I think US college education is nearer to collapsing than it appears • Hacker News Board

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

#601

Post by zzt123 » Mon, Mar 21, 2022, 4:21 AM UTC

Teknoman117 wrote: post #590

In reading further down that thread, I had a question about one of the tweets - why would a "zero discrimination" admission environment result in 65% of admitted college students being Asian-American? Assuming a completely unbiased and equal opportunity environment from birth until college (which obviously is not the situation, this just a hypothetical), wouldn't college admissions more or less be equal to the demogr…

That 65.8% seems high to me using benchmarks of UC and Stuyvesant, but it is true Asians would be “grossly over represented” at top schools if not for affirmative action. Thus the current push to enforce affirmative action on the UC system. Turns out minorities are only minorities if they underperform.

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

#602

Post by qiskit » Mon, Mar 21, 2022, 4:22 AM UTC

I agree with most of his premises but I don't see how his premises lead to his conclusion - US collge education is near to collapse.

1. School loan debts aren't ideal and we should look for ways to eliminate them permanently. It's ridiculous that american students have to start their adult lives with so much debt. However, the fact that so many students are willing to go into debt for college shows that they there is tremendous demand for college education. My alma mater has continuously raised tuition ( far higher than inflation ) and also increased enrollment and yet have no problem finding students. Even if they doubled the tuition, they would have no problem meeting their enrollment goals. The domestic and international demand for US college education is simply too great for it to collapse any time soon.

2. I've never worked with anyone in tech who didn't have at least some college education. Maybe the college education wasn't in CS, but they all had some college education. So the idea that tech companies are going to hire people without some college education seems suspect to me.

3. It's blatantly obvious colleges are discriminating against asian students to a ridiculous degree and white students to some degree as well. It should stop but I don't see how that would collapse US college education? Asian and white students still want and are going to get a college education.

4. Stopping standardized testing is also ridiculous. It shouldn't be the only factor in admissions, but certainly we need some form standardized testing in the mix. Admissions should be given more data to work with, not less. But once again, I fail to see how this would collapse US college education.

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

#603

Post by coderenegade » Mon, Mar 21, 2022, 4:26 AM UTC

antholeole wrote: post #119

tough wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Macro-farms and thousands of automation systems can make your need for human labour decrease more rapidly than people can find other jobs... It´s going to be a fuckin´mess, 4 dudes richer and everyone else screwed

Not sure about this: everyone else screwed seems kind of a far reach. If you consider screwed “unable to buy luxuries” then maybe, but I consider screwed “unable to buy food” and Macro farms stand to make food substantially cheaper. How will the four people get richer if the food they create is priced so high that no one can buy it? I get this is deeply economic and philosophical, but it’s an interesting thought expe…

The government steps in and subsidizes food for those who can't afford it, either by printing money, or using taxes. The end result is robbery from the commons while your four mates who give you kickbacks and a cushy post government gig get richer.

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

#604

Post by jxramos » Mon, Mar 21, 2022, 4:26 AM UTC

generativenoise wrote: post #474

netizen-936824 wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think Nobel prizes and happy students are mutually exclusive

I don't read it at mutually exclusive, more that pleasing students is not going to advance your research. So more of a witty, be mindful about what you are trying to achieve, what the preconditions actually are and direct effort appropriately.

Yep, in short you get good at what you do.

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

#605

Post by WoodenChair » Mon, Mar 21, 2022, 4:26 AM UTC

Sam Altman makes a lot of grandiose predictions and statements.

For example, in 2019 he said “Human radiologists are already much worse than computer radiologists. If I had to pick a human or an AI to read my scan, I’d pick the AI.” [0] However, most people with domain knowledge in this space still would not want their scan not to be read by a human. The AI radiology apps are generally narrowly focused and useful for consultation not diagnosis. [1]

In 2015 he predicted: “Self-driving cars are going to get here much faster than people think,” Altman said. He thought we’d see them in three to four years. [2]

I think he would be wise to learn from Bill Gates that it's a bad idea to over-predict what will happen in the short term. "We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten."

I'll add to this that it's generally a bad idea to make big predictions outside of areas that you have strong domain knowledge in. I doubt Sam Altman has strong domain knowledge around US higher education. Unfortunately, Silicon Valley culture is full of people who feel that because they've succeeded in one domain they have some kind of hidden insight into others.

