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

We certainly do know how, and we've done it. The message of hopelessness is the message, perhaps unwittingly, of the white supremacists, who want nothing to be done, who want racial division to appear hopeless and unavoidable.

From segregation and lynchings in the 1950s, we now have civil rights, almost universal acceptance of interracial marriage (I think the surveys ~1960 showed ~3% acceptance), African-American education and welfare has skyrocketed - but from such a low point that it still has far to go. We elected a black President. Racism in other circumstances has died - against Germans (esp. in Revolutionary times), Italians, Irish, Catholics, Jews, Mormans, etc. etc.

But now they have made it fashionable to argue against even the presence of racism, against all fact and observation - even in this very thread, where someone openly claimed race determined educational outcomes. I periodically here openly racist comments from white people I know - as a simple example, when the plan to pay for community college fell through in Congress, one white person I know said, with a laugh, 'thank god; now we won't have to pay for blacks to go to college'. And people take it up. We live in the post-truth world, where people align with whatever can be insisted upon, and many are and will pay the cost.

>> One thing that does correlate with educational outcomes, more than anything iirc, is parental wealth.

> Really?

Yes, you can find the research easily.

> If anything it may well be that once broad outcomes improve, this will help obviate much of the previously existing motive for harmful prejudice and discrimination against Blacks.

We have 400 years history of racism; attributing it to educational outcomes has no basis.

That being said, I have some reservations about the college admissions process and I think this Twitter thread addresses it well. In particular, I think there is an ongoing trend to eliminate standardized tests in favor of more "subjective" and "holistic" measurements like your essays and extracurriculars. While I think it's perfectly fine to have students write about themselves and their achievements, I think it's still way too integral to the admissions process and there needs to be more balance. Personally, when I wrote my essays, even though I was trying to be authentic and I did write about experiences that were meaningful to me, I always felt as if it wasn't enough. I just kept wondering, "what are they looking for?" And I couldn't really get a good grasp of whether what I was writing was "good" or not. To me, the essays completely obscure the nature of the admissions process because no college can clearly tell you what they want. Hell, even some admissions officers seem to dodge the question when you ask them what they look for in an essay (or they provide really vague answers). I think it's silly to make the essays so critical to the process when they clearly don't allow anyone to extrapolate concrete things about a person's abilities or skills. Many smart people I know were rejected from universities that I think they should have gotten into even though they easily would fit in and thrive in those places.

By the end of the college admissions process, even though I was happy with the college I got into, I honestly felt a little jaded. Sure, I'm happy that I got in, but I feel as if I couldn't properly communicate my skills to the admissions officers. It just makes me feel as if your skills matter less than your ability to impress people. Maybe it was naïve of me to think that it would be different in an academic institution compared to the corporate world, but it is a little disheartening in the end.

I know a lot of people will disagree with this, but this post resonated with me and I felt that I needed to share my thoughts.

Collegiate athletics emerged as lucrative entertainment, over decades. It's not as if they established sports teams originally in order to make money or to become training ground for pro teams. And good luck getting them to forfeit this willingly.

A minor league could show up to compete, but would it offer athletes an opportunity for a rite of passage too? And could it offer a hedge for the athletes who don't graduate to higher pro leagues? IMO baseball is probably a good place to look for answers because it has both a minor pro league and NCAA "student-athletes". Ice hockey, too, IIRC.

Yours is a shittier take.

I agree government should fund education. Sam agrees, but it needs to come with a long term solution.

Canceling debt now has 2 issues.

1. The current proposal is extremely unfair to poor people who decided not to take a student loan. And I never see anyone address this unfairness.

2. It will skyrocket the tuition cost even more.