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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

#851

Post by mordymoop »

Forgeties79 wrote: post #518
beloch wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing I was told as a grad student that I've never forgotten is, "Nobody has ever won a Nobel prize for having happy students". At the time, I was struggling to keep up with the marking demands of a new (i.e. This was the first year it was taught) course I was TA'ing. I had around a hundred students and each one was generating 10-20 pages of handwritten lab reports per week. Student writing varied from human type…

It is so refreshing to see this take. I was on a path to be a history Ph.D candidate - I wanted to teach, and archive diving is basically my own personal drug. The problem is it’s “publish or perish,” as we all know. My higher priority, i.e. teaching, was essentially an obstacle. You know how I know that? My own advisor and other department members told me not to get my doctorate (after writing a 60 page thesis mind…

I didn’t find out until many years after graduating that the US is sprinkled with what are known as Primarily Undergraduate Institutions (PUIs), including a large number of well-regarded 4-year colleged which don’t have graduate programs, the professors don’t do (much) research (but do have PhDs generally) and the hiring and evaluation decisions are 90% based on teaching.

These institutions are usually on the small side and don’t make money in grants because they don’t do research, so they don’t spend millions in advertising or in sending out interviewers to thousands of high schools. So there’s a good chance you’ve never heard of even the ones you live near to.

These schools tend to produce both better experiences (less reliance on the painful “weed-out course” degree plan architecture of huge school) and somewhat better outcomes. I will almost certainly be sending my kids to be PUI and not a megaversity when they’re older.

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

#852

Post by Jtype »

wolverine876 wrote: post #587
chinchilla2020 wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SAT is one of the strongest correlations of academic success and future income. Where did you hear that it isn't? I worked in edtech analytics for a while where SAT among other factors were correlated with student success. SAT scores correlate with graduation rates, college GPA, job placement. Most elite universities also tend to receive applicants with higher SAT scores (A no brainer)

I read research that it wasn't, and I believe many colleges claimed that it wasn't. Since neither of us is citing anything, I will keep an eye out. > Most elite universities also tend to receive applicants with higher SAT scores Many don't use SAT scores anymore.

I think you read propaganda.

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

#853

Post by efficax »

mathattack wrote: post #849

There is a lot of talk about decoupling universities, and their coming collapse. Let me take the contrary opinion, and defend why they will stay. (This is not a defense of their efficacy, only their economics) Private non-profit universities are essentially run by their tenures faculty. At prestigious universities the focus is primarily research. Everything they do should be in the eyes of this stakeholder group. The…

> Private non-profit universities are essentially run by their tenures faculty

Nonsense. They're run by their boards and by professional administrators. The faculty have been steadily losing real influence since the MBAs started getting involved in universities in the 1980s. (Universities at the big level are basically holding companies managing assets called an Endowment that just happen to hold classes)

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

#854

Post by Forgeties79 »

mordymoop wrote: post #851
Forgeties79 wrote: post #518

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is so refreshing to see this take. I was on a path to be a history Ph.D candidate - I wanted to teach, and archive diving is basically my own personal drug. The problem is it’s “publish or perish,” as we all know. My higher priority, i.e. teaching, was essentially an obstacle. You know how I know that? My own advisor and other department members told me not to get my doctorate (after writing a 60 page thesis mind…

I didn’t find out until many years after graduating that the US is sprinkled with what are known as Primarily Undergraduate Institutions (PUIs), including a large number of well-regarded 4-year colleged which don’t have graduate programs, the professors don’t do (much) research (but do have PhDs generally) and the hiring and evaluation decisions are 90% based on teaching. These institutions are usually on the small s…

Fascinating. I’ll look into these - never heard of them!

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

#855

Post by jokoon »

I am not american, but how do so many people decide to get a student loan? Is that the same scenario of 2008? Are there loan sharks for student loan? Do universities encourage student to get a loan?

Are there a lot of people who are going to default? It sounds like a new 2008 all over again.

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

#856

Post by i_am_proteus »

mathattack wrote: post #849

There is a lot of talk about decoupling universities, and their coming collapse. Let me take the contrary opinion, and defend why they will stay. (This is not a defense of their efficacy, only their economics) Private non-profit universities are essentially run by their tenures faculty. At prestigious universities the focus is primarily research. Everything they do should be in the eyes of this stakeholder group. The…

Whether undergraduates (really their parents and the government supplying their loans and grants) attend and pay for a school is based on the "brand" and more than the education, so the institution cares more about the brand than the education.

Research, however, directly brings in money through grants, and "better" research faculty publish more and bring in more grant money.

The incentives are very straightforward and the universities are responding to them.

If NIH, DOD, etc., had a metric on grant applications asking what percentage of department faculty were in full-time professional teaching positions (not adjuncts, educators with no research expectation, often called "Professor of Practice") targeting ≥20%, this ship would right itself in a couple of years.

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

#857

Post by holbrad »

While I don't agree with him entirely. Brian Caplan has some interesting thoughts on the topic of education.

Around the idea that most of the value is around signalling to others (Via credentials), rather than what you learn.*

Certainly from talking to other people about their recent university education (UK), most people seem to agree that they leant & retained very little.

I can't help but wonder if for a lot of people an apprenticeship scheme would be better overall.

*Summarising a whole book in a sentence is rather difficult, and I surely didn't do it justice.

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

#858

Post by kwhitefoot »

beloch wrote: post #424
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…

One thing I was told as a grad student that I've never forgotten is, "Nobody has ever won a Nobel prize for having happy students". At the time, I was struggling to keep up with the marking demands of a new (i.e. This was the first year it was taught) course I was TA'ing. I had around a hundred students and each one was generating 10-20 pages of handwritten lab reports per week. Student writing varied from human type…

Why do US universities use students as teaching assistants in the first place?

If you study for a PhD in the UK then the academic and research work is what you are there for and all that you do. And that means you get it done in much less time.

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

#859

Post by ajb »

gruez wrote: post #263
ajb wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everything is like the laws of physics, which continue to work over many orders of magnitude. Supply and demand for employment works backwards at both the top and the bottom of the salary range. At the top, beyond a certain point supply decreases because people save enough to give up working. At the other end, reducing post can increase supply because people's need for income of inelastic below a certain point, s…

>Supply and demand for employment works backwards at both the top and the bottom of the salary range. At the top, beyond a certain point supply decreases because people save enough to give up working. Is this really applicable to this context? In other words, are farming jobs really going to get to a point where the pay is $10M a year, and people only take the job for a year and then never work another day? Consideri…

No, the case of farm workers is much more likely to be the opposite one, where workers are paid so little that they take multiple jobs and increase supply, leading to a low income trap.

Every mechanism has regimes in which it fails. 'Supply and demand' isn't always the answer any more than 'mongodb' or 'rust' are always the answer.

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

#860

Post by TimPC »

I wonder if liability for brain damage due to certain popular sports will end up being a factor. The fund the NFL set aside was rather expensive and it’s quite clear colleges will soon be required to do the same. Football has long been regarded as free money but giving people brain damage has very real costs.
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