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…
On the cutting edge research point, one of the reasons universities are structured this way is because students want to learn from leading researchers in their respective fields. This ensures that the education they are paying for is not out of date. I agree that this isn't that important for the first year or two as an undergrad but it can be pretty great later on in your education.
That’s a shame, because sometimes graduate students are better teachers than research faculty.
You can also go to a school where professors are employed for their ability to teach. Choosing to go to a research institution seems like such an obviously poor choice it’s strange people get suckered into it. But it’s clear education is a low priority for both students and collages.
> Choosing to go to a research institution seems like such an obviously poor choice it’s strange people get suckered into it.
The best educations happen in research labs. Undergraduates should get a good foundation years 1 and 2, and then find their way as a junior research assistant years 3 and 4 if they want to make the best of their University years. These days you can follow along with any course you want on YouTube. At University you are paying to get access to top researchers and the work they do.
>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.
The free market applies at every level, but it does take time to find it's level. Is the problem that people won't just raise the wages, like the other poster described? Absolutely not. The location that doesn't raise it wages will end up losing in the end if there truly is a labor supply problem. They may refuse to raise their wages, but they will get the lower quality applicants, lower quality workers, and maybe not any workers at all if they don't raise it enough. The fact is it takes time for market to adjust and those that don't follow the market get left behind. The businesses that aren't efficient enough to run on fewer employees will get left behind. Companies don't go bankrupt overnight but they do go bankrupt eventually if they aren't as efficient as other companies. Those that make bad decisions, that raise wages to much, will get hurt, and those that don't raise them enough will get hurt. The fact is wages are only one factor and in a free market it will always find the correct level over time.
No it's not. I was going to write one but then decided I'm not qualified to speak for farmers. I will say this. Both my grandfathers were farmers. One worked his whole life and died broke. The other invested what he could, and never worked the land a day in my life (that I can remember). He once said that he didnt make his money farming, meaning it was from saving and investing. He rented his land, barn, and equipmen…
Thats doesn't mean we need more farmers.
Yes, feel free to say that farmers are payed low. But it remains the same that if they are paid this low, then we don't really need more farmers entering the industry.
Instead hopefully less people will join that industry.
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…
The first should be trade schools Just so professors dont have to act oblivious as to why students are there, some still revert to “wdym, you should be here for the pursuit of learning” But there is merit to that, the schools reserved for the upper echelon of society (in terms of most coveted exclusive network and access) have been around for like 300 years, they can weather this several decade long meme of inclusion…
I also think we could subsidize a few years of on the job training. It can be difficult for trade schools to keep up with industry.
A year of trade school for some very general health and safety / common sense / anything they missed in high school, then into the workplace to learn from people actually doing the job.
"College and university were never supposed to be about job training. They were supposed to teach one how to learn so you could become a lifelong learner" I see little benefit in discussing how things should be instead of what they are. There are clearly forces that pivoted universities towards what they are today, telling people what university should be isn't gonna fix anything. More importantly, who decided univer…
> I see little benefit in discussing how things should be instead of what they are. There are clearly forces that pivoted universities towards what they are today, telling people what university should be isn't gonna fix anything. What makes you say they are that, and for everyone, and from everyone's perception? Because lots of people say it on HN? Because lots of people say it anywhere? Does that make it true? And…
> If I want to learn about history, it would be good to have experts in history, books about history, other people studying history, etc.?
That would be true prior to the internet and/or digitalization of resources.
Today, a kid in the 3rd world country can access those very same resources. Whats left is the value of the credential - accepted in the marketplace.
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…
You get negative points for answering incorrectly, to disincentivize blind guessing.
I believe it doesn't disincentivize blind guessing. It just counteracts it. If you can eliminate one answer you should guess. Even if you can't eliminate an answer you break even.
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.
At least in my limited knowledge, it's the small time farmers that commit suicide (so owner that works), and generally in the older population. What else are you going to do if you've been doing that your whole life, you're 50, no college (or it was for agriculture)? You likely can't stay where you are because many of the areas are depressed and they'll take your land if you can't pay the taxes, are foreclosed, etc.…
Yes, people agree that farm works sucks and have low wage.
But the point that you and others are missing is that if farm works sucks, and pays low, then that means we should not be sending more people to become farmers.