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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

#241

Post by foobarian »

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…

I don't like how the word STEM gets thrown around because I feel it whitewashes the fact that most of the opportunity is in ad-supported web apps. Anyone trying to work in chemistry or physics finds this out the hard way.

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

#242

Post by hotpotamus »

Ekaros wrote: post #129
gruez wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the SAT's a way of laundering discrepancies in generational wealth, which is indeed due to racist public policy as well as racist private actions. it may be intended not that way, but that's how it functions. But what are SATs being replaced with? "holistic admissions"? A poor kid can prepare for the SAT by studying his ass off, with mostly free/cheap materials from the internet. How can you do the same with "extrac…

From my viewpoint in Europe I never understood the whole extracurricular, hobby or even the essay or recommendation letter part of admission process. All of those felt like nothing to do with actual capability to study. If SAT is a bad idea, replace it with field specific national entrance exam. Other fun alternatives, just outright auction off certain number of admission slots. Or just award slots randomly to all ap…

Yep, the New York marathon has way more applicants than slots, so they in fact use a mix of some of the mechanisms you mention. I think Nepal should do the same for Everest climbers - auction off half the slots and randomly award the other half.

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

#243

Post by sarpeedo »

walkhour wrote: post #127
Tretiotrr wrote: post #57

In Germany you study for free. There was a video (perhaps even from kurzgesagt) which describes how critical it is for our society to allow as many people as easy access to knowledge as possible and not only for obvious reasons but also to increase the chance for all of us that the hidden genius is finding a cure for cancer. You can even study for free in Germany as an non German. You know what happens? Those people…

What do you think about German kids being sent to different kinds of highschools at age 10. Most of the people attending Hauptschule don't attend university [0]. In some regions 60% of the children attend it. Aren't you concerned that the person who could discover the cure for cancer is in Hauptschule right now? Imagine a Germany in which the rest of your life isn't determined at age ten. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.o…

In fact Uğur Şahin CEO of BioNTech and co-inventor of the Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA vaccine was recommended by his teacher to attend a hauptschule. If his German neighbor hadn't intervened and stood up for him he may have never attended university let alone get a doctorate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uğur_Şahin

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

#244

Post by Manuel_D »

wolverine876 wrote: post #171
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…

I think 2 years of schooling and 2 years of working an becoming financially self-sufficient would better prepare people for adulthood than 4 years of schooling. Software development, electrical engineering, and plenty of other tech jobs could be taught in 2 years. Perhaps not to the level where people are contributing to cutting edge research - graduate and PhD programs still have their place. But I think many people are interested in an education that primarily serves to develop employment opportunities.

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

#245

Post by klipt »

dantheman wrote: post #198
com2kid wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America is a country that loves the free market country, yet no one seems to be talking about supply and demand to fix college prices. Double the number of large quality state universities. Re-index public university tuition to what they were in 2000 + inflation. Mandate that funding comes with X number increase in tenured professors. Re-instate public funding for state universities to what it was in 2000 + inflation…

The problem is student loans, if the students don't have the money the college will adapt to be less expensive.

Europe has cheap high quality colleges, I believe part of the difference is European colleges exist mainly to teach, while American colleges are a mini city with expensive sports teams and stadiums, large bureaucracy with many layers of admin, fancy facilities not directly related to education, etc, all to attract students to pay high fees.

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

#246

Post by rayiner »

wolverine876 wrote: post #177
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.…

> 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.

The alternatives, such as essays, are even more highly correlated with wealth: https://cepa.stanford.edu/content/essay-content-strongly-rel...

As to predicting outcomes, that’s largely due to score compression (the students at any given school are in a narrow score range). Folks across the score range aren’t being compared with each other in class performance. But look at the LSAT, where all students from different schools take the same bar exam. LSAT is highly predictive of bar exam performance. Students who score less than 150 (on a 120-180 scale) are virtually guaranteed to fail the bar.

> Colleges have found that the SAT is excluding a large part of the talent pool.

