How college became a ruthless competition divorced from learning

Yes, it is very weird wording. It is also strange that the comparison omits graduates of schools ranked 11-20. Those schools are not as prestigious as the top-10, but their graduates (like me) go on to practice in the same expensive cities so their salaries are in the same order of magnitude.

Including this cohort in the comparison would have made the not-shocking 50% gap even less impressive.

The above un-informed screed is amusing, since it illustrates how the left thinks they know what they're talking about and what's best for others, when they have no clue.

>> he doesn't move in the same social circles as those elites > That's just untrue.

It is true - Trump never was a New York A-lister or B-lister. He could move in business circles, but not social ones.

> they will keep drawing the wrong conclusions about what to do.

His supporters wanted a wall, and he started construction on it.

Harris is supposed to be the immigration czar, yet she's afraid to be photographed near the border, because there's no wall.

The CCP engaged in trade violations, and he addressed that with tariffs.

Sounds like the right conclusions to me, even obvious.

> Trump supporters don't like reality as it is

His supporters like that he was willing to be their voice against the establishment in competing globally in the job market against illegal aliens, instead of being dismissed by the left as "deplorables."

> you never need to switch jobs

For most people, especially as they get older, there is no option for switching jobs - either you get on long-term disability or you're homeless. This one phrase proves how out of touch you are with reality.

Sometimes people don't appreciate what they have until it's gone.

The Democratic party and White House staff are infested with CCP lobbyists, including Biden's family and his Chief of Staff. Since the CCP has been in a cold war with the US since the 1950s, I hope it turns out well, but Trump/Pompeo had a clear strategy, and Biden doesn't.

As an illustration of what the CCP wants, consider rare earths or 5G. China has world-wide monopolies on those - but their goal is world-wide monopolies on everything, regardless of dumping rules.

Trump was the best and most productive US President in the past 75 years. Shame on the left for two baseless impeachments that prevented our leader from even accomplishing more.

You should know what you're talking about before posting screeds on HN. But then I could say the same thing about most of the left - it would be nice to have paradise on earth, but Marxism doesn't get you there.

I have a (perhaps unpopular) pet theory that college as we know it going to cease to exist sometime in the next several decades. In its current direction it feels like it’s becoming more about gaming the system. Those who do the “best” are really just the best at looking like the best.

I saw so many of my peers in college “learning” strictly for the sake of getting good grades, not to understand the material conceptually. I’ll try an analogy—-it feels like college is social media and students are aspiring influencers, all jockeying to find the right aesthetic and be that perfect shining light with all the followers but it turns out they’re all optimizing to the same local max and end up as copies of copies of copies. In the end all their resumes look the same. A bit drab, sweeping, and cynical, admittedly, but that’s what I think.

Anyway, my theory is that with ubiquitous high speed Internet, remote work being more widely acceptable, and continued suburbanization, future generations will look less favorably at taking on a huge debt burden to attend in-person college and something _like_ highly niche online trade/vocational schools or guilds will become popular and widely acceptable as a substitute for a four year degree in certain positions.

I think you significantly underestimate the skills required when constructing history from primary sources. Unleashing someone on an archive without some library science education is very likely to result in a disorganized mess of documents. You need formal organization skills, some knowledge of document forensics and an understanding of standard document practices from the time you are studying.

Also, in order to write clearly you need a lot of years reading and writing practice. You can get that on your own but a humanities degree is going to get most people there faster.

Amateur historians are good to have around but you don't want to run the entire front line of primary source history gathering off them.

>I saw so many of my peers in college “learning” strictly for the sake of getting good grades, not to understand the material conceptually.

I can absolutely identify with this. I've seen way too many class mates get way higher grades than me without even really knowing any of the concepts they're supposed to be showcasing. Meanwhile all I ever had was conflict with teachers.

My theory is that school is simply aimed to produce docile bodies that will do what is asked of them. The whole learning bit is just smoke and mirrors to fool you into thinking that it's useful.