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I Owe It All to Community College

nytimes.com

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Re: I Owe It All to Community College

#251

Post by morgante »

This is pretty far from being a ringing endorsement of community colleges. If anything, it just reaffirms the complete lack of academic rigor they provide.

- He aced an English class by doing "nothing more than embellish the definition I had looked up in the dictionary."

- His recollection of public speaking class was a gorgeous flight attendant.

- He never ended up graduating with a bachelor's degree and pursued a career which depends more on good looks than academic or intellectual ability.

I just don't understand why I should be footing the bill for more substandard students to get easy As, ogle girls, and pursue unintellectual careers. There's already plenty of aid available for intellectually deserving students (read: capable of filling out the FAFSA form). Adding more will just drive up the cost to taxpayers and continue to lower the quality of a CC education.

Re: I Owe It All to Community College

#252

Post by dllthomas »

morgante wrote: post #251

This is pretty far from being a ringing endorsement of community colleges. If anything, it just reaffirms the complete lack of academic rigor they provide. - He aced an English class by doing "nothing more than embellish the definition I had looked up in the dictionary." - His recollection of public speaking class was a gorgeous flight attendant. - He never ended up graduating with a bachelor's degree and pursued a c…

I had a very good experience at community college, and it cost me $11/unit. When I transferred to a four-year school, the matriculation advisors told me I was probably better prepared for having done my lower division math at the community college.

The real kicker is that students filling out a FAFSA form are asking for substantially more money.

Re: I Owe It All to Community College

#254

Post by vacri »

cbd1984 wrote: post #236
vacri wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'colo[u]r' is merely a spelling difference. 'irregardless' is a double-negative to some people, and not to others. It's an ambiguous word.

"Irregardless" isn't ambiguous, either. Everyone knows what it means. The debate is over whether it should be in the language, in a moral sense, which is different.

No, everyone doesn't 'know what it means', not without additional mental parsing. Myself, among many others, read it first as a double-negative, then have to double-take it and reinterpret it. Irrespective, irreducable, irrecoverable, irreconcilable, irrelevant, irreligious, irrefutable - irregardless stands out like a sore thumb.

Or should I say 'irreinterpret it'? After all, you would 'know what I meant' if I wrote that.

Ambiguity is fine if you're writing for poetic effect, but if you're trying to get a point across, it should be minimised.

Re: I Owe It All to Community College

#255

Post by eli_gottlieb »

danielweber wrote: post #66
snake_plissken wrote: post #56

The initial proposal from The President costs $60 billion over ten years or $6 billion per year. For some perspective, conservative estimates have put the cost of the war in Iraq at $500 million a day. This proposal would cost 72 days of war. It's difficult to comprehend how our politicians could have any issues supporting such an initiative.

If we just buy everything that is cheaper than the Iraq war, we will very soon be bankrupt.

Education is a capital investment. Its ROI should be measured in terms of increased productivity per dollar invested, and we should be investing for maximum marginal productivity increase. Based on what little hard information I've seen and my scant anecdata of first-hand experience, I think community colleges are a fairly high-margin public investment right now.

Re: I Owe It All to Community College

#256

Post by eli_gottlieb »

danielweber wrote: post #134
methehack wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The wars in the middle east are not likely to make us more money than the cost. This is. It's an investment, like roads. It grows the economy. This is more or less considered a fact in macroeconomics. There are two very comparable super-relevant historical precedents: public high school education (yes that was someone's idea too) and the GI Bill. Both of these social programs (as they would be called today) have made…

This is more or less considered a fact in macroeconomics Oh, good. What does economics say about who captures the benefit of education? What's the rate of return on successful graduation from community college? (Hint: check Schenk Matsuyama 2010.) What is the graduation rate from community college? (And isn't that number a lot lower than you expected?) Now, given the fraction of benefits that is privately captured, a…

> Why is it that no other nation on Earth spends as much money on education as the US does?

Because the United States insists on taxing and spending money in ridiculously indirect ways that qualify as "small government", but actually cost more, rather than doing what every other country does and just having the national government spend directly on the relevant programs, but which are somehow too "big government" for Americans.

The average European "big government" is actually much slicker and more efficient because it doesn't build large bureaucracies designed to avoid the need for a small bureaucracy.

Re: I Owe It All to Community College

#257

Post by merrua »

mtVessel wrote: post #205
markdown wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in a post-colonial country where English is the official language but 90% of the population have another language as their mother-tongue. There is therefore a lot of "broken" english spoken, and I guess I'm just used to correcting people (and being corrected myself). Irregardless is one of those words that is becoming OK to say just because so many people use it. Language adapts and therefore English is descri…

Biweekly means every two weeks. Semiweekly means twice a week. (Fortnightly doesn't mean anything outside of the Commonwealth.) Please keep (politely) correcting people. It's only us against the hordes!

> Fortnightly doesn't mean anything outside of the Commonwealth

Really? I live and learn. I thought that was commonplace.

Re: I Owe It All to Community College

#258

Post by spacecowboy_lon »

jdhawk wrote: post #80
jesseclay wrote: post #64

Another anecdote on the power of community college: Back in 2009 I enrolled at Community College of San Francisco. I was 19 and had no idea what I wanted to do career wise, so I took broad and rigorous curriculum focused on transferring to UC-Berkeley. The 2 years I spent there were some of the best of my life. I was frequently pushed and challenged by excellent professors who had true passion for their subjects (a f…

Not all community colleges are the same. If you live in close proximity to universities with high academic standards, most of the professors are going to be recent graduates of those programs, or educators picking up extra cash and some experience teaching at CC. BFE Community College will not have the same level of academic excellence.

Yes I had to update my linkedin to try and make it clear it was Bedford Colledge (a FE college) and not the University of Bedfordshire where I went to do my Mech Eng Btech.

Bedfordshire University is regularly last in the UK legue tables on Universities.

Re: I Owe It All to Community College

#259

Post by thizzbuzz »

vacri wrote: post #254
cbd1984 wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Irregardless" isn't ambiguous, either. Everyone knows what it means. The debate is over whether it should be in the language, in a moral sense, which is different.

No, everyone doesn't 'know what it means', not without additional mental parsing. Myself, among many others, read it first as a double-negative, then have to double-take it and reinterpret it. Irrespective, irreducable, irrecoverable, irreconcilable, irrelevant, irreligious, irrefutable - irregardless stands out like a sore thumb. Or should I say 'irreinterpret it'? After all, you would 'know what I meant' if I wrote…

It stands out because "regardless" and "irregardless" are adverbs, while the others you listed are all adjectives.

And it does fit the pattern of negating the root morpheme.

Re: I Owe It All to Community College

#260

Post by DanBC »

vacri wrote: post #254
cbd1984 wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Irregardless" isn't ambiguous, either. Everyone knows what it means. The debate is over whether it should be in the language, in a moral sense, which is different.

No, everyone doesn't 'know what it means', not without additional mental parsing. Myself, among many others, read it first as a double-negative, then have to double-take it and reinterpret it. Irrespective, irreducable, irrecoverable, irreconcilable, irrelevant, irreligious, irrefutable - irregardless stands out like a sore thumb. Or should I say 'irreinterpret it'? After all, you would 'know what I meant' if I wrote…

Wait, are you really sYing that when you see "irregardless" that your first response is not "that's an error and they mean regardless[1]" but "they mean regardless but negated so regard but that doesn't make sense so they actually mean regardless"?

[1] why not irregard instead of regardless?

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