Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Coming Meltdown In College Education & Why The Economy Won’t Get Better Soon

blogmaverick.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 302 posts

Re: The Coming Meltdown In College Education & Why The Economy Won’t Get Better Soon

#41

Post by learc83 »

impendia wrote: post #16

I am in my first year as a mathematics professor at the University of South Carolina. Having moved here from Stanford, I've noticed several things. (1) Many students are woefully underprepared. In my calculus classes I have found that a great many of the students have not mastered high school algebra. And these are the students who pass our placement exam, and aren't obliged to take one of our many algebra and precal…

>I have found that a great many of the students have not mastered high school algebra.

That's been my experience tutoring all of my younger siblings.

I think that we'd be better served if all 4 years of high school were spent mastering basic algebra (with exceptions of course).

A mastery of basic algebra will better prepare you for college than a cursory understanding of trig and calculus.

Re: The Coming Meltdown In College Education & Why The Economy Won’t Get Better Soon

#42

Post by _delirium »

Swizec wrote: post #21
ntkachov wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great. They fail at that too. There have been a few studies that show that after 2 years of college, the difference in reading, writing, math, and critical thinking are negligible. So if you're not good for the industry, you're terrible at what you're made for, what good are you?

This probably depends a lot on the course one is taking. I have a feeling (from observing the people around me) engineers are a lot better at critical thinking and logical reasoning after a couple years of college than they were coming out of high school. From my observation it takes about ~4 years for the really observable differences to settle in ... it might also just be maturity. Difficult to say :)

It's definitely my experience that it's hard to find people with high levels of mathematical knowledge who don't have a 4-year, technical-field bachelor's degree. It's of course possible this is merely a correlation, but I would at least hypothetize that the students who've finished a four-year degree in an area like mathematics, computer science, electrical engineering, or physics, have more mathematical sophistication than they would have had if they had not finished that degree and taken/passed the mathematics classes it required.

It's not impossible to self-teach, but as far as I can tell, self-taught people usually don't self-teach mathematics, at least not successfully. Among self-taught programmers without CS degrees, for example, it's quite common to find people who are skilled coders, but much less common to find people who have a strong mathematical grounding.

Heck, if you want someone who really knows statistics and data mining, to take one example, I haven't met many people without grad-school experience who fit the bill. Masters degree is good, some PhD experience is better (finishing a PhD doesn't matter as much; ABD is fine).

Re: The Coming Meltdown In College Education & Why The Economy Won’t Get Better Soon

#43

Post by jellicle »

Mark Cuban writes: "As an employer I want the best prepared and qualified employees. I could care less if the source of their education was accredited by a bunch of old men and women who think they know what is best for the world. I want people who can do the job. I want the best and brightest. Not a piece of paper."

So, I suppose I could be wrong, but I would be willing to bet a great deal of money that Mark Cuban does not employ anyone in any sort of white-collar job who doesn't have a college degree from an accredited college.

It's nice for Mark Cuban to say that, but the reality is if you submit your resume to Mark Cuban Enterprises, Inc. where you list your education as being from the First Internet School of Book Learnin', Mark Cuban's HR people are going to delete it offhand. They're not going to call you. They're not going to try to find out if you're the best and brightest. They're going to delete it and call the guy who has Yale on his resume. Sorry.

Re: The Coming Meltdown In College Education & Why The Economy Won’t Get Better Soon

#45

Post by mbell »

Retric wrote: post #34
learc83 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The reason student loan debt has ballooned isn’t because students are paying more. That's not true, I've seen numerous articles on the cost of public colleges increasing much faster than inflation. Anecdote: I dropped out of Georgia State in 2007, I'm going back now to finish my last few semesters of a math degree. The cost has more than doubled in the last 5 years.

He just refuted that argument by denoting that 'price' as the sticker price. New Mexico for example gives all students attending a state school with a high school GPA over 2.5 a scholorship. The state could just directly give public schools the same money for in state students and avoid the 'scholorship' angle. But, this approach offers better publicity and if you have below a 2.5 GPA in a public high-school you migh…

> New Mexico for example gives all students attending a state school with a high school GPA over 2.5 a scholorship.

