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Students don't seem to be getting much out of higher education (2018)

theatlantic.com

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Re: Students don't seem to be getting much out of higher education (2018)

#61

Post by cdf2theworld »

Student here - I was struck by the "summer learning loss" quoted in the article. Everyone I talk to has this, myself included. The greatest reason for this, personally, is subject diffusion. This is especially true from freshman to junior year; we are required to take a dizzying number of classes that not only have nothing to do with our job field, but also have nothing to do with each other. I understand that it's important to "gain broad interests", but I retained very very little until my junior year, when all of the irrelevant courses had been completed. This issue may be coupled with the signaling problem, in that not only is the senior year the only year of college that employers care about (because you get handed a credential), but also because you take so little away from school until that point.

I'd say that paying for college should be scaled with the earning benefit it imparts, freshman year costing very little, and senior year costing a majority of the total degree. Thoughts?

Re: Students don't seem to be getting much out of higher education (2018)

#62

Post by potatoyogurt »

egypturnash wrote: post #34

> From kindergarten on, students spend thousands of hours studying subjects irrelevant to the modern labor market. Why do English classes focus on literature and poetry instead of business and technical writing? uggggh this , this market-driven bullshit that assumes "business" should be the end goal of all human behavior English classes focus on literature and poetry because maybe you should have some sense of beauty…

I don't get it, I don't understand how the author of the article has a PhD if this is what he thinks. Like,

> Why do advanced-math classes bother with proofs almost no student can follow?

Because that literally _is_ mathematics, and the point of working through them is because students can actually understand them and learn to do the same thing with new problems. How does he expect anyone to create or discover anything new with just arithmetic 101?

There's a kernel of a good argument in that signaling probably is one of the main values that students get from a college degree, but it's overstated to such a degree that it crosses over into idiocy.

Re: Students don't seem to be getting much out of higher education (2018)

#63

Post by grassclone »

justinzollars wrote: post #4

I feel like everyone is doing social media marketing - or something equally useless while the world around us is breaking down. In the Bay Area, in San Francisco specifically, voters allocated funds to fix or replace every single Bart escalator. The best hope we have for completing this job is 7 years. Yes you read this correctly 7 years. The problem is we do not have enough licensed escalator mechanics to do the wor…

I wish more people knew about how amazing jobs in the trades can be. I've lived in the bay for most of my 20s now and have seen quite a few blue collar folk do extremely well.

Right now in the bay we have IBEW journeyman electricians making around 200k a year. Shoot. Pipefitters, Ironworkers, they all do well.

Re: Students don't seem to be getting much out of higher education (2018)

#64

Post by internet_user »

grassclone wrote: post #63
justinzollars wrote: post #4

I feel like everyone is doing social media marketing - or something equally useless while the world around us is breaking down. In the Bay Area, in San Francisco specifically, voters allocated funds to fix or replace every single Bart escalator. The best hope we have for completing this job is 7 years. Yes you read this correctly 7 years. The problem is we do not have enough licensed escalator mechanics to do the wor…

I wish more people knew about how amazing jobs in the trades can be. I've lived in the bay for most of my 20s now and have seen quite a few blue collar folk do extremely well. Right now in the bay we have IBEW journeyman electricians making around 200k a year. Shoot. Pipefitters, Ironworkers, they all do well.

How many years of back breaking labour to reach those levels of compensation?

Re: Students don't seem to be getting much out of higher education (2018)

#65

Post by bargl »

twblalock wrote: post #16
justinzollars wrote: post #4

I feel like everyone is doing social media marketing - or something equally useless while the world around us is breaking down. In the Bay Area, in San Francisco specifically, voters allocated funds to fix or replace every single Bart escalator. The best hope we have for completing this job is 7 years. Yes you read this correctly 7 years. The problem is we do not have enough licensed escalator mechanics to do the wor…

> Maybe more people should go into the trades - and not be funneled into higher education. We desperately need better infrastructure, more housing, tangible things. Not everyone is cut out for college. This is a common line of argument, but you will find that many tradesmen hope their children will go to college and get office jobs. The trades are hard on the body. Some trades are hazardous. An injury or medical prob…

You make solid arguments about getting into trades. That's a field where unions have really helped out in some ways. I know they slow things down but they have also come a long way towards making people safer on the job. L&I solves some of these problems while having a promotion path can solve others. Electricians get bad knees, so at a certain point you've just got to get to the point that you can teach and not do. Or move into doing inspections.

Outside of that, one of the issues isn't that people should go into trade. But that so many jobs that are hidden behind a requirement for bachelors degree don't need it.

I'd love to see some of our industries out there take on apprenticeship programs for places where they think bachelors were required before. Probably not hard engineering fields, but my first job out of school I was a "Systems Engineer" but everything I needed to know was on the job training. Everything.

Re: Students don't seem to be getting much out of higher education (2018)

#66

Post by diogenescynic »

asaph wrote: post #51
justinzollars wrote: post #4

I feel like everyone is doing social media marketing - or something equally useless while the world around us is breaking down. In the Bay Area, in San Francisco specifically, voters allocated funds to fix or replace every single Bart escalator. The best hope we have for completing this job is 7 years. Yes you read this correctly 7 years. The problem is we do not have enough licensed escalator mechanics to do the wor…

Why are 100% of the BART escalators in such dire need of repair or replacement? Are they poor products? Are they very old? Are they poorly maintained?

They apparently bought indoor models like 30 years ago and the person responsible for that then went and worked for the escalator company. Instead of suing for fraud, we’ve been assininely repairing them instead of biting the bullet and replacing them. San Francisco Bay Area is absurdly poorly run.

Re: Students don't seem to be getting much out of higher education (2018)

#67

Post by internet_user »

asaph wrote: post #45
dbcurtis wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once you get a license, it will pay about $125/hour. Four year apprenticeship first, though. There is a general shortage of elevator mechanics, so go for it.

I'll admit I don't know the first thing about escalator repair but I'm confident that a 4 year apprenticeship is absurd. Perhaps that's the real problem. The rules should be amended such that you can get an escalator repair license in 60 days. Problem solved.

Skip college, do a 4 year apprenticeship instead - is that really sound?

Re: Students don't seem to be getting much out of higher education (2018)

#70

Post by Zanni »

boazbarak wrote: post #10
Zanni wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a side effect of Caplan's main objection, that a college degree has become a credential, used for signaling, and not indicating any real merit or learning. Once students recognize that (and they have), they put in the bare minimum to get the credential, and administrators respond by forcing new minimums. It's still possible to get a good education if you choose your institution, classes and professors wisely,…

I don't presume my institution is representative (nor that it isn't), but for what it's worth, most students I see are not slackers at all. Students often choose the harder courses, and many of them require a significant amount of work (a typical CS course requires 12 hours of work outside lecture and many require much more).

Sorry, forgot my audience. :) STEM folks tend not to be slackers (in their subject). Caplan also mentions this is where most of the measurable learning takes place. And there are non-slackers, to greater or lesser degree, in every class. But I saw a lot of them in the required classes ("core" or "diversity"), language classes and business classes. Most slackers self-select out of STEM, except as required.
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