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U.S. Rep. Angie Craig drops college requirement for staffers

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Re: U.S. Rep. Angie Craig drops college requirement for staffers

#191

Post by kaitai »

wolverine876 wrote: post #173

Instead of better educating our population, the low-tax / anti-intellectual / authoritarian-reactionaries have convinced the population that they don't need education. With education, they might aim for socio-economic advancement (remember the American Dream?), think for themselves, challenge the established order (edit: i.e., they might decide to become the powerful and the leaders themselves). Now they know their p…

I have a friend with no college degree but a number of certifications in the insurance industry and most of a master's degree in a humanities field. Should said friend be allowed to proofread communications going out from Angie Craig's office?

I have a friend with an associate's degree who has great customer service skills. Should said friend be allowed to be a receptionist for Angie Craig?

I love education, I indulged in several degrees beyond college. I use those for highly specialized work now. But my spouse works at a hospital that literally can't carry out specialty surgeries right now because they can't hire enough low-paid staff for overnight support (not medical staff, but the other warm bodies who need to be around) and they can't staff the phone room for appointments, because they require a college degree of the person who calls you to confirm if 8 am will work or not. Folks with college degrees want to do something with their degree beyond confirming that 8 am is still good -- and can get paid more just about anywhere else.

Plenty of my lower-income friends & neighbors would've loved to have at least some college. But how do you pay $20k a year while also paying $10k for daycare and >$18k for rent when you're making $44k a year, the median pay for a high school grad in MN right now?

I applaud Angie Craig for opening up opportunities for advancement for talented people.

Re: U.S. Rep. Angie Craig drops college requirement for staffers

#192

Post by jltsiren »

jonas21 wrote: post #79
whydoyoucare wrote: post #20

University education has a been a "baseline" to determine qualified candidates. It also sorta implies broadened horizons, overall mature thought process, and several other qualities that are desirable the advisors/staffers. What other alternatives exists to University education that impart the same level of knowledge and understanding to an individual that can be consistently measured? If education is expensive, then…

> If education is expensive, then making it less expensive seems to be the natural solution than eliminating its requirement. One of the reasons college is expensive is that a degree is required for most jobs. This creates artificial demand, which drives up prices. Eliminating these requirements where they're not necessary is, in fact, a way to make college less expensive. And I'd argue that any time you see a requir…

Most college degrees are awarded by state universities. The price of typical college education is set by political process, not by the market. If college is expensive, it's expensive because making it affordable is not a priority for those who vote.

Re: U.S. Rep. Angie Craig drops college requirement for staffers

#193

Post by catiopatio »

taylodl wrote: post #179
version_five wrote: post #2

Sort of related, ontario is dropping university requirements for police: https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/ontario-eliminating-edu... I wonder if it's coincidence or the start of a trend back to sanity about job qualifications. Ironically, by becoming almost ubiquitous, university education also becomes irrelevant.

Soooo...education beyond the 3rd grade is irrelevant? I know I'm being snarky, but c'mon man! It wasn't that long ago the same could be said (and was said) for education past the 3rd grade, then the discussion moved to education past the 8th grade, and now it's moved to education past the 12th grade. It's just a rehash of the same, tired argument justifying a poorly-educated populace which makes for a poorly-educated…

This is a false equivalency.

The demand for higher education has outstripped the supply of students capable of making real use of it, and so standards have been lowered. The value of the education provided — and the value of the degree received — has dropped precipitously.

Up until the 50s/60s, education past the 12 grade was the exception, not the rule. A degree was valuable because not everyone had the capacity to attain it.

Re: U.S. Rep. Angie Craig drops college requirement for staffers

#194

Post by justrealist »

guynamedloren wrote: post #163
hangonhn wrote: post #61

Tangentially related, at my current job we do not filter candidates by certain "top schools" and it has lead to the most diverse (ethnic, gender, vocational background, social economic, nationality, etc.) team of software engineers I've ever worked on. This is in sharp contrast to all my previous jobs where they consistently filter by a list of schools. Obviously this is not a silver bullet but it's quite shocking to…

I'm clearly naive and haven't worked closely enough to filtering stage of of the hiring process, but nevertheless.. I'm shocked to hear that there was a deliberate and explicit filtering by a list of "top schools. An implicit look at the school and some dose of bias, okay sure, I could see it, but an explicit filter? Wow.

It's really hard to meaningfully evaluate college new grad resumes en masse. They all have the same useless class projects and an impossible-to-judge GPA.

Unless you spend an hour doing a tech screen for each person, they just all look identical. I don't endorse a strict filter, but I understand why people do it. Top colleges filter for something meaningful for entrance criteria, and it's easy to take advantage of their filtering.

