring out of thin air you know.
Now, so intertwined have western societies become, it's hard to cleanly separate the problems and declines of America from those same contemporary effects in Europe. But one thing is certain; as a self governing society America is more dysfunctional than any of its peers. This didn't happen overnight, but is rather the result of decades of mismanagement, short-sighted policies and misguided ideologies which by and large (UK accepted) did not take hold in Europe.
Again, this post is going to come off as a troll, but really its a response to what is effectively a troll. Yes there are many problems across the European continent, but the notion that American society and government is superior to European version is incredibly outdated. America is a country in need of deep and comprehensive reform of almost all of its institutions, and the first step in that reform will be to realise just how badly it is needed.
Re:huh? (Score:5, Interesting)
Read "The Spirit Level", then get back to me.
Never mind. You won't. So let me summarize: within the industrialized world, there is almost no correlation between average income and positive social goods like long life, good health, good education, low teen pregnancy rates, and social trust. But there is a strong correlation between income equality and those same goods. Societies with little income inequality (Japan, Norway, France, etc.) do very well, while countries with huge income inequality (U.S., Singapore, etc.) do very poorly. And absolute income does almost nothing to protect a country from those ill effects.
Do you think that Americans' uniquely high levels of obesity come about because none of the other countries can afford to fill their stomachs? That's absurd. In every industrialized nation, food accounts for a small fraction of the average person's budget. They could eat much, much more if they wanted. No, Americans are obese because an unequal society is a society full of stressors, and food is a natural coping mechanism. The idea of "comfort food" is a reality, proven by numerous studies. Also, stressed out people are more sedentary.
Let me pose a question, to see just how well your right-wing model of reality is calibrated:
Take two wealthy, industrialized societies. In society A, the price for not getting a good education is a life of poverty and shame. In society B, there is no reason to fear poverty because the government provides generous welfare benefits.
In society A, the wealthiest people make ten to twenty times as much as the poorest people do, so the rewards for being ambitious and doing well in school are huge. In society B, the wealthiest members of society only make a few times what the poorest do, so there is little financial incentive to do well in school.
In society A, polls of high school students show that almost all of them want to attend college. In society B, a large fraction of the students say that they'd be happy with trade school.
No surprise, society A is the U.S., society B is Finland, and despite what a social darwinist right winger would say are strong disincentives against performing well in school -- no chance at great wealth if you succeed, no risk of poverty if you fail -- Finnish kids outperform American kids by a wide margin (a gap that is even wider for the poorest kids).
It's almost as though giving kids security about their future and their place in society leads to a more conducive learning environment. But no, that's crazy.
If it were just a measure of life expectancy, then you might have made a showing with your arguments. But how do you explain why "impoverished" Europe outperforms us in:
* Life expectancy
* infant mortality
* educational outcomes
* obesity
* crime rate
* teen pregnancy
* measures of social trust
* measures of life satisfaction
* homelessness rates
* the status of women and minorities
Further, why are differences in income inequality between the fifty states also predictive of their performance on these same benchmarks?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
"technical training or two-year schools, which have been embraced in Europe for decades."
Telling Americans to do something because Europe's been doing it is a lot like telling a 5-year-old not to go near the cookie jar.
They are also omitting the fact that Europe has meaningful alternatives to universities, with apprenticeships in the dual education system [wikipedia.org]. I've often felt that that's whats lacking in the US.
Re:Ok, but (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ok, but (Score:5, Interesting)
I say this as a business owner with no education over a GED (tech solutions consulting firm). My job postings always ask for experience or demonstrated knowledge, never a degree.
Re:Ok, but (Score:4, Insightful)
Telling an American to do something because Europe's been doing it is like telling a Toyota to stop because you hit the brake?
Re:Ok, but (Score:5, Insightful)
I also strongly disagree with his point and I'll explain why: If a society finds itself with an overabundance of qualified, educated people, the correct response is not to try and cut down on the overabundance, but to start doing more interesting things. It seems to me that after starting off with a promising few centuries, the USA has suddenly decided that the guiding principle of its society should be maintenance of the status quo, rather than progress.
Of course maintaining the status quo doesn't work when the rest of the world is forging ahead. In practice it translates into falling behind. If basic needs are being met (which they are), then surplus capacity should be directed. This guy's argument is that capacity should be reduced for the sake of preserving the existing wealth distribution as it is.
