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I think US college education is nearer to collapsing than it appears

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Re: I think US college education is nearer to collapsing than it appears

#161

Post by simulate-me »

tester756 wrote: post #98
mind-blight wrote: post #58

I'm concerned that the majority of "should we fix college or should we circumvent college" conversations don't bring up one of the scariest parts of our current economy: STEM jobs are the main viable path for economic stability and freedom. All of the conversations I've seen implicitly assume that this is good, and that the solution to farmer workers (or other low paid workers) escaping poverty is to train them as so…

That's real problem Only one person (the oldest one) from my like 20-30ppl circle within age range of 20-30 gets close to IT salaries, that's ridiculous in most cases it is around 40% (around 2 minimal wages) of my *nothing special* salary by IT standards (4.5 minimal wages), people with better cards get 7-10 minimal wages here, top people like 15-20+ and they see no reasonably easy way to jump higher (e.g within one…

Civil engineering? Pretty sure you could get qualified in a few years via community college / state school.

Re: I think US college education is nearer to collapsing than it appears

#162

Post by rahimnathwani »

mind-blight wrote: post #118
gruez wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>STEM jobs are the main viable path for economic stability and freedom. >We really need farm workers, and most of them live in poverty. I love having more engineers, scientists, and doctors, but we desperately need non-STEM work to be a viable option This is basically a non-problem because of the supply/demand mechanics of the labor market. If farm workers' job gets sufficiently bad from a value proposition perspecti…

The labor market - especially the low paid labor market - is a lot less liquid than it needs to be for pure supply/demand to work in the US (that's also taking human suffering caused by poverty out of the equation, which is pretty callous). Laissez-faire markets are also bad at taking negative externalities into account. Food being too expensive to afford in the stores while it's also rotting in the fields (which has…

> Children not being being effectively taught because teachers are quitting due to burnout and terrible wages is really bad.

The market for teachers, at least in the US, is not a 'laissez-faire market'.

Re: I think US college education is nearer to collapsing than it appears

#163

Post by renewiltord »

titzer wrote: post #148
gruez wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>STEM jobs are the main viable path for economic stability and freedom. >We really need farm workers, and most of them live in poverty. I love having more engineers, scientists, and doctors, but we desperately need non-STEM work to be a viable option This is basically a non-problem because of the supply/demand mechanics of the labor market. If farm workers' job gets sufficiently bad from a value proposition perspecti…

> If farm workers' job gets sufficiently bad from a value proposition perspective, then people will leave the occupation They are. Farmer suicides over the past 10 years have skyrocketed. Farmers are committing suicide at twice the rate of combat veterans. [1] I'm afraid I can't take your comment seriously as a dispassionate economic analysis since it lacks even basic empathy for people caught in this ongoing trainwr…

This is quite convincing. We should ban independent farmers. It is too dangerous a job for independents. Industrialized commercial farming is the only acceptable recourse since we need to grow food.

As an escape valve for independents we could have them post a sufficiently large bond that will come due in the event of farm failure and bail them out.

Re: I think US college education is nearer to collapsing than it appears

#164

Post by twofornone »

zozbot234 wrote: post #101
moltke wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

> ...are just more academically inclined than others... It's not "races", it's culture. We should just remove this whole idea of "race" from our understanding of social phenomena, all it can do is mislead. There are African, Black subcultures like the Igbo and Ashanti that achieve to the highest levels academically (including in the West!) and Asian subcultures that don't place any focus on education, and struggle as…

No post body was provided.

Re: I think US college education is nearer to collapsing than it appears

#165

Post by tootie »

sometimeshuman wrote: post #94
crackercrews wrote: post #52

Definitely agree that removing the SAT appears to be related to the upcoming supreme court case about affirmative action. COVID was a good reason to delay it for a couple years. But schools are pushing it out further. That makes no sense. It seems the SAT is increasingly considered "racist" because it reveals racial disparities in learning. What's next? Get rid of the driver's license test because it turns that white…

As an ancedote, I was told by my low income peer group that you get 600 points just for filling out your name on the SAT and that 800 points could get you into a great school like MIT. So I assumed it was a pass/fail exam in a sense and left early during the verbal part because I found it condescending and boring. Before the exam, I couldn't understand why the higher income kids were paying for SAT training classes.…

I think this is a real fundamental problem and something that seems to easy to fix. People just don't know how the other half live. There's a persistent belief that rich people and poor people are like two different species. I got a CS degree from a pretty good school but it was almost pure luck. My high school had programming classes and I enjoyed them. I didn't realize what I was setting myself up for.

