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Will America’s universities go the way of its car companies?

economist.com

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Re: Will America’s universities go the way of its car companies?

#21

Post by enko »

silvestrov wrote: post #13
dragoon wrote: post #8

These are completely different markets. The majority of car consumers just want reliable transportation; the car is essentially a commodity. If Japanese cars are of higher quality, people will buy them instead of American cars. With university degrees, quality of education is second and prestige is first in importance. These are correlated but not always the same, and this is one of the reasons why academia is not vu…

This can change quickly. American cars in the 60'ies were not commodities, design was much more important back then. There is nothing intrinsic in education which makes the university's prestige the most important. Look outside USA, e.g. at northern Europe where the prestige of the university is not important, but the grades and (esp.) the person are. For some professions the university and grades is all that's consi…

> But for others (e.g. programming) you need to test the person yourself because the university and grades doesn't tell you (reliably) how good the candidate is.

In many small programming shops I know of, whether or not you even have a degree is irrelevant for pretty much this exact reason. A healthy GitHub portfolio & a blog with some reasonably insightful articles > any CS degree you can name (including MIT).

If a 16-year-old asked you, sincerely, what the best past forward for a programmer was for them, would you unhesitatingly recommend uni? I have my doubts.

I have felt for some time that the best education in CS is a macbook pro and a 2 year backpacking holiday and this conviction is only growing over time.

Re: Will America’s universities go the way of its car companies?

#22

Post by yummyfajitas »

sprout wrote: post #16
goodwinb wrote: post #10

Can you HNers think of a way to separate the teaching aspect of university from the research aspect? They seem to serve two different customers. Teaching is really for students to educate them and season them up for life. Research is for the government or business and makes the professor and university money. I think we can all remember a hard core research professor who could not teach a class worth a damn. On the o…

The merger of research and teaching is a public good, for multiple reasons. One, it makes it easier for teachers to spend some time doing. (naturally apprenticeship programs could serve the same goal) Two, it makes the public bankroll research they might not otherwise see the importance of (having very poor understanding of how progress works.)

I don't think you understand what a public good is. A public good is a good which is non-rivalrous and non-excludible. Published research fits this criteria. Teaching does not.

Further, research subsidizes teaching at most research universities, not the other way around. Universities take almost half of the NSF's budget in the form of "overhead", most of which is subsidizing teaching and general university waste.

There is also a major harm - most people are not good at both research and teaching. By merging teaching with research, you force people to perform two tasks, only one of which they are well suited for. The job "professor" is about as nonsensical as "ninja developer"; if we merged assassination and development, the result would be pasty white nerds getting shot by bodyguards and sneaky Japanese guys providing endless material for DailyWTF.

Re: Will America’s universities go the way of its car companies?

#23

Post by nanairo »

goodwinb wrote: post #10

Can you HNers think of a way to separate the teaching aspect of university from the research aspect? They seem to serve two different customers. Teaching is really for students to educate them and season them up for life. Research is for the government or business and makes the professor and university money. I think we can all remember a hard core research professor who could not teach a class worth a damn. On the o…

The model already exist: school vs. universities.

It is just---and this is just my opinion---that as human knowledge became bigger and bigger, what the people at the edge, pushing the envelope do, is further and further from what a 1st year undergraduate does.

Basically we would need another school in the middle for what is a BA/BSci for example, and use univeristy (and university professors) for masters and phds.

As for your example of hard core research professor, the problem is that at one point the number of professors who know a subject become very very small, and hence it's important to put the student directly in contact with those who are expert in the field. Alas it doesn't always work. But for very high levels (masters and phds) that's the only way it can be.

Re: Will America’s universities go the way of its car companies?

#24

Post by whyenot »

Go to a state school. In California, the tuition for a California State University is about $5500 a year. If you can't afford that, you likely qualify for a CalGrant which is awarded based on need and are around $5400 per school year.

For example, San Jose State University here in Silicon Valley, doesn't have the reputation that a top tier school has, but you can still get a very good education, in some ways better than at a more prestigious school. In California's CSU system, teaching is emphasized over research. Perhaps due to practice or self selection, most professors at SJSU seem to be very good teachers. Professors have few (if any) graduate students so they have more time for undergraduates and there are more research opportunities for undergrads.

Re: Will America’s universities go the way of its car companies?

#25

Post by nanairo »

I must admit that I am always a bit prejudicial when I hear an business person (or a business magazine like this) talking about universities.

They seem to view Universities as a business proposal: "How much do we invest? How much do we get out of it?", which it shouldn't be. Take this quote: "If colleges were businesses, they would be ripe for hostile takeovers, complete with serious cost-cutting and painful reorganisations.”.

My feeling is that the person who said it is thinking of streamlining it, removing subjects which bring little profit, and increasing those with profit. So out goes "geography" but also "gender studies", and instead more money is put into "pharmacy", "genetics", "economics and MBA".

The result would be great from a business perspective, but that's what companies and business are for. If there's plenty of money many companies will be investigating in those subjects just as well.

Instead Universities should also help the student become full rounded, more knowledgable even of things that may not bring money, and should let professors study subjects despite there being no monetary advantage.

Where has the passion for knowledge gone? Let the student have a place to get knowledge, and the professor have a place to expand it.

Re: Will America’s universities go the way of its car companies?