Re:Ok, but (Score:5, Interesting)
The article is of dubious value, but you have some interesting points. I don't think we suffer from an "Overabundance of qualified, educated people". I'm risking getting blasted here, BUT, I think we have an overabundance of mediocre people with a degree. The difference is that we're producing fewer and fewer people with degrees in science and technology fields and more people with degrees which have little direct applicability in the workforce. Further, we're "forcing" people into 4 year programs who have more potential in vocational-type programs.
And I'm NOT being condescending regarding vocational programs. There's talent, skill, and dedication required for those jobs which I do NOT possess. I am a menace with any kind of carpentry tool and when doing anything an electrician probably should have touched live wires (120v, thankfully) more often than I'd like to remember.
But I absolutely agree with your point that we're falling behind in the US. We've been content to let other people do the "hard work" and encouraged many of our smartest and most talented people to pursue "quick-and-easy" money in areas like the financial industry to the ultimate detriment of other industries. This is anecdotal to a degree, but as a hiring manager, it was VERY difficult to find people of reasonable intelligence and talent. A friend who's a recruiter runs into similar problems finding programmers in SF for the rates companies are willing to pay. Yes, the bay area is expensive, but the salaries offered were reasonable for what I considered mid-tier and lower-end senior folks. The company was very flexible (including allowing varying degrees of remote work). Still he has a tremendous ongoing challenge to find, and place (before they get snatched) good people
The bottom line is that we need to encourage people to get education in areas where they can succeed AND which are in demand by the market. If someone wants to get a degree in a field not in demand, that's their business, but I don't think merely "getting a degree" should be the end goal nor encouraged.
Re:Supply and demand (Score:5, Interesting)
The only thing we have a dearth of is free time. Instead of focusing on making more, lets take the time we would have used to produce excess and enjoy life instead. If we have too many people and not enough work, distribute the work around equitably. We could all work 20 hour weeks if our society weren't so focused on production as the only measure of value.
Re:Ok, but (Score:4, Interesting)
In the US, that same selection process happens all right, but instead of being tied to the child's ability to pass exams it's tied to the child's parent's ability to pay for the child's education.
It also starts much younger than you think, because the child of wealthy parents will be in a top-notch pre-school that provides that child with a good grounding in basic language and mathematical skills, whereas the child of poor parents will most likely be in a low-quality day care that does little more than keep the kids from dying while the parent(s) work. Even of those children end up going to exactly the same public school system (unlikely - wealthier kids live in wealthier school districts and thus get better school systems), the rich kid will be starting about 1-2 years ahead of the poor kid. His academic ability will be recognized quickly, and as a result they will be tracked into gifted-and-talented programs as quickly as possible, so that by the time he's in 6th grade he's about 3-4 years head of his typical poorer counterpart.
By the time you get into high school, poorer kids who have demonstrated real academic talent are consistently tracked lower than rich kids who are good students but not particularly outstanding. And for the other poor kids, they are either encouraged to go to vocational schools, or (much more likely) ignored until they drop out of school.
Re:Ok, but (Score:4, Interesting)
This really isn't true. I live on a comfortable upper-middle-class income. My wife stays home with the kids, so they don't get sent to day care. Our oldest daughter went to a sort of neighborhood pre-school where the moms just took turns teaching the group. She was never in GT Kindergarten (seriously---why do we need GT Kindergarten?) But she's in third grade now, and she's one of the best students in her class. She's well ahead of some of the kids who got shoved into "top-notch" pre-schools when they should have just been playing with toys.
Our second daughter didn't go to any pre-school. She didn't want to, and we didn't see any reason to force a four-year-old to do it. But she had a lousy Kindergarten teacher who basically assumed that all the kids had gone to pre-school (which meant she didn't have to teach---just "review" what they're already supposed to know, and then shove worksheets at them). She treated our daughter like she was dumb because we had dared to let her just be a little kid, and that shot her confidence. We spent the whole year basically trying to mitigate the damage formal education was doing to both her emotional and intellectual development. That year, she learned despite her schooling, not because of it. Then this year she's had a really good first grade teacher, and like the older one, she's pretty much caught up with her friends who went to "top notch" pre schools.
This "get an early start" mentality is stupid. Kids that little don't need to be learning vector calculus. They need to be playing. Sure, teach them things while they play. Our youngest son likes to watch the Leapfrog alphabet video, and then he'll find the letters on his alphabet puzzle and tell us what sound they make. We're even thinking about letting him join a little twice-a-week pre-school this fall, but only because he seemed to really enjoy it when we checked it out. We don't stress him about academics. He's going to have plenty of academic stress the rest of his life. No point in starting it early.