Where do you think that money is coming from?

Re: The Coming Meltdown In College Education & Why The Economy Won’t Get Better Soon

#46

Post by scoofy »

Student debt is not like housing.

1. Education is an game-theoretic arms race. It's very valuable iff you are the only few who have it. If you do not have it your are at a serious disadvantage. This creates an incentive to perpetuate the current overspending. This, obviously, is a recipe for entirely too much wasteful spending on education, and that needs to change, but i don't see how it creates a higher education 'crash'.

2. A diploma is not a commodity. You cannot sell it; you cannot flip one. You cannot speculate on it beyond the initial investment. No one is going to give you a education equity loan. It is not treated as collateral. Your diploma will not be repossessed, therefore the lenders need to be more conservative when issuing student loans (leave that to the actuaries).

While i will admit there is the potential for losses in the ABS market, these are typically guaranteed loans. Will this create problem for the Fed? If the economy continues in the doldrums it's certainly a possibility, but comparing these securities to the chaos the CDS market sent us through, i doubt it.

Re: The Coming Meltdown In College Education & Why The Economy Won’t Get Better Soon

#47

Post by Retric »

cantankerous wrote: post #38
Retric wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He just refuted that argument by denoting that 'price' as the sticker price. New Mexico for example gives all students attending a state school with a high school GPA over 2.5 a scholorship. The state could just directly give public schools the same money for in state students and avoid the 'scholorship' angle. But, this approach offers better publicity and if you have below a 2.5 GPA in a public high-school you migh…

Which argument are you talking about? If the cost doubled for him to pay out of pocket, it doubled for him. Talking about sticker price vs. adjusted metrics is really arguing semantics in this case if somebody is stuck paying what's charged up front.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_discrimination

If he can afford to pay twice as much and did so then the school was wise to raise it's sticker price. They can then take the 'surplus' that he paid and use it to reduce the price of a more desirable students who are less able to pay.

Re: The Coming Meltdown In College Education & Why The Economy Won’t Get Better Soon

#48

Post by zerohp »

learc83 wrote: post #41
impendia wrote: post #16

I am in my first year as a mathematics professor at the University of South Carolina. Having moved here from Stanford, I've noticed several things. (1) Many students are woefully underprepared. In my calculus classes I have found that a great many of the students have not mastered high school algebra. And these are the students who pass our placement exam, and aren't obliged to take one of our many algebra and precal…

>I have found that a great many of the students have not mastered high school algebra. That's been my experience tutoring all of my younger siblings. I think that we'd be better served if all 4 years of high school were spent mastering basic algebra (with exceptions of course). A mastery of basic algebra will better prepare you for college than a cursory understanding of trig and calculus.

I'm an older student attending my local community college, and I agree with you completely. I watch my classmates in Calculus and Physics courses struggle with algebra much more than the new material we are learning.

High schools should focus on algebra and geometry for the majority of students.

Re: The Coming Meltdown In College Education & Why The Economy Won’t Get Better Soon

#49

Post by davyjones »

jellicle wrote: post #43

Mark Cuban writes: "As an employer I want the best prepared and qualified employees. I could care less if the source of their education was accredited by a bunch of old men and women who think they know what is best for the world. I want people who can do the job. I want the best and brightest. Not a piece of paper." So, I suppose I could be wrong, but I would be willing to bet a great deal of money that Mark Cuban d…

Correct. I have found blog posts where there are snippets about how they are "looking for bright and interesting minds and college degree does not matter" but when you look at their Jobs page, you have a BS Computer Science or equivalent requirement listed there.

Re: The Coming Meltdown In College Education & Why The Economy Won’t Get Better Soon

#50

Post by bennesvig »

jellicle wrote: post #43

Mark Cuban writes: "As an employer I want the best prepared and qualified employees. I could care less if the source of their education was accredited by a bunch of old men and women who think they know what is best for the world. I want people who can do the job. I want the best and brightest. Not a piece of paper." So, I suppose I could be wrong, but I would be willing to bet a great deal of money that Mark Cuban d…

It's probably easier to get a response from Cuban himself than any of his HR people. Didn't he invest in a teenagers company on Shark Tank?
Post reply on HN