Re: I think US college education is nearer to collapsing than it appears

#166

Post by skybrian »

titzer wrote: post #148
gruez wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>STEM jobs are the main viable path for economic stability and freedom. >We really need farm workers, and most of them live in poverty. I love having more engineers, scientists, and doctors, but we desperately need non-STEM work to be a viable option This is basically a non-problem because of the supply/demand mechanics of the labor market. If farm workers' job gets sufficiently bad from a value proposition perspecti…

> If farm workers' job gets sufficiently bad from a value proposition perspective, then people will leave the occupation They are. Farmer suicides over the past 10 years have skyrocketed. Farmers are committing suicide at twice the rate of combat veterans. [1] I'm afraid I can't take your comment seriously as a dispassionate economic analysis since it lacks even basic empathy for people caught in this ongoing trainwr…

People committing suicide rather than quitting and doing something else (declaring bankruptcy if necessary) means it's not just a supply and demand thing.

It's also important to distinguish between farm workers (hired hands) and the business owners.

Re: I think US college education is nearer to collapsing than it appears

#167

Post by tick_tock_tick »

tough wrote: post #115
belltaco wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In that case, this statement would become false: >We really need farm workers

We really need them if we want to farm in sustainable and moral ways, as we have done by thousands of years. But point maken

> We really need them if we want to farm in sustainable and moral ways

How so? Sustainable farming has nothing to do with a man vs machine doing the labor. Moral as in we need to make sure people can keep doing this job or what kind of argument are you even making? I'd rather see improved social safety nets and job training then some appeal to history that people need to work the fields because we've always done that.

Re: I think US college education is nearer to collapsing than it appears

#168

Post by cthalupa »

mgh2 wrote: post #79
oceanplexian wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of people have jobs that put lives on the line, Pilots for example. They don’t need a college degree to do that safely, competently, or legally. The idea that healthcare is somehow a special snowflake is nonsense.

I think you are digressing from the main point. Most people who devalue education are viewing it from a privileged position (ex: tech). Parents on 3rd world countries know that education is still the safest way to a higher standard of living (not guaranteed though). There are no shortcuts to gain knowledge (degrees, training, self-taught, etc.). It is hard to vet someone if that person has not been through accredited…

>Aside from this, there is a big difference: would you trust a doctor to cure you without a medical degree? There is your answer.

It depends.

I had a recurring issue with pain and numbness in my elbow for a few years. I went to all sorts of well credentialed doctors, and every diagnosis they gave ended up being wrong. The person who cracked the case ended up being a random doctor at a hole in the wall clinic that had been the first person available to get an ear infection checked out. I mentioned my symptoms offhand while we were chatting, and he cracked it in about 3 minutes - nerve damage from leaning my elbow on my standing desk. He had a lot of practical experience with occupational related injuries, including nerve damage from poor fitting safety gear, etc. It wasn't his degree that let him find the root cause of my issue, but practical experience.

On the other hand, there's lots of diseases where doctors need to keep up on the latest advancements in research, etc. I don't really know how this works - is it trade journals? Do all doctors in fields like this regularly read them, or papers on NCBI? Does a college degree help here? I don't know. I also don't know if I fundamentally disbelieve that someone couldn't be just as effective in these areas through a more practical learning approach than a college degree, either. But I'm not sure that I believe it, either.

Medicine is a big field and not all parts of it - from my experience on the receiving end, at least - seem to require all the same skills to be successful.

Re: I think US college education is nearer to collapsing than it appears

#169

Post by [deleted] »

manuelabeledo wrote: post #157
nimithryn wrote: post #152

Some of these points are correct. College does seem to be providing less value in the US, etc. Maybe some third-tier universities could be in trouble if there's a decline in college attendance. But, "collapsing"? Universities are one of the most long-lived types of institutions known to humankind. Oxford was founded in 1096. I suspect they will be around quite a lot longer.

Oxford is in the UK, though. US universities famously have different priorities, compared to their European counterparts.

[deleted]

Re: I think US college education is nearer to collapsing than it appears

#170

Post by agumonkey »

crackercrews wrote: post #52

Definitely agree that removing the SAT appears to be related to the upcoming supreme court case about affirmative action. COVID was a good reason to delay it for a couple years. But schools are pushing it out further. That makes no sense. It seems the SAT is increasingly considered "racist" because it reveals racial disparities in learning. What's next? Get rid of the driver's license test because it turns that white…

It's extremely difficult for me to pinpoint when / where the tendency to flatten (as in no more disparity) started. It's super weird. Everything is flat. I sense some kind of rejection of it from fear of potential dominance. But it's still odd to me.
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