Basically, this mad rush for early academic excellence is a way for people to feel a vicarious sense of achievement at their children's expense. It's stupid, and it doesn't help the kids. By the time they're in second or third grade, you'd never know which ones went to pre-school and which ones didn't. The ones who are going to excel will excel. The ones who are going to flounder will flounder. The really big difference is not what they were doing when they were three. It's what's going on at home right now.
If you really want your kids to be successful, let them be kids while they're young, fill your home with lots and lots of books, make education a priority, and spend time with them. Eat dinner together, for crying out loud and then sit down and read with them and help them with homework. Kids who associate reading with spending time with their parents will love books. Kids who do nothing but melt their brains playing video games all afternoon---while Dad surfs porn and Mom gossips on Facebook, and everyone munches on greasy delivery pizza and flat Dr. Pepper---are not going to become the next Stephen Hawking just because they had a year or two of pre-school.
Re:Ok, but (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm not suggesting that 3-year-olds should learn vector calculus. I'm suggesting that wealthier parents (which whether you know it or not, you are one) got to their first day of school knowing how to read, write a bit, count to 10 or 20, and possibly do some basic arithmetic. A lot of wealthier kids get that at preschool, but they could also get it from an attentive adult in other settings. In your case, your advantage was that you could afford to have your wife stay home and/or work with the neighborhood to start giving kids those basic skills.
By comparison, most poor kids (who didn't have access to Head Start and similar programs) start learning to read when they're 5 or 6. For instance, I was bored senseless in first grade because most of the time was spent trying to get my classmates capable of handling reading "See Spot run." Most of them couldn't do it the first day.
Oh, and what poorer parents are doing with their time at home - mostly mentally and physically resting from their jobs. If you really want to understand the life of a poor person, ideally talk to some of them and get to know them, or at the very least read about [barbaraehrenreich.com] or watch [tv.com] smart capable and educated people try to live under the pressures that poor people do.
Re:Ok, but (Score:4, Informative)
I really don't see this in the current system - at least in elementary school where my friends' kids are and where my daughter will soon be. What I see is a constant dumbing down of teaching across the board. It is all about teaching to standardized tests and not discriminating (for any reason).
In the Seattle school system, every kid in the same grade gets the same math lesson on the same day. It is ridiculous - the current methodology, so far as I can tell, is teaching everybody at the level of the lowest common denominator.
When I was in school in Colorado (many years ago), we had 3 "tracks" - high, middle, and low. We were slotted into them by performance and teacher recommendations. There was never an IQ test that I can recall. I'm sure it was hard to get out of your track once you were in it, but I don't know. Luckily I was in the "high" track and so had a relatively challenging and interesting education in the public school system. Something I fear my daughter won't have.
Re:Ok, but (Score:4, Insightful)
IQ tests may not be perfect, but who is to blame for that?
If a system is imperfect the correct attitude would be to try to improve it. Unfortunately no one dares to try to improve IQ tests for the fear that there could be intrinsic limitations on some people's intelligence.
Let's face it, people do have limitations. I'm too short to play volleyball or basketball, too skinny to play football, too clumsy to play baseball. Why should we deny that some people are too stupid to go to college, even if they get sports scholarships?
Re:Ok, but (Score:4, Insightful)
Except in America every child is special and deserves to go to college, and no matter what system you list above, nearly everyone somehow ends up in college.
And to quote from The Incredibles:
"If everyone is special, then no one is."
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
As a student, you see mainly teacher and TA interaction, and think, "Why am I paying this much for so little?"
You often don't see (as a student) the herds of administrative people making sure your transcripts are in order, that tuition is payed properly, that tutoring positions
And here the results of the European Jury (Score:3, Informative)
Having a very different school system here, but the same problem (and the same talks about 20 years ago), here's how it worked out for us.
We have a system that splits kids already at 10 years of age into schools that prepare them for a trade and schools that prepare for studying. At 14 years you split again (if you opted for studying) into "pure academics", business prep or technical prep. And with 18/19, you either go into business or you head on to university. If you opted for the trade path, you finished
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
so as soon as you stop 18 year olds from believing in themselves and the promise of their lives to do incredible things, that's when you convince more people not to go to college. so who here wants the task of destroying millions of young people's faith in themselves?
Oh! Me! Me! Having been 18 not too long ago -- or perhaps too long -- I can tell you that 18 year olds are deluded, self-centered, narcissistic, unreasonably entitled and full of themselves; I certainly was.
Complaining about immigrants "taking jobs from Americans"? It couldn't be because immigrants are willing to flip burgers, clean toilets and basically work hard at non-glamorous jobs for low pay. There will always be more ditch diggers than scientists and telling every single kid that they're special with