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

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

#151

Post by stdgy »

randomdata wrote: post #108
jey wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does say "BS Computer Science or equivalent " -- so they're asking for a certain level of education, which doesn't necessarily have to be in the form of a college degree.

It is interesting that they still choose to use college-level credentials as the baseline metric though. Why not "Four years of demonstrable self-directed learning in the study, or equivalent"?

In my mind that's not really the same thing.

Universities have requirements you need to cover in order to graduate. So when a job lists a BS CS degree as a requirement, they're saying they expect you to be familiar with the core subjects of the field. Certainly not an expert in any one subject, but at least familiar. (If they want subject area experts they'll usually be advertising for MS/PhD with a focus in [blah]) Obviously this still gives the Universities a great deal of trust, with the implication that in order to receive the degree, you had to demonstrate your capability. That's a sizable question mark, even though it's what University accreditation is supposed to be for...

Sorry, went off on a bit of a tangent there. Anyways, four years of self-directed learning won't necessarily cover the same subject matter they may expect you to be familiar with.

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

#152

Post by ThomPete »

The only thing that will make the economy better is if more people try and create businesses and find niche areas that allow them to hire people.

To do this risk taking and courage is needed. Two things you do not learn in the university. We need more people who are ready to challenge their fear of failure than their intellectual score card.

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

#153

Post by evoxed »

kitsune_ wrote: post #148
lordlicorice wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to overstate the value of a university education... Why are you so vehement? Never went to college?

In Switzerland, which traditionally has seen a low rate in college degrees, and has relied on its apprenticeship system for a long time, we have seen an explosion in new college titles with the bologna reform. You want to be a janitor? Congratulations, you can now get a master in "facility management". Teaching special needs children? You better get started on that degree! You want to be a librarian? Well, what about…

To be fair, library science is a field which many people dedicate a huge chunk of their lives to, often through some pretty rigorous undergraduate work. The professional accreditation is usually required for scholarly posts. 'Information science' is another thing entirely (though if that's your point, then, well... OK).

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

#154

Post by earl »

mkramlich wrote: post #104
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…

Fuck college. It's not the only way to learn, to meet people, or to show your expertise, capabilities and accomplishments anymore. We have this thing called the Internet now. Write a book. Put a PDF online. Record a video of yourself giving an intelligent speech or showing some useful talent. Put it on YouTube. Write software. Put on GitHub. Answer technical questions well on StackExchange (or whatever for your parti…

In theory, I agree. In practice, college is a very useful signal. And it's not just the coursework from the college major. College demonstrates a variety of soft skills: time management, the ability to plan and meet deadlines, the ability to work on what's necessary when it's necessary, a willingness to suck it up and do some unglamorous but necessary drudge work, etc. I've worked with a variety of people that haven't gone to college and with few exceptions they were lacking in these areas.

Obviously all those skills can be learned elsewhere, but as a hiring manager, it's a major time investment to try and suss that out whereas having a college degree with good grades means more likely than not that the candidate possesses those skills.

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

#155

Post by tsotha »

ender7 wrote: post #60
grannyg00se wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that's all your resume says, then you're probably right. But there should be something on there that indicates that you can do the job otherwise you wasted your time applying. The point is that education says nothing about being able to do the job in many cases. If you are applying for an engineering position and you have MIT on your resume, that is certainly going to imply that you very likely have what it takes.…

Unfortunately, "went to MIT" is both easily recognizable and easily verified. "Built a fusion reactor in my basement" is neither of those things. Similarly, "check out my GitHub" has many of the same problems. I'm sorry, but most employers don't have time to look you up on GitHub to crawl through all your commits. That will happen if you get past the first cut, but it won't do anything beforehand. Sure, you can put "…

>Unfortunately, "went to MIT" is both easily recognizable and easily verified.

Most people miss the point on why this is important. MIT doesn't teach its undergrads anything they couldn't learn at the local state school for a fraction of the price. But you have to be really smart to get in to MIT. That's what employers care about - not what you did when you were there, but that you got in.

The root of the problem is Griggs v Duke Power. This problem isn't going to go away until companies can give IQ tests again without the legal peril, because otherwise employers don't have much to go on besides where you went to school.

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

#156

Post by georgemcbay »

tzs wrote: post #106
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.

