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The looming college-enrollment death spiral

theatlantic.com

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Re: The looming college-enrollment death spiral

#101

Post by blix »

czl wrote: post #79
blix wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't want the people to be uneducated, because you have no control over their thought processes, which could be dangerous an unpredictable. And it leaves space for someone else to educate them in way that conflicts with your interests. Ideally, you would want them to be intentionally educated to a specific type of manipulable gullibility, where they are receptive to your messages, but resistant to messages from…

> specific type of manipulable gullibility A congregation trained to say “amen” on cue.

the denouncing of heresy may be even more important.

Re: The looming college-enrollment death spiral

#102

Post by triceratops »

danny_codes wrote: post #52

IMO we should pay adults to go back to school. Make all public universities free and pay a living stipend. Give additional stipends for dependents. Easy win for everyone.

American universities need to become more like their European counterparts in order for this model to work.

Re: The looming college-enrollment death spiral

#103

Post by munificent »

akramachamarei wrote: post #84
munificent wrote: post #46

As long as people are allowed to vote in the US, we have an incentive to ensure they are all well educated. Surely a large part of this problem that the article doesn't mention is that college is too fucking expensive. And an obvious solution to that is to tax rich people and use that to fund universities so that students don't have to go so far in debt in order to become productive members of society. It's crazy how…

The US tax system is substantially more progressive than you might think.¹ It seems unwise to make it even moreso. The tough pill to swallow, if we are to follow in e.g. Sweden's footsteps, is that you need to tax the middle class a lot more if you want the government to provide more services. By the way, this whole discussion completely ignores that the country is BROKE. Why are we contemplating building a new patio…

> The US tax system is substantially more progressive than you might think.¹ It seems unwise to make it even moreso.

I disagree, and I don't think linking to a conservative think tank a particularly compelling counterargument.

My metric for whether a tax system is progressive enough is pretty simple: is inequality high and getting higher? Then the tax system should be more progressive.

Some amount of inequality is healthy. The top 10% owning 80% of all wealth in the US is not.

> By the way, this whole discussion completely ignores that the country is BROKE.

Good point! It would be really great if the government wasn't funneling billions into the coffers of defense companies by starting nonsense wars.

Cutting taxes on the wealthy and corporations and going into greater debt for it is a two-handed gift to the rich: they pay less taxes and they make money directly from the government by being paid interest when they loan money to the government.

Re: The looming college-enrollment death spiral

#104

Post by ProllyInfamous »

layman51 wrote: post #55
ProllyInfamous wrote: post #27

If you are choosing to still attend college, my advice would be to get an A.B.E.T-accredited degree, to fall back upon (I have a non-BE science degree from a prestigious US institution == essentially worthless). Being an engineer vs. being an engineer tech is a substantially life-quality difference. But only if you choose to attend (I would not re-attend).

Is this related to the exam that some college graduates could take to become professional engineers?

Exactly. Most 4-year engineering programs are accredited (but definitely not all).

Rougly speaking, it cuts the professional experience requirement in half, and makes the entire process of becoming a P.E. (professional engineer) much simpler (not easier).

There are multiple field tests, including the Fundamentals & Engineering exam that allows you to 2x your eng.tech. experience.

Re: The looming college-enrollment death spiral

#105

Post by jaredklewis »

seniorThrowaway wrote: post #18

I think college's value proposition and entire model has been eroded. Major school's CS grads are finding jobs upon graduation at an 11% rate (I don't have the primary source on this, but it is published by a site I read that never fudges these kinds of things, going back many years). AI probably has a lot to do with that, but it's exposing something more fundamental. CS wasn't supposed to be a programming boot camp…

> I don't have the primary source on this, but it is published by a site I read that never fudges these kinds of things, going back many years

What's the secondary source then?

Re: The looming college-enrollment death spiral

#106

Post by rekabis »

Unless the big universities “expand” by linking up with the regional colleges, giving them a branding cachet that will attract students, there is one group that will benefit enormously:

Conservatives.

They require an uneducated and ignorant electorate. It’s the only way they can hoodwink voters into voting against their own best interests.

Re: The looming college-enrollment death spiral

#107

Post by pandaman »

ks2048 wrote: post #3

Right 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.

>"democratization" doesn't mean more people have access to it

It literally does, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/democratic

3: relating, appealing, or available to the broad masses of the people : designed for or liked by most people

Re: The looming college-enrollment death spiral

#108

Post by bsder »

triceratops wrote: post #96
lux-lux-lux wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strange how I never see this line deployed against the mortgage interest deduction or health care for wealthy retirees, both of which are considerably more expensive. Subsidizing college education, at least, has a reliably positive ROI.

Then at the very least college debt should be dischargeable in bankruptcy the way people can walk away from their mortgage.

Agreed. The idiotic law not allowing college debt to be cleared by bankruptcy is the primary reason why college has gotten so expensive.

Re: The looming college-enrollment death spiral

#109

Post by dylan604 »

Spooky23 wrote: post #98
dylan604 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe college never should have been for everyone? This is my sentiment. School counselors pushed everyone to colleges, but actively dissed trade schools. Forcing students to take classes in subjects they absolutely do not care about is a terrible idea for a secondary education track. If someone really just wants to learn a trade and have a nice life, there is nothing wrong with that. Did CS course really just beco…

Well yeah, trades suck ass. There are alot of dudes in cushy well paid office gigs extolling the virtues of trade work. It wasn’t some awful conspiracy, physical trade jobs are hard work and with no pensions or benefit protection, there’s a lot of guys struggling when their bodies are broken at 40. In the 80s, most urban trades were unionized with benefit funds etc. Not the case in 2026.

And a bunch of tech peeps are overweight physically out of shape with other health effects as bad as what you're saying about trades. Humans get old.

I know plenty of trades people that do hard work and think cushy office gigs are hell on earth and that type of work sucks ass. Just because it's not your preferred career doesn't mean you should denigrate those that do. Besides, if there were no trades, you'd have no place to live, you'd have no food to eat, you'd have no car to drive, and you'd have no internet as who was going to build that infrastructure?

Re: The looming college-enrollment death spiral

#110

Post by nebula8804 »

mcmcmc wrote: post #91
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that the AVERAGE person should spend 4 years BOTH not working AND incurring massive amounts of (non-defaultable) debt is bananas. College either needs to be 1) way cheaper, 2) mainly for the state-subsidized exceptional and independently wealthy, or 3) move to a different model. We have too many colleges LARPing as Harvard, and too few colleges even attempting to be affordable, practical, or actually deliver…

So community colleges?

God I wish community college would be subsidized. Some states now cover it for your first degree which is a great start and some also are now starting to subsidize courses for retirees but man I would so love to just go and do like random courses I have no intention of pursuing a career in.

European universities are not resorts like in the US and community college keep that small footprint mentality as well. They have done it right. Focus on the education and keep costs lower. I have friends in Europe that work for a few years then just take time off and study something that interests them in their subsidized universities and I am so jealous because their costs are so low.

When I went to community college (and then university) there were a few moments where I actually wasn't treading water in my CS degree and I was able to take a wide variety of classes. They were some of the happiest moments of my life.

Recently visited LA and walked around LACC during the evening. The campus is enormous (and famously was the scene for the TV show Community). I just thought of the enormous variety of subjects being taught, imagine if that was accessible to anyone when they desired.

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