[0] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/26/sam-altman-on-ai-jobs-may-go...

[1] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00330-020-07230-9

[2] https://techcrunch.com/2015/10/06/elon-musk-sam-altman-say-s...

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

#606

Post by jessaustin » Mon, Mar 21, 2022, 4:27 AM UTC

Sparyjerry wrote: post #512

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...

Debt is just a result of poor education. People literally not realizing what is happening with credit card debt is 100% an education problem. I've had girlfriends who build up credit card debt like they were going for a high score until I tell them what it's doing and how much they could save. They literally don't understand that buying something they want because its on sale at a 20% discount on the credit card is n…

Our current president has been in the employ of credit card companies for decades. Many others in Congress and in state offices are the same. Do you really think they're going to allow "education" (or anything, really) to cut into their bottom line? This would be like Raytheon allowing us to get into fewer stupid wars. There may be a nation like that, but we don't live in it.

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

#607

Post by seneca » Mon, Mar 21, 2022, 4:30 AM UTC

bradleyjg wrote: post #450

noobermin wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me explain a line of reasoning that would refute the explanation you provide for the ballooning debt. Universities have not generally changed the way they do things, universities have always been the four things OP listed since forever, even when you likely got your degree (assuming you did, or at the very least most of hacker news did), they were those four things too! Therefore, there is no inherent thing to un…

What’s the ratio of tenured professors to total staff from, say, 1970 to today? Colleges were captured by professional administrators. That’s what’s changed, and the results are entirely predictable. See, also, hospitals.

> Colleges were captured by professional administrators.

This is, as I understand it, correct. Administrators as a percentage of university staff has ballooned. The explanation I've seen for this is that they are needed to handle ever increasing amounts of regulations. This is the same problem faced by hospitals.

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

#608

Post by uncomputation » Mon, Mar 21, 2022, 4:33 AM UTC

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…

There was an article on HN a few weeks ago talking about the slowing pace of “innovation” in the modern world, the lack of an Einstein or a Bohr or a Feynman. I have no evidence of this and maybe the entire notion is unfounded in the first place but I think this framing:

- teaching marketable skills so people can get jobs

- teaching "how to think" and learning about art and culture

is part of the problem. When you go back and look at many of science and philosophy’s “greatest,” they were almost always deeply curious and inquisitive people and interested in many things, not just what they are known for now. They read other “greats” and were well-balanced intellectually.

I think a problem now is we are producing unbalanced minds, the equivalent of a bodybuilder who skips leg day, every day. Perhaps there is some something to be said about encouraging a diversity of thought, people who read poetry as you say. It is likely no coincidence that genuine genius is extremely divergent and radical in thought, likely not someone who learns physics and only physics with no other interests.

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

#609

Post by mac01021 » Mon, Mar 21, 2022, 4:34 AM UTC

tick_tock_tick wrote: post #167

tough wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We really need them if we want to farm in sustainable and moral ways, as we have done by thousands of years. But point maken

> We really need them if we want to farm in sustainable and moral ways How so? Sustainable farming has nothing to do with a man vs machine doing the labor. Moral as in we need to make sure people can keep doing this job or what kind of argument are you even making? I'd rather see improved social safety nets and job training then some appeal to history that people need to work the fields because we've always done that…

> How so?

Modern industrial farming practices, designed to optimize agricultural output per unit of labor, are an ecological and environmental travesty. They require the widespread use of pesticides and toxic fertilizers that are decimating the biosphere. Monocropping unsustainably degrades soil quality. And the large contiguous areas used for industrial agricultural operations are extremely disruptive to wildlife.

The most obvious solution to the above is an agricultural system with many more, much smaller farms, where human beings do the work currently done by machines and chemicals.

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

#610

Post by bestcoder69 » Mon, Mar 21, 2022, 4:36 AM UTC

givemeethekeys wrote: post #562

For those who care about things like "social fabric", the unintended consequences of not being able to declare bankruptcy on a student loan are that there's a strong possibility that your future wife, if she's above average looking with a great education was a stripper / escort for a little while to help pay off that loan. This is what happens when we ban people from being able to declare bankruptcy.

Strong possibility? Like what odds are we talking here?