The situation seems to be quite different at private schools. Here's a graph of Stanford tuition from 1920 to 2011, plotted on a log scale: http://imgur.com/dGiSi I've put a linear regression line on top. It's a pretty good fit. I can't find the data now to do a plot for it, but I saw similar numbers for Harvard from around 1970 to present, and they similarly showed a pretty steady growth. Public schools are much mor…

Stanford is a terrible single data point to use as a representation for "private schools". The amount of fundraising they do tends to approach a billion dollars per year (2009 was a bad year, they only got $640 million that year) and their endowment stands at almost $17 billion dollars.

Having a boatload of super-rich, super-giving alumni is great, and helps keep tuition costs from rising too quickly... but it is not the norm for private schools.

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

#157

Post by mjdwitt »

evoxed wrote: post #153
kitsune_ wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Switzerland, which traditionally has seen a low rate in college degrees, and has relied on its apprenticeship system for a long time, we have seen an explosion in new college titles with the bologna reform. You want to be a janitor? Congratulations, you can now get a master in "facility management". Teaching special needs children? You better get started on that degree! You want to be a librarian? Well, what about…

To be fair, library science is a field which many people dedicate a huge chunk of their lives to, often through some pretty rigorous undergraduate work. The professional accreditation is usually required for scholarly posts. 'Information science' is another thing entirely (though if that's your point, then, well... OK).

Similarly, at least in much of the US, teaching special needs teachers requires extra certification on top of a normal teacher's license. Without all kinds of extra classes on the various psychological and physical disorders that they deal with in their classrooms, the extra classes seem pretty justified.

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

#158

Post by kitsune_ »

mjdwitt wrote: post #157
evoxed wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, library science is a field which many people dedicate a huge chunk of their lives to, often through some pretty rigorous undergraduate work. The professional accreditation is usually required for scholarly posts. 'Information science' is another thing entirely (though if that's your point, then, well... OK).

Similarly, at least in much of the US, teaching special needs teachers requires extra certification on top of a normal teacher's license. Without all kinds of extra classes on the various psychological and physical disorders that they deal with in their classrooms, the extra classes seem pretty justified.

Of course you need extra certification for teaching special needs. That's not the point. My question is, do you need a college degree for it?

I used this example because it relates to my mother, who recently got a master in this field. First of all, I'm proud of how my mother pulled that off at that age, while still working at her old job!

That said, the courses were largely theoretical mixed with a minuscule amount of practical studies. How many of the graduates will be able to pursue an academic career in this field after this degree? Maybe 1% (Note, this number is pure guesswork). The rest will actually end up assisting kindergarten teachers with their "disorderly" children.

In many cases, they should function as a buffer, protecting the child from overzealous kindergarten teachers who want to get rid of the troublemakers asap. This is important because a lot of developmental "deficiencies" are not there forever or can be mitigated. I digress. From my point of view, the actual theoretical work was frankly substandard. I don't think it has to do with me applying the standards of "hard science" to a "soft field". No, simply put, those professors didn't know that much to begin with and neither did many of the students.

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

#159

Post by jongalloway2 »

ninguem2 wrote: post #74

Mark Cuban should be able to afford to hire some unemployed English major to proofread his blog posts.

Yes, or use a browser or blog client with basic spell check / grammar check. That was painful to read.

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

#160

Post by gfodor »

The author is right about some things, wrong about others. He's right that student debt is a timebomb. Anyone who knows a student struggling with it realizes this. The amount of debt students are saddled with is astronomical, and has turned this generation into a one of indentured servitude to their financiers. Something is going to have to give.

He's wrong, at least somewhat, on what the future holds. There are multiple roles to a university, and multiple motives to developing a higher education. I think some of these roles are ripe for disruption, others not so much.

It's hard to imagine graduate-level research happening in any other environment than an academic university. It's easy to imagine an undergraduate education in engineering or mathematics being delivered and certified completely through the internet.

Harder to imagine, but possible, are "micro-universities" which pop up organically that criss-cross with meatspace, which re-use existing course materials for information transfer but also incorporate the less tangible things such as "learning to learn" and in-person collaboration. I can imagine seeing job candidates walk in the door that have a completely custom education, self-driven by their own particular desires and nurtured and accredited as focused, disciplined study by these micro-universities.

It's truly an exciting time in education. I imagine the initiatives we're seeing now from Khan Academy, Coursera, and Udacity will be looked back upon as groundbreaking but charmingly rudimentary 10 years from now. I expect big things as more and more smart people begin to tip-toe away from traditional educational models and take bigger risks, both as students and as teachers, by inventing new models for education.

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