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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

#171

Post by wolverine876 »

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…

> STEM jobs are the main viable path for economic stability and freedom.

People repeat that but what is it based on? Most of the population, including most people who have economic stability and freedom, have not had STEM jobs and very likely will not have STEM jobs.

More importantly, college is about much more than job training. College prepares people to be adults in every way, not to be a resource for corporations.

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

#173

Post by dudeman13 »

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…

I don't think you can win this one.

The free market might as well be a religion for some people. Nothing (not even historical facts) is enough evidence for it to not be the answers to all economic issues.

Also, there are lots of US tech people here - with overly inflated salaries compared to approximately everyone else. And everyone knows those winning the game have a tendency to lose empathy and think the game is fair, no matter how much evidence against it.

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

#174

Post by renewiltord »

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.…

Out of curiosity, where did the “leave early” belief come from in your opinion? In my community, leaving early would have been considered embarrassing and equivalent to conceding inability, and I fail to be but a representative member - but for you it was actually embarrassing to continue (the opposite).

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

#175

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#176

Post by gunfighthacksaw »

beaned wrote: post #135
0898 wrote: post #132

Some kid is going to stand up and say: “You can throw me in jail or cancel my degree but I’m not paying my student debt… who’s with me?” And then the whole house of cards that is higher education collapses.

Someone currently in college told me that if you just don't pay them, they simply start forgiving then. Unofficially. I don't know how true that is.

I pay the bare minimum payment and let inflation forgive them ;)

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

#177

Post by wolverine876 »

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…

> the SAT is increasingly considered "racist" because it reveals racial disparities in learning

Could you provide an example of that claim? Usually the SAT is considered discriminatory because the way the testing is done favors wealthy, well-educated people, and gives negative results for equally talented people who lack those advantages. Colleges have found that the SAT is excluding a large part of the talent pool.

Also, SAT scores do not correlate well at all with college outcomes.

Why then use the SAT?

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

#178

Post by yardie »

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 grew up a low income student as well but why kind of bullshit were they feeding you? My athlete friends were well aware you needed a 950 for any kind of NCAA consideration. It didn’t matter how good your grades or athleticism if you couldn’t pass that hurdle you were relegated to juco.

If anything most of the high school counselors in predominantly poor and black schools just don’t push very hard. They would tell you MIT was too far of a reach. They would tell you the best you could hope for was a private local, community college, or public state university. Who would ever consider Devry and MIT as equivalent?

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

#179

Post by jimmydorry »

antholeole wrote: post #119
tough wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Macro-farms and thousands of automation systems can make your need for human labour decrease more rapidly than people can find other jobs... It´s going to be a fuckin´mess, 4 dudes richer and everyone else screwed

Not sure about this: everyone else screwed seems kind of a far reach. If you consider screwed “unable to buy luxuries” then maybe, but I consider screwed “unable to buy food” and Macro farms stand to make food substantially cheaper. How will the four people get richer if the food they create is priced so high that no one can buy it? I get this is deeply economic and philosophical, but it’s an interesting thought expe…

If they can make food cheaper, what pressure is there to sell their product at a lower price? The economic answer is that a competitor will do it first to get a larger marketshare, but the pratical answer is nothing will force them. If the regulatory and capital cost to enter the market are high, then a competitor isn't likely to appear and the existing players can continue functioning in a quasi-cartel.

Taking this to its logical end, the owners of said farms will get richer as the general population earns less on average (due to their labour no longer being needed).

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

#180

Post by kube-system »

ceeplusplus wrote: post #125
ulrashida wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Got the same impression. The narrative presented indicates the writer has minimal appreciation for what degrees in fields other than their own actually provide. Good luck being able to practice engineering if you haven't got a degree! The licensing bodies for professions won't care a fig about your life experience.

There is very little that an undergraduate degree in gender studies, media studies, history, etc. provides, even if these subjects can be considered useful in general. On the surface you are learning about the humanities but in practice the classes have such low standards that you learn neither the writing and argumentation skills needed to excel in academia nor the deep understanding of past works that is the reward…

Liberal arts schools will provide you with a liberal arts education in the topic you choose.

Liberal arts schools are not and never have been vocational training institutions. They are academic in nature.

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