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Middle-Class Families Increasingly Look to Community Colleges

nytimes.com

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Re: Middle-Class Families Increasingly Look to Community Colleges

#191

Post by lsc »

bsder wrote: post #186
lsc wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've got no opinion of the quality of instruction; I don't have the experience of either one. All I'm saying is that most people didn't go to an elite school, and yet a lot of the really prestigious and remunerative Engineering and engineering/management positions from 2-4 levels up from me are occupied by graduates of elite schools. The higher up you go, it seems, the higher proportion of them went to an elite schoo…

Mostly bias, I suspect. If you polled management from Westinghouse in the 1990's, you would find Pitt, CMU, Penn State and OSU overrepresented. One thing you have to be careful of is that "elite" school graduates often have an over-inflated sense of how good they actually are. The ex-CTO of ModCloth had a video talking to a bunch of Russians where he talked about how the Pittsburgh team was better and more productive…

>Mostly bias, I suspect.

If bias gets you a significantly more remunerative or prestigious job, well, that should be factored into your return on investment, if you are looking for renumeration or prestige or to work around people with prestige.

>One thing you have to be careful of is that "elite" school graduates often have an over-inflated sense of how good they actually are.

My experience of the world is that having an over-inflated sense of your own worth doesn't hurt you any.

It's sad, because I personally find that kind of overconfidence super annoying, but if you are trying to maximize your career...

Re: Middle-Class Families Increasingly Look to Community Colleges

#192

Post by seanmcdirmid »

poulsbohemian wrote: post #189
nwallin wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Community colleges do not offer bachelor's degrees. They only offer associate's degrees, which are a 2 year program, and do not confer the same expected income potential as a bachelor's degree. That's what this article is about; do two years at a community college to get the GE classes out of the way, and then transfer to a four year university to get your degree. It's actually extremely common; it's what I did, and…

Oddly enough, my local community college was just approved to start offering two bachelors programs: https://www.wwcc.edu . I've seen this happen a few places, though admittedly it is somewhat rare and is a rule-bender in terms of the normal way we define community colleges. I'm also not that clear on why , as there are 4-year programs available from other public institutions a one-hour and two-hour drive away (IE: t…

Many Washington state community colleges in the Seattle area are being rebranded as colleges and are starting to offer bachelor degrees (BCC => Bellevue College, Seattle Central Community College => Seattle Central College). Not sure if that is being applied to Eastern Washington as well, but it makes sense. See: http://www.heraldnet.com/news/two-year-colleges-trending-awa...

Re: Middle-Class Families Increasingly Look to Community Colleges

#193

Post by skookumchuck »

chrisseaton wrote: post #188
skookumchuck wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you think someone needs any education at all in a subject to each it? Of course I do. I am just bemused by teachers having masters degrees yet be unable to teach any freshman college level class. > Do you think someone who has never studied calculus should be able to teach it? Freshman calculus is not rocket science, and I expect someone with a masters degree to be able to handle it.

> Of course I do. Right, well here's the answer to the original question then. If you want teachers to be able to teach calculus, and you agree people should have an education in a subject to teach it, then you need the teachers to study calculus themselves, which they weren't necessarily doing, because they studied things other than maths, so you need to use more resources to have them also take calculus classes, so…

Apparently school districts pay teachers more who get a masters. But it seems that having a masters doesn't mean they are able to teach a single course beyond high school level.

Sounds like things are all messed up in what districts pay for. They don't need more money, they need to redirect what they're already paying for.

Re: Middle-Class Families Increasingly Look to Community Colleges

#194

Post by chrisseaton »

skookumchuck wrote: post #193
chrisseaton wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Of course I do. Right, well here's the answer to the original question then. If you want teachers to be able to teach calculus, and you agree people should have an education in a subject to teach it, then you need the teachers to study calculus themselves, which they weren't necessarily doing, because they studied things other than maths, so you need to use more resources to have them also take calculus classes, so…

Apparently school districts pay teachers more who get a masters. But it seems that having a masters doesn't mean they are able to teach a single course beyond high school level. Sounds like things are all messed up in what districts pay for. They don't need more money, they need to redirect what they're already paying for.

Can you teach freshman Medieval French? No of course you can't. If you had a masters would you then magically be able to teach freshman Medieval French? No. You just haven't done the subject yourself so you can't teach it.

You can't say 'you have a masters you should be able to pick it up yourself and teach it to these school children'. Can you not see how unreasonable that is?

Re: Middle-Class Families Increasingly Look to Community Colleges

#195

Post by epistasis »

ams6110 wrote: post #73
epistasis wrote: post #3

Some of the large introductory classes at four year institutions are not so great anyway, as many faculty would rather focus on research and classes that feed in talented undergrads for summer research. IMHO the biggest potential loss are the social connections that can develop over four years versus just two. These can be crucial for friendship and for career connections, depending on the field.

I don't know about the social connections angle so much. If you're the type of person who really gets into that, i.e, would be in a fraternity or sorority, there are advantages. But as a more introverted/tech type person I didn't maintain contact with any friends or roommates from college much at all after graduation, nor they me. I can't point to any particular social connections from college that benefited me after…

Fraternities and sororities are not anything like I mean.

I learn a lot from from college friends in other and the same fields. It teaches me a lot about the world, which is essential for identifying new areas for startups. I can bounce ideas off them and get feedback from entirely different perspectives; college is a great base for developing broad set of connections that all share at least a minimum amount of interest in critical thought.

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