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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

#361

Post by dijonman2 »

BlargMcLarg wrote: post #343
WalterBright wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was a teen, teenagers had after school jobs. McDonald's, stores, etc., were populated with teen workers at minimum wage. Today those jobs are held by adults, expecting to be able to raise a family on it. Teenagers rarely have jobs, their first job waits until after they graduate from college.

Cherry on top: once they graduate, they are met with "entry-level jobs" asking for years of experience, giant requirements lists and an overall predatory environment, only to be reinforced that failure is a personal fault and not one of the system.

Personal responsibility is a good thing. People need to fail, this is one of the few ways to see critical feedback that fosters growth.

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

#362

Post by rahimnathwani »

HarryHirsch wrote: post #340
rahimnathwani wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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'.

The market for teachers, at least in the US, is not a 'laissez-faire market' Whatever that means. In Alabama the low wages and poor working conditions have now led to a grave teacher shortage. The government's solution? Suspend teacher certification. To use graphic imagery: the talent pool is full of piss, let's open it to the incontinents!

"the talent pool is full of piss"

This suggests 'teacher certification' isn't effective at distinguishing between good and bad teachers.

"Suspend teacher certification"

If 'teacher certification' isn't useful for distinguishing good/bad teachers, then removing the requirement may be a good idea.

"In Alabama"

It's hard to fire bad teachers in Alabama. If you're a principal in an Alabama public school, you can't just give a poorly performing teachers 2-4 weeks' notice, freeing up the money to hire someone new. Look up 'Alabama teacher tenure'.

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

#363

Post by roughly »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #149
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…

> 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…

> 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?

Or it suggests that labor doesn't flow through the system as easily as the theory assumes it does, or that the theory assumes incorrect things about the world, or that it's just wrong on the face of it in a whole lot of actual real world cases. As the biologists say, it's usually not the lab mouse who's wrong.

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

#364

Post by slyall »

imgabe wrote: post #312

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 a…

It's interesting to compare this to newspapers which bundled many things together and then got in trouble when people could access them separately.

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

#365

Post by Johnny555 »

paulpauper wrote: post #314
dougmwne wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, becau…

My niece was in that situation -- she always had the latest iPhone, drove a nice (leased) car, went out to nice bars with friends, had nice clothes (but worked in a mall, so at least the clothes were inexpensive).

Turns out she was racking up 10's of thousands of dollars of credit card debt and skimping on necessities -- literally eating Ramen noodles at home and food she scavenged from friends at the mall, she wasn't paying her gas bill and got cut off after she accumulated over $3000 of unpaid bills (in the winter she heated only the bedroom of her apartment with a space heater), etc. It all started falling apart when she got pneumonia and was off work for a few weeks and couldn't pay any of her bills.

She had some of the accoutrements of a high standard of living, but was still very much living in poverty. She's living with her mom now and working on paying down the debt.

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

#366

Post by newsclues »

wolverine876 wrote: post #182
acidbaseextract wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Polymatter recently had a great video on the way the college ranking system is a hustle for foreign student money, and just how heavily it distorts colleges incentives: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQWlnTyOSig

Who or what is Polymatter? Why do you trust them? It would be useful if people said why they trust whatever they are linking to. Random stuff on the Internet isn't worth the time.

It’s a brand for a YouTube channel, like the name for TV programs.

Judge the content for yourself.

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

#367

Post by brailsafe »

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 in every way, not to be a resource for corporations.

Have you ever met someone fresh out of college? Let's be real, if they didn't do something before or during that wasn't college, they are arguably less qualified to do anything than an average person who didn't. Wew, they've memorized how to traverse a graph, or something something roman emperors

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

#368

Post by readingnews »

imgabe wrote: post #312

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 a…

I have worked at three universities. This is pretty insanely accurate.

You left out one item though. The main role US institutions are trying to fill right now is: hire new faculty, have faculty pull in 5+ Million dollar grants in order to get tenure. After tenure, pull in multi-million dollar grants each year.

Teaching? Never heard of it. OH! That thing the actual customers are paying us for... yes, have graduate students or temporary emergency hires do it since all of our "real" faculty are bringing in research dollars.

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

#369

Post by moltke »

QuadmasterXLII wrote: post #237
moltke wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

15 day old account, comments so far: races are just have different academic aptitudes, the US needs fewer immigrants, crypto is cool, the US needs fewer immigrants again, and the main agenda: the US needs to stop sending weapons to Ukraine.

I comment on technical threads that I'm interested in as well.

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

#370

Post by indymike »

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 in every way, not to be a resource for corporations.

Ironically, college starts preparing people to be adults at age 18, where in most jurisdictions in the US, you are already an adult.

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