Will America’s universities go the way of its car companies? • Hacker News Board

Re: Will America’s universities go the way of its car companies?

#61

Post by jazzyb » Thu, Sep 09, 2010, 5:45 PM UTC

shadowsun7 wrote: post #57

presidentender wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The deep flaw is that too many people go to college for impractical degrees.

Are impractical degrees that bad, in and of themselves?

Provided you can afford the impractical degree or you don't mind the debt to get it, then no, they're not. The problem is that people are investing tens of thousands of dollars into degrees that won't return anything on that investment. I've heard the argument that such an investment is not in money but in making one a more well-rounded person, but I've personally never understood paying so much for knowledge that can be gotten for free with the internet and a library card.

Re: Will America’s universities go the way of its car companies?

#62

Post by stan_rogers » Thu, Sep 09, 2010, 5:49 PM UTC

Locke1689 wrote: post #41

showerst wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I upvoted you, but on the flip side, we currently have a large number of students who are coming out of college with low real-world value degrees and huge amounts of debt. It's probably unsustainable to have 175,000 psych and history majors[1] graduating every year with 10-20,000 dollars in debt[2]. (Not to speak of all the business/marketing majors) I'm not saying that colleges should turn into work-training program…

However, this may simply mean that fewer people should be going to college, not that the university system has a deep flaw. If, for example, 100k psych majors are graduating only to work in social services or some slightly related field, should these people be going to college at all? Are these skills necessary for the workforce? It's important to recognize that just because we wish it were so, 50,000 psych and histo…

This is the point where people from my neck of the woods (Ontario, and, frankly, most of Canada) suffer severe cognitive dissonance. We have two very different post-secondary tracks, and around these parts a "college" in colloquial parlance is a diploma-granting institute aimed at providing students with marketable skills (technicians, technologists, accountants, nurses who have no aspirations to teach nursing later). The programs may be two or three years, but they are all identifiable by their practical applicability. (The full designation of such institutions is "Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology".) Quite apart from that, we have the Universities which, apart from a few professional programs (medicine/dentistry, law, etc.), come with no promise of applicability whatever. (And even professional degrees are merely preparation for practical situations that will eventually lead to real certification. A BEng degree doesn't make you an engineer, a PEng certification does, and so on.

The point is that, from my perspective, more people should probably be going to college rather than to University. It's not that we don't need thinkers, but that we need more thinkers that can translate thought into action.

EDIT: closed paren to avoid major bug.

Re: Will America’s universities go the way of its car companies?

#63

Post by yequalsx » Thu, Sep 09, 2010, 6:00 PM UTC

timwiseman wrote: post #60

yequalsx wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting you mention the kids who are barely able to read while saying you don't want to pay for someone else to appreciate art, literature, music, etc. What sort of reading do you have in mind for these kids to learn? Should we just teach them how to read an operating manual for machinery or the instruction set for putting something together? Reading is an essential part of learning to appreciate art, music, lite…

I think they should have the ability to read anything and everything they want or need to. If they choose to read only operating manuals then they will at least be able to. If they choose to read Faust, The Inferno, and Paradise Lost, they should be able to. I am troubled when we want to spend tax money to help people who already have basic education appreciate art and literature when we are not doing enough to make…

That's great that you benefited from good parent(s). I wish everyone was equally well off. I think it's OK to allow people to enrich their lives by exposing them to the arts. It's a pittance to do so in comparison to war, a prison-industrial complex, ag subsidies, etc.

EDIT: I should say to allow government to provide people with the opportunity to enrich their lives.

Re: Will America’s universities go the way of its car companies?

#64

Post by yequalsx » Thu, Sep 09, 2010, 6:05 PM UTC

timwiseman wrote: post #59

JabavuAdams wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to think that these are independent issues. I.e. if we just throw more money at basic literacy, road-maintenance, and policing, then society will be better. If we throw money at art and cultural education, then we're losing out on money for the above. The fact is that a lot of social problems stem from cultural problems. You can keep throwing money and teachers at those kids down the street, but it won't get…

Yummyfajitas said it quite nicely, but permit me to say it on my own behalf. I am not at all saying do not spend my tax dollars on things that don't directly benefit me. I said that we should not spend it on things like art and literature until after we have taken care of things like basic education, infrastructure, law enforcement, and yes even universal healthcare and gaurunteed access to sufficient food. I am a gr…

It sounds like you have the attitude of the government just providing the basics. I've taught you to read to go read what you want. But without access to a decent library, without training on how to appreciate literature it seems that your point of view is to utilitarian. The arts enrich us all in ways that can't be counted merely by monetary utility. I would like to live in a society that recognizes this and is willing to support it. It's not like it would cost a great deal or that the money could not come out of the budgets of other government agencies. It doesn't have to mean an additional expense.

