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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

#311

Post by rahimnathwani »

andrewjl wrote: post #266
rahimnathwani wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We really need farm workers, and most of them live in poverty. How are both of these true? If a job pays poorly, doesn't that suggest there are many people willing and able to do those jobs, relative to the need for the job to be done? Maybe this results from some market distortion? But AFAIK the main market distortion in the farming industry is the opposite: subsidies that make farming more attractive than it woul…

> But AFAIK the main market distortion in the farming industry is the opposite: subsidies that make farming more attractive than it would be, which would tend to increase farm workers' equilibrium wages. That might be true for markets in the abstract but the market for farm labor is distorted in several ways. One is due to historical reasons farm labor is treated differently from other labor categories and the end re…

These are interesting points.

Regarding farm labor having fewer protections. In general, labour protections can be distortion-creating (e.g. a minimum wage) or distortion-busting (e.g. rules that ensure people are paid on time).

Regarding the captive labor force: this might be bad for non citizens (and humanity overall), but it seems like it's good for US citizens, who benefit from increased (unlimited?) supply of farm labor, reducing upward pressure on food prices.

If I've understood the above correctly, it seems that 'we need farm workers' isn't an actual problem that needs a solution (from the perspective of US citizens or, by extension, the US government).

What have I missed?

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

#312

Post by imgabe »

Higher education in the US is trying to fulfill so many roles it's unsustainable.

    - teaching marketable skills so people can get jobs
    - teaching "how to think" and learning about art and culture
    - Performing cutting edge research
    - minor league sports teams
The large state schools are trying to fulfill all these conflicting roles. We should probably break them out to separate entities.

If you have a physicist who's at the leading edge of research in their field, you want them doing that research, not teaching 18 year old's Newton's laws of motion. And they're mostly not doing that teaching, that gets farmed out to an adjunct paid starvation wages. So the kid who's paying through the nose to attend a top university with the best researchers doesn't get to interact with them much and gets an inferior education compared to one where they hired and properly compensated someone to actually focus on teaching.

If we want to train people for specific jobs - create institutions that do that. If the upper class want someplace to send their kids to read poetry and binge drink for 4 years before they get a jr. associate position at their Dad's investment bank, create a separate institution for that. Major league sports should create and manage their own feeder leagues to develop players, no reason to cram that into a university. We should create dedicated research institutions so researchers don't have to pretend to care about teaching.

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

#313

Post by BlargMcLarg »

synergy20 wrote: post #280
rayiner wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> College prepares people to be adults in every way, not to be a resource for corporations. Only 2% of Bangladeshis go to college. Are the rest not adults? Indeed, I’d say the opposite is true. Apart from job training, the main function of college in America seems to be extending adolescence and deferring dealing with the real world. 18 year olds in Bangladesh are a lot more “adult” than many college-educated 30-some…

college is delaying young people to become mature, we're producing giant babies these days, thanks to endless parenting, online gaming, social screen time, now probably even metaverse, you name it. on the STEM subject, teens good at math are never teacher's favorites, instead they're called nerds and some are even isolated from the rest, it's quite the opposite in Asia, or even in Europe. That's the root cause we nee…

It's not (just) college. Even if you do make it past college, hitting what older generations would consider typical markers of adulthood (having your own place, a good job, a stable relationship, a family, etc.) are all delayed and/or more difficult to achieve.

Meanwhile many jobs are trying to sell themselves not through a TC that would let one hit these markers, but through football tables, pizza parties, drinks and other social outings. Not to hate on fun activities, but it sure does feel like trying to keep young adults in a perpetual student lifestyle when you keep the booze but not give them the wage to advance in life.

There are plenty of young adults who want to grow up, meeting a ridiculous amount of resistance.

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

#314

Post by paulpauper »

dougmwne wrote: post #292
paulpauper wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you been to a shopping mall or McDonalds, even in expensive areas like the Bay Area? Poor , low-income families with the latest gadgets, nice clothes. The money is coming from somewhere. Also, tons of subsidized programs like education, housing, and healthcare. Sure, they are not wealthy in the sense of making a lot of money, but enjoy a good standard of living nevertheless.

It's called debt and most households are swimming in it. Looking at what people wear or if they use an iPhone is a really poor proxy for their financial health. https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/average-credit-card-debt-hou...

Imagine having tons of debt but enjoying a high standard of living as if you were making more money. so what, if the end result is the same anyway, that being a high standard of living, but one one funded by debt and the other funded by earning more money. It's not like your children will inherit your debt. Debtors prisons do not exist either. I think debt is a problem though if you already have a lot of money, because then you're just being wasteful.

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

#315

Post by flatiron »

manuelabeledo wrote: post #251
flatiron wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where in Europe? I’ve hired in both Portugal and Germany and have seen a ton of US education. This is for developer positions I would expect it different if you are hiring line cooks.

I don’t quite understand where you are going with this. Have you hired US nationals, or US educated people? Either way, I haven’t seen many US educated people in Europe, and especially in Portugal. > This is for developer positions I would expect it different if you are hiring line cooks. I’m a lead engineer myself. Again, I yet have to find anyone in Europe who would have primary and secondary education in the US in…

For both places I was simply filling roles. I think maybe 80% local and 20% us nationals? Maybe 90/10? Probably 50% had US educations listed. Maybe 40%? But it’s not like I didn’t see any. I’m not sure what you think is surprising. US people study abroad too. It’s very common and tech people tend to pick US because it’s heavy in tech.

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

#316

Post by tonguez »

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…

“College prepares people to be adults”

no

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

#317

Post by selimthegrim »

ryan93 wrote: post #202
tessierashpool wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that is entirely a guess, though. there's actual documented evidence of colleges admitting less Asian-Americans and Jews than the test scores of either group would suggest, and Altman refers to this phenomenon in the thread. > 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 kids pass i…

The average math SAT for kids whose families make over 250k would put you in the bottom ten percent at fucking Boston university.

I teach at a top 40 university in the South and I promise you, the coaching for the math SAT shows, especially with COVID, there is a huge amount of overfitting going on.

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

#318

Post by droidist2 »

xyzzyz wrote: post #214
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…

Do you think Americans were less adult in, say, 1930s, when only small fraction of them went to college?

I mean, they looked more adult. If you look at a high school year book from decades ago the seniors look like they're in their 30s. Maybe this means time is speeding up, or that life was harder then which aged them, like how outdoor cats often look all haggard. Then again was life really that much harder in the 1960s?

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

#319

Post by xyzzyz »

wolverine876 wrote: post #290
xyzzyz wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think Americans were less adult in, say, 1930s, when only small fraction of them went to college?

What do you mean by "less adult"? Do you think people were less adult before we had universal eduction? Are there benefits to their adulthood from it?

My point is that you claim that college prepares people to be adults “in every way”, so I wonder in what way today’s college graduates are more prepared to be adults than, say, overwhelming majority of adults were in 1930s, who didn’t have any college experience.

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

#320

Post by alfiedotwtf »

> personal essays

I've always seen that done in movies, but didn't actually think that was real. In Australia, AFAIK it's all computer ranked based on the performance of your last 2 years of high school - that's it.

> personal essay are surely more correlated and more hackable.

Exactly.

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