Re: U.S. Rep. Angie Craig drops college requirement for staffers

#195

Post by kaitai »

sokoloff wrote: post #109
metalspot wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if a job has specific knowledge and skills requirements then it needs to have an objective test that people pass to be able to do the job. that is the only way to eliminate the systemic discrimination that the university system and degree requirements propagate. almost all serious jobs already have objective skills tests and licensing requirements for employment: doctors, lawyers, financial services, heavy equipment…

I'm 100% on-board with requiring an actual med school degree for my doctor rather than a skills-based test.

I find this to be a slightly weird argument. Med school degrees do have varying levels of quality. Moreover, in the US, you cannot be licensed without residency -- residency is practicing under supervision, essentially a skills-based set of active tests. Then after the residency program many physicians go for board certification, which is additional study and tests (run by a professional cabal that makes a ton of money off of questions about beaver fever, for instance).

Well, anyhow, you already do require skills-based assessment if you are seeing licensed physicians in the US. They don't let ppl practice with only book learning.

Re: U.S. Rep. Angie Craig drops college requirement for staffers

#196

Post by Eumenes »

kevviiinn wrote: post #11
version_five wrote: post #2

Sort of related, ontario is dropping university requirements for police: https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/ontario-eliminating-edu... I wonder if it's coincidence or the start of a trend back to sanity about job qualifications. Ironically, by becoming almost ubiquitous, university education also becomes irrelevant.

Police should definitely be more highly educated, we see the result of them not being so in the US

Getting some 4 year degree does not equate to 'highly educated'. College is an extension of high school for most americans, who didn't learn much there either.

Re: U.S. Rep. Angie Craig drops college requirement for staffers

#197

Post by logicalmonster »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #183
logicalmonster wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My opinion is that the Supreme Court Case Griggs v. Duke Power Company helped make college education effectively a job requirement for anything other than very simple labor. Before that, employers for any kind of professional job could offer some kind of IQ or other test so they could figure out if you had some basic level of competence and were capable of being trained to perform whatever task they needed. Since it'…

If you're right then we should expect countries where IQ tests are not illegal, to have experienced a slower increase in the % of young adults with degrees. I wonder if you've seen any data like this?

Anecdotally speaking, all I can remember hearing drilled into me in the American school system as the path for life success was going to college. The implication was that you'd be a loser who worked flipping burgers at McDonalds for the rest of your life if you didn't go to college.

As far as the data you ask for, I'm all for doing that kind of research, but there's probably many variables that are hard to directly even start to compare and interpret.

For instance, consider the impact of countries that are overall poorer than the US. It might be the case that this incentivizes a lot more people in other countries to go to school to try and escape a bad living standard. Or it might be the case that they don't have the resources to get to school even if they were desperate to educate themselves as much as possible. Even if you had this data, interpreting it would seem to be really tough.

Or what about countries with more homogenous populations? Perhaps IQ tests provide more value to employers in the US with a significantly heterogenous population and are far less useful in countries where just about everybody has the same overall background.

Re: U.S. Rep. Angie Craig drops college requirement for staffers

#198

Post by tombert »

wolverine876 wrote: post #173

Instead of better educating our population, the low-tax / anti-intellectual / authoritarian-reactionaries have convinced the population that they don't need education. With education, they might aim for socio-economic advancement (remember the American Dream?), think for themselves, challenge the established order (edit: i.e., they might decide to become the powerful and the leaders themselves). Now they know their p…

I am pretty much part of the academic system now (part time professor, part time PhD student) working in a field that generally expects a degree (software engineering). I don't think anyone would call me "anti-intellectual", and I live in one of the highest-taxed states in the country.

That being said, I really think it's reductive to say that not require a college degree on every damn job is "abandoning the American Dream". I don't think college is for everyone, and it's certainly not for everyone straight after high school. I did really poorly in college the first time around, dropped out, and did much better nine years later. I am very grateful that I was able to find work decent work without a degree.

Re: U.S. Rep. Angie Craig drops college requirement for staffers

#199

Post by kcplate »

Ensorceled wrote: post #171
kcplate wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those may be justifications people use, but ironically they are all statements that people take as true but in reality often are complete bullshit.

Some are, but many are lazy short cuts But can you honestly say you've never heard ANY justification.

I have heard a lot of attempts at justification, but short of highly specialized STEM oriented careers, there is hardly a job out there that requires a degree in my opinion.

Re: U.S. Rep. Angie Craig drops college requirement for staffers

#200

Post by segasaturn »

wolverine876 wrote: post #173

Instead of better educating our population, the low-tax / anti-intellectual / authoritarian-reactionaries have convinced the population that they don't need education. With education, they might aim for socio-economic advancement (remember the American Dream?), think for themselves, challenge the established order (edit: i.e., they might decide to become the powerful and the leaders themselves). Now they know their p…

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