Re: Will America’s universities go the way of its car companies?

#65

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Sep 09, 2010, 6:15 PM UTC

16s wrote: post #47

yequalsx wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I teach at a community college. The price is quite low (and my pay). Society does not want to pay for knowledge. It does not see a benefit in having people who appreciate art, literature, culture, music, etc. It only sees a benefit from electrical engineering and other such subjects. It's a problem of society and it's short sighted goals.

Liberal Arts is a luxury that many cultures cannot afford. When you're just starting out or trying to survive as a culture, you need engineers, hard-core scientists and business people. Take China and Israel for example. The upper class can go for Liberal Arts at any time, but the culture as a whole will lean strongly to hard science until they're established enough to enjoy that luxury. Times are bad now (but gettin…

[deleted]

Re: Will America’s universities go the way of its car companies?

#66

Post by JoeAltmaier » Thu, Sep 09, 2010, 6:26 PM UTC

carbocation wrote: post #7

In contrast to what this surprisingly uninformed piece claims, the top universities do compete on price. In fact, they offer incredibly good financial aid packages to people not even remotely poor (families earning over 100k still get discounts). Thus, very few end up paying the sticker price. There actually is downward pressure on price, but this is because it's coming from the top schools, not from any disruptive f…

Because Iowa's Senator took them to task, threatening to revoke their Non-Profit status if they kept overcharging our kids.

Re: Will America’s universities go the way of its car companies?

#67

Post by nanairo » Thu, Sep 09, 2010, 6:28 PM UTC

shadowsun7 wrote: post #57

presidentender wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The deep flaw is that too many people go to college for impractical degrees.

Are impractical degrees that bad, in and of themselves?

This is anecdotal, but I know of many people who got jobs from big firms during University's career fair. They were doing things like History, or English language.

The reason why the employers were so keen on them was not that they were going to use the subject itself (e.g. History) but the techniques. A history graduate can read _a_lot_ quickly, summarise it, and hand you a report. Those are great skills that are often required in a job (in some jobs more than others).

So impractical degrees may still be... practical. :) (that said I personally don't think a degree should be judge on how practical it is. But I agree with the poster above that if you do want to focus on things that give you better job prospects in the short run, then there are colleges (in the Canadian/UK sense of shorter, more focused higher eduction courses).

Re: Will America’s universities go the way of its car companies?

#68

Post by JoeAltmaier » Thu, Sep 09, 2010, 6:29 PM UTC

GBKS wrote: post #55

I do agree with this in some points. My main complaint with US universities (from my experience) is lack of focus on producing the brightest people possible. It's simply too easy to be "undecided" for 3 years and end up with a wishy-washy degree that doesn't prepare you for much. Once I realized that grades were a low standard, I started setting my own standards and put in a lot of extra time and effort that ended up…

I set my standards early, quit looking up my test scores, got out of college what I wanted and skipped the rest. I figured I knew better than my Professors how well prepared I was, the test score was not adding information, so I refused to look at it. I was honestly wondering if I would graduate, but I did.

MSEE Stanford

Re: Will America’s universities go the way of its car companies?

#69

Post by JoeAltmaier » Thu, Sep 09, 2010, 6:30 PM UTC

oiuygtfrtghyju wrote: post #35

whyenot wrote: post #24

Go to a state school. In California, the tuition for a California State University is about $5500 a year. If you can't afford that, you likely qualify for a CalGrant which is awarded based on need and are around $5400 per school year. For example, San Jose State University here in Silicon Valley, doesn't have the reputation that a top tier school has, but you can still get a very good education, in some ways better t…

> doesn't have the reputation that a top tier school has Thats the problem: The deal isn't go to university and learn stuff. The deal is go to university and you will get a better job, the extra salary you make will pay back the tuition and lost years of income. As more people go to uni the more the market segments - it becomes go to Harvard/Yale, you will pay 10x as much in tuition but earn 100x as much in salary. B…

Actually College is different from Trade School. Its not clear salary is the goal. Becoming a person better able to function and contribute is the goal. Sometimes that means, yes, gender study papers.

Re: Will America’s universities go the way of its car companies?

#70

Post by JoeAltmaier » Thu, Sep 09, 2010, 6:32 PM UTC

carbocation wrote: post #6

kmfrk wrote: post #4

But why are American universities placed so highly in the cited ranking if everything is ashambles as the article author claims? The university prices are obviously on an inflationary course, but how else do they compare to the world outside?

This happens because the rankings cited are a function of the academic output of the faculty. In contrast, this article is largely worrying about undergraduate-specific issues. In other words, I think you've identified a non sequitur committed by the author.

There are many rankings, including acceptance rates, graduation rates. This causes its own problems, with the admissions process now skewed so heavily toward propping up these pointless figures (acceptance rate anyway) that High School Juniors are being asked to commit in writing.