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Surprising Things About School

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Re: Surprising Things About School

#181

Post by edanm »

A new book just came out by economist Bryan Caplan, called "The Case Against Education".

The basic thesis is that school isn't mostly about teaching/learning - it's mostly about signaling to future employers that you are smart enough (and conformist enough) to get through school. He guesses it's about 80/20 between signaling and actual education.

It's interesting to read most discussions of education with that idea in mind - his assumptions solve a lot of puzzles of how/why education works the way that it works.

Re: Surprising Things About School

#182

Post by bzbarsky »

dragonwriter wrote: post #178
bzbarsky wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or we could do loans with repayment based on post-education income. There are various ways of doing that, of course, with their own sets of problems. Note that the UK does exactly this, last I checked.

> Or we could do loans with repayment based on post-education income The US already does this for federal loans, though it's not the default option, and the servicer (Navient) has been accused of actively steering borrowers away from the option, because it hurts the value of the loan-backed securities that Navient sells.

Ah, I did not know this had started happening. Thank you for the pointer!

Re: Surprising Things About School

#183

Post by dqpb »

twblalock wrote: post #118
dqpb wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> some never even log in to take MOOCs they register fo So what? How is this at all relevant? If we look at how many people have walked into a bookstore or library, have browsed through a book but never bothered to actually buy and read it, would we say books are a failure? Would you say books have a 95% fail rate? This is such a pointless train of thought.

Why did you decide that MOOCs should be held to the same standard as libraries or bookstores? MOOCs are marketed as courses, and sometimes as an alternative form of higher education. Furthermore, I doubt the people who go to the trouble of designing curricula for MOOCs expect students to drop out partway through. Comparing MOOCs to college courses seems like a better match to the image the MOOC companies themselves h…

The fundamental difference is that MOOCs are recorded rather than performed live. This makes both the distribution and access patterns more similar to books than to college courses.

Of course any particular MOOC can be made more or less like a normal class by putting the content behind a hefty paywall, enforcing strict due dates, and adding perverse performance incentives.

Re: Surprising Things About School

#184

Post by brudgers »

ThrustVectoring wrote: post #169
brudgers wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The student handbook for the author's school suggests a graduate should expect to spend three to six months applying for five jobs a day. That's about 500 to a 1000 applications following six months of 45 hours a week at their online school.

Five per day is a pretty low application rate for what it's worth. You can get through twenty in an hour if you're organized and motivated.

That's thousands per month. See: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2006/09/06/finding-great-deve...

Re: Surprising Things About School

#185

Post by AnimalMuppet »

> Everyone knows too many people attending universities don’t consider the financial burden, but NO ONE thinks about the time. Four years is a LONG time, but it doesn’t enter into peoples’ thinking generally when deciding if they should get a degree

You're right, I hadn't thought about the time. From 18 to 65 is 47 years; four years is a significant chunk of that. It's still a reasonable chunk if you come out of it with a degree that helps you get a good job (or, to worry less about credentials, with training that makes you more productive, or a mental framework that improves your life). But if you spend the four years, don't get a degree (or don't get one that gets you anywhere), and don't learn anything life-changing, four years is a lot of time.

Re: Surprising Things About School

#186

Post by RandComment »

> Lack of access to a computer almost kept some of our best students from being able to attend. Those aren’t expensive.

This is a bias from the lower middle to upper class. A computer without some knowledge or support to maintain it (more costs) make that price rise.

Re: Surprising Things About School

#187

Post by John_KZ »

tsumnia wrote: post #100
artimaeis wrote: post #79

> "Nearly everyone recognizes that MOOCs are by and large a failure with ~2% completion rates, but they make us feel good because now it’s the students’ fault not they’re not learning, not the school’s" I understand the context the author is approaching this from - but it discounts the idea that MOOCs can be used the same way we use books. I've utilized about a dozen different MOOCs and I've _never_ completed a singl…

Not knocking your own choices, but its more the backlash to the 2013 "MOOCs are the greatest thing ever! KhanAcademy/EdX/Coursera! Wooo!" Personally, I love them and would love to work with those companies. In fact, when I started teaching, I used many of the aspects I saw MOOCs using in my traditional classrooms. However, there is a truth to the statement. Almost no one finishes a MOOC (some never even log in to tak…

Why would you complete a MOOC "cover to cover" when they offer no accreditation? People just pick up what they need and move on. If they were offering a complete program and degrees, millions would complete them. MOOCs are amazing, but a simple VOD system can't replace the education system on it's own.

Re: Surprising Things About School

#188

Post by nurettin »

psyc wrote: post #60
Normal_gaussian wrote: post #15

"17. People rely mainly on their parents for advice on what to do about education, and that has to be among the worst places to go for educational advice" This one certainly hits me hard. With a mother who dropped out of university and a father who didn't go myself and my sister both have good degrees (she's a newly qualified Vet and I'm a startup's birth and death out of uni), and nowhere to get decent advice. I kno…

My single working mother had no bandwidth to help me with getting into college. Neither of my parents had a dime to give me. Despite both my parents being college educated and emphasizing its importance, they had little practical advice or assistance to give. I knew nothing. I ended up applying to one state university, in-state, commuting long distance, not taking any loan, and working 30 hours a week to afford it. I…

Industries use degrees as a comparison level when there is nothing else to compare. Through luck and skill you may have ended up in an incomparable position, but many white collars in the industry end up better off and more respected just on the merit of having a doctorate in a field.
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