No, colleges have found that the SAT produces racial demographics they don’t like. Poor white kids have been excluded by the SAT for nearly a century and colleges never took action in response to that.

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

#247

Post by gruez »

snarf21 wrote: post #155
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…

It is not a non-problem for people without your privilege. Gig workers, immigrants and others with no viable options are forced to do these jobs or starve. All the while people complain about immigrants crossing the border and "taking their jobs". Graduating high school seniors aren't lining up to mow grass or pick fruit or work as a meat packer for $15/hour. They want to come out of college to a 6 figure job with no…

>It is not a non-problem for people without your privilege. Gig workers, immigrants and others with no viable options are forced to do these jobs or starve.

Nothing I said precludes aid for these people, to ensure a minimum standard of living. I'm just pointing out the implied consequences of not making "non-STEM work to be a viable option", isn't we run out of farmers and we all starve because the market will correct it long before the number of farmers drop dangerously low.

>All the while people complain about immigrants crossing the border and "taking their jobs".

I don't get it. Just a few sentences ago you implied that the jobs are crap, and that people are "forced to do these jobs or starve", yet here you're implying that we should allow "immigrants crossing the border" to take those crap jobs?

>Graduating high school seniors aren't lining up to mow grass or pick fruit or work as a meat packer for $15/hour. They want to come out of college to a 6 figure job with no skills or training.

People don't want hard jobs and want easy money. Can you really blame them for that? Also, the solution to this, as mentioned in the previous comment is to raise wages.

>A lot of people coming out of school with out a tech or medical disposition would be best served by picking a trade. We have a shortage already and it is only going to get worse. Running a 3 person plumbing company could easily compete with most tech jobs.

In other words, the market is working as intended, by making jobs more lucrative because there's a shortage?

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

#248

Post by MisterBastahrd »

ceeplusplus wrote: post #46
lokar wrote: post #3

One thing that would help with the standardized test issue would be to set a threshold (based on what data show is needed to do well in the program) and have a random lottery of everyone who meets that bar.

That's exactly what TJ HS (top 1 HS in the US) tried to do to reduce their Asian representation, because Asians were "overrepresented". Standardized tests are a better solution than "holistic" admissions, which bias heavily for students who can afford to go to expensive summer camps, competitions, and volunteer in poor countries. At least standardized tests can be studied for even if you're poor.

There are entire high schools in the New Orleans area whose average scores on standardized tests exceed all but 2-3 students at any public high school in the area. Having people with experience who know the answers because they can understand and teach the problem at a fundamental level is vastly better than any handout workbook.

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

#249

Post by tyingq »

FlyingAvatar wrote: post #200
wolverine876 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> College prepares people to be adults in every way… People repeat that but what is it based on? Most of the adult population have not gone to college but somehow manage to become functioning adults.

Maybe that there was a stronger tie to college helping with being "well rounded" years ago, when most of the authority figures in your life up until college were politically conservative? So college might be your first experience where there were more politically liberal authority figures?

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

#250

Post by lordnacho »

gruez wrote: post #108
colpabar wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If farm workers' job gets sufficiently bad from a value proposition perspective, then people will leave the occupation and employers would be forced to pay higher wages to attract workers. Serious question - have you ever been poor? Are you aware that sometimes people have to work at shitty jobs because they have no other options? And, if employers really would "be forced to pay higher wages" as you claim, why are…

>Serious question - have you ever been poor? Are you aware that sometimes people have to work at shitty jobs because they have no other options? OP was talking about the problem from a practical perspective (ie. "We really need farm workers", presumably worried about a future where there aren't enough farm workers and we starve or something), and I was addressing that in the same way. Your objection seems to be from…

The whole price stickiness thing is the free market not working. How can you say the market will sort it out and in the next post give the mechanism for why it doesn't do so?

What you're really arguing isn't that the market will sort things out to someone's satisfaction, you're just saying the market is a jungle and whatever survives survives.

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