The looming college-enrollment death spiral
theatlantic.com
The looming college-enrollment death spiral
1–10 of 174 posts
Re: The looming college-enrollment death spiral
#2Re: The looming college-enrollment death spiral
#3Right in the headline is a word choice I've notice lately that irks me, "democratization".
"democratization" doesn't mean more people have access to it. In voting, "more access" means "more governing power" (in principle), but in other things, it does not.
If you want to use "democratized" applied to higher-ed, it would mean more people are involved in the decision-making, leadership, or ownership.
Re: The looming college-enrollment death spiral
#4The author has written a famous book on college admissions, but this piece doesn't really seem to add much to the discussion. I came away thinking that his publicist recommended he get his name out there more to help his brand or sell some more books.
Re: The looming college-enrollment death spiral
#5> The number of teenagers graduating from American high schools peaked last year.
The article doesn't seem to mention foreigners - particularly Chinese. Are those numbers expected to grow or shrink?
Re: The looming college-enrollment death spiral
#6> The number of teenagers graduating from American high schools peaked last year. The article doesn't seem to mention foreigners - particularly Chinese. Are those numbers expected to grow or shrink?
Under the current admin's policies shrink. After that who knows.
Re: The looming college-enrollment death spiral
#7Right in the headline is a word choice I've notice lately that irks me, "democratization". "democratization" doesn't mean more people have access to it. In voting, "more access" means "more governing power" (in principle), but in other things, it does not. If you want to use "democratized" applied to higher-ed, it would mean more people are involved in the decision-making, leadership, or ownership.
Isn't more people attending college, and thus choosing where to go with their pocket book, the 'control'.
The people control, through voting by choosing where to attend, based on what is offered. So if someplace is not offering much that anybody wants, they don't get students, and go out of business.
The word 'democratize' is often used just for 'access' through purchasing power.
Not that I agree that money should control learning. I'd like to go back to more hardcore reading/writing/arithmetic/Compiler Design. But nobody digs that.
Re: The looming college-enrollment death spiral
#8Right in the headline is a word choice I've notice lately that irks me, "democratization". "democratization" doesn't mean more people have access to it. In voting, "more access" means "more governing power" (in principle), but in other things, it does not. If you want to use "democratized" applied to higher-ed, it would mean more people are involved in the decision-making, leadership, or ownership.
Isn't more people attending college, and thus choosing where to go with their pocket book, the 'control'. The people control, through voting by choosing where to attend, based on what is offered. So if someplace is not offering much that anybody wants, they don't get students, and go out of business. The word 'democratize' is often used just for 'access' through purchasing power. Not that I agree that money should co…
> The word 'democratize' is often used just for 'access' through purchasing power.
I guess I'm saying, yes, that is how it often used. I just don't like it and think it is relatively new usage and a change in the older meaning of the word.
In the 90's when Linux was taking off, did people say Torvalds has "democratized Unix"? (honest question - I'm not sure.)
Re: The looming college-enrollment death spiral
#9The author has written a famous book on college admissions, but this piece doesn't really seem to add much to the discussion. I came away thinking that his publicist recommended he get his name out there more to help his brand or sell some more books.
More people read the Atlantic than read books on college admissions. It is possible and often useful to increase the number of informed people even without adding net new information.
Re: The looming college-enrollment death spiral
#10> The number of teenagers graduating from American high schools peaked last year. The article doesn't seem to mention foreigners - particularly Chinese. Are those numbers expected to grow or shrink?
Under the current admin's policies shrink. After that who knows.
That's really the key problem facing US universities, from land-grant colleges to the Ivies: everyone depends at least in part on closing budgetary gaps with global students who pay full freight. Current Administration policies, both specifically targeted at foreign students and more generally at higher education and immigration, are poisoning the seed corn colleges and universities rely on. The only good news, relatively speaking, is that Europe is evidently constitutionally incapable of taking advantage of what is a genuinely one-in-an-imperial-lifetime chance to drain intellectual capital from the United States, which means that America and our higher education system can recover from this, should we have the fortitude to do so in the future -- there just isn't much in the way of competition.