#26

Post by carbocation »

dragoon wrote: post #20
carbocation wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I'm getting out of this is that you prefer the term "price discrimination" to "financial aid." The specific choice of words doesn't really matter to me if they're describing the same phenomenon. > Also, only a token number of low-income students are admitted to the top schools, due to "extracurricular" admissions criteria that are socioeconomic by design. This is why these universities can fearlessly offer need-…

Enough people with some degree of need are passing the "extracurricular hurdles" that 55% of Yalies receive financial aid. The vast, vast, vast majority of people in that 55% are not even remotely poor. Most are of upper-middle income and of even higher socioeconomic status (e.g. progeny of diplomats, famous art gallery owners, and esteemed professors who make a merely upper-middle income but are higher in social sta…

Looking at this specific example, Yale is free if you earn less than $60,000, and admissions is need blind. What more do you exactly want them to do?

The real systemic problem is in our primary and secondary education systems. Equality of opportunity does not exist at those levels, and this hurts people thereafter. I see no reason why elite universities should be the vehicle by which we purport to "correct" this glaring defect in our educational system. The problem is much too large for that.

Re: Will America’s universities go the way of its car companies?

#27

Post by yequalsx »

nanairo wrote: post #25

I must admit that I am always a bit prejudicial when I hear an business person (or a business magazine like this) talking about universities. They seem to view Universities as a business proposal: "How much do we invest? How much do we get out of it?", which it shouldn't be. Take this quote: "If colleges were businesses, they would be ripe for hostile takeovers, complete with serious cost-cutting and painful reorgani…

I teach at a community college. The price is quite low (and my pay). Society does not want to pay for knowledge. It does not see a benefit in having people who appreciate art, literature, culture, music, etc. It only sees a benefit from electrical engineering and other such subjects. It's a problem of society and it's short sighted goals.

Re: Will America’s universities go the way of its car companies?

#28

Post by timwiseman »

yequalsx wrote: post #27
nanairo wrote: post #25

I must admit that I am always a bit prejudicial when I hear an business person (or a business magazine like this) talking about universities. They seem to view Universities as a business proposal: "How much do we invest? How much do we get out of it?", which it shouldn't be. Take this quote: "If colleges were businesses, they would be ripe for hostile takeovers, complete with serious cost-cutting and painful reorgani…

I teach at a community college. The price is quite low (and my pay). Society does not want to pay for knowledge. It does not see a benefit in having people who appreciate art, literature, culture, music, etc. It only sees a benefit from electrical engineering and other such subjects. It's a problem of society and it's short sighted goals.

No, it is that I do not want to be forced to pay directly or indirectly for someone else to appreciate art, literature, or music, especially not when there are kids down my block that are barely able to read and pot holes in the roads I drive on. That truly is not a high priority for a society with other more pressing problems.

I am however quite willing to pay with my own money so that I and my family can learn to appreciate literature and culture. I am also quite happy to support the artists whose work I enjoy. But I am not happy to have tax money support it until long after ever child learns the basics well and the local police department is fully funded.

[Edit, fixed typo.]

Re: Will America’s universities go the way of its car companies?

#29

Post by nanairo »

yequalsx wrote: post #27
nanairo wrote: post #25

I must admit that I am always a bit prejudicial when I hear an business person (or a business magazine like this) talking about universities. They seem to view Universities as a business proposal: "How much do we invest? How much do we get out of it?", which it shouldn't be. Take this quote: "If colleges were businesses, they would be ripe for hostile takeovers, complete with serious cost-cutting and painful reorgani…

I teach at a community college. The price is quite low (and my pay). Society does not want to pay for knowledge. It does not see a benefit in having people who appreciate art, literature, culture, music, etc. It only sees a benefit from electrical engineering and other such subjects. It's a problem of society and it's short sighted goals.

I think it's sad and I think we are sliding more and more into that mindset. But I also think the situation is brighter than you describe it in some countries.

In Italy (where I come from) school is extremely generic, with around 12 subjects being taught in secondary school. University is similarly open, with courses being done simply because "it's good for the mind", and people being free to pick and choose courses, and even change degree.

On the other hand it's a very old syllabus (especially at school) so there is a lot of pressure to modernise it. But EVERY time someone tries to modernise it and decides for example to drop latin, or history of arts from schools and add a foreign language and computers, you hear an uproar of people who complain that school (and partially Uni too) shouldn't be a place to get you ready for a job (for those you can go to specialised colleges) but instead one to feed the mind.

But yeah, I agree with you that all societies are becoming less and less concern with non commerciable knowledge. And as long as we judge people's worth and achievements by their money, I have little hope this will change.

Re: Will America’s universities go the way of its car companies?

#30

Post by philwelch »

dragoon wrote: post #9
kurtosis wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think so. At any one point in time, at the frontier of human knowledge, there are many research proposals floating around for what direction we should next expand the frontier. Some of these proposals will lead to valuable gains in knowledge, and profitable technologies. Most will amount to nothing, or at most a footnote in a more important work. It becomes clear after the fact that the funding money should have be…

"Diminishing returns" also means next to nothing. Technically speaking, it means that the second derivative of output with respect to input is negative, when we care about the first. For example, you exhibit "diminishing returns" for each calorie you eat-- the first 500 is far more important than the second 500-- but this doesn't mean you eat only 500 calories per day. What actually matters is not whether returns dim…

"For example, you exhibit "diminishing returns" for each calorie you eat-- the first 500 is far more important than the second 500-- but this doesn't mean you eat only 500 calories per day."

No, but it does mean there exists a point where you should stop eating more calories.

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