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More students are turning away from college and toward apprenticeships

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Re: More students are turning away from college and toward apprenticeships

#261

Post by somenameforme »

sitkack wrote: post #191
pacaro wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a two edged sword here, both for the university student and the independent learner Learning in a structured environment provides access to the orthodox in the field of study. This can be very valuable to limit unnecessary exploration of blind avenues (there is of course such a thing as necessary exploration of blind avenues) For those who progress through the academy, the risk is that they become narrow thin…

I think pre-U education should focus on didactics and metacognition, philosophy, logic and the scientific method. To really focus on the thinking behind the thinking, to never do it by accident. University should not be separate from earlier forms of education, things that are university like should also filter back into to high school and middle school. As a borderline-crank myself, I think we need more folks with c…

You just end up kicking the can around the same problem. While college education being dumbed down is a typical topic, the exact same is earlier education - and also for the exact same reason. Here [1] is an 8th grade exam from 1912. Good luck!

The issue isn't some failure of education, but the fact that people are different and have different skill sets. And as education came to be expected to be something everybody goes through and in a roughly similar fashion, the inevitable decline to the lowest common denominator was inevitable.

[1] - https://bullittcountyhistory.org/bchistory/schoolexam1912.ht...

Re: More students are turning away from college and toward apprenticeships

#262

Post by inglor_cz »

pacaro wrote: post #119
xyzelement wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re second point, I mean something else. 200 years ago I had to go to university because why? That's where the books and smart people were concentrated. So I would pay a lot of money and physically relocate myself to access those books and people. Now? I can study online, I can read, I can converse with super bright people of my chosing without the friction and limits of doing that in a college environment.

There's a two edged sword here, both for the university student and the independent learner Learning in a structured environment provides access to the orthodox in the field of study. This can be very valuable to limit unnecessary exploration of blind avenues (there is of course such a thing as necessary exploration of blind avenues) For those who progress through the academy, the risk is that they become narrow thin…

The narrow thinkers / cranks dilemma is beautifully described, thank you.

You aren't in the academia, are you? Because you explain things in simple terms, yet very efficiently.

One of the diseases of current academia is use of an extremely stilted language, perhaps intended to paper over some logical cracks.

Re: More students are turning away from college and toward apprenticeships

#263

Post by inglor_cz »

throwaway4aday wrote: post #110
azinman2 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re: critical analysis. I agree with you that inconvenient truths now get muzzled because they don’t fit an acceptable meta-narrative. This is very problematic for society and when taken to the maximum, can lead to thinks like Cambodia’s attempt at restarting society by killing all those who didn’t fit the model they were looking for. > If that's what you are hungry for, college is perhaps even your least likely bet.…

Arguably, the Cambodian people could have potentially avoided the genocidal deaths of millions of people by analyzing the weaknesses of the Soviet/Communist culture, weaknesses that repeatedly lead to mass death. Seems pretty meaningful and deserving of study to me.

One of the problems with this argument is that the murderous Cambodian oligarchy consisted of graduates of Western universities.

Intellectuals in general have espoused a lot of inhuman political ideologies.

Re: More students are turning away from college and toward apprenticeships

#264

Post by rthomas6 »

Rant: I feel like most people haven't really thought about why colleges are so expensive now. It is because of the federally guaranteed student loans. It means there's pretty much no downside to banks loaning an arbitrarily large amount, because if the student doesn't pay it back, the government will. And since most 18 year old students have pretty much zero price sensitivity, and they now have unlimited funds, colleges are free to charge whatever they need to entice students to come to their college. No expense needs to be spared.

If people really cared about letting disadvantaged students go to college, they would figure out a way to give them scholarships or grants. Federally guaranteed student loans are a horrible and predatory idea and they are ruining young peoples' financial futures. If you just took away the guarantee on the loans, and made them dischargable in bankruptcy, colleges would be forced to compete on price again, and the price of college would start to drop.

Re: More students are turning away from college and toward apprenticeships

#265

Post by happytesd8889 »

A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #252
happytesd8889 wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People always use this term "critical thinking" on the internet and I am not sure anybody that uses it has a good definition of what it means or why it is something that can or must be taught in a college kind of environment. At least personally, it's concerning to find out how many people think they are thinking critically all the time, but are not able to think critically about the definition of critical thinking.…

Hmm. I mean an actual class in critical thinking. It consisted of several things, but mostly things like basic logic, fallacies and so on. In other words, neither of three options listed.

Oh okay that makes a lot of sense. I had a required course in philosophy that was essentially just that as well.

I suppose that is why I'm confused when the term is used, since I don't think I would use the term critical thinking for avoiding logical fallacies. A better term might be "not wrong thinking". Of course this also should take into account that some things we call logical fallacies probably shouldn't be considered logical fallacies at all, like "slippery slope" arguments and so forth, which are considered to be a fallacy since there is no mathematical implication, despite the obviously correct nature of many slippery slope arguments.

The word critical implies some sort of criticism, I'm not sure if identifying a logical fallacy is really what we typically mean by criticism. At the end of the day I guess the word itself isn't important.

Re: More students are turning away from college and toward apprenticeships

#266

Post by patja »

xyzelement wrote: post #54
azinman2 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also grows the intellectual souls, exposing people to far more depth of thought. It also builds professional networks. If a person is smart enough to receive it, more education is almost always good. Of course money is a factor, and schools have gotten insanely expensive. I’m glad to hear that more people are finding alternative routes - it shouldn’t be that everyone needs college because quite frankly many career…

I think you are referring to something on one hand very valuable, on the other hand it's very easy to graduate college without learning that, and I think colleges themselves in recent decades are pivoting away from. A hundred+ years ago when "almost nobody" went to college, college was a place for those hungry and willing to sacrifice for intellectual growth. Nowadays college is a baseline consumer good that "almost…

> Nowadays college is a baseline consumer good that "almost everyone" is expected to consume

I think this depends quite a bit on your socioeconomic class. Overall in the US, only about 1/3 finish a college degree

Re: More students are turning away from college and toward apprenticeships

#267

Post by randcraw »

throwaway4aday wrote: post #110
azinman2 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re: critical analysis. I agree with you that inconvenient truths now get muzzled because they don’t fit an acceptable meta-narrative. This is very problematic for society and when taken to the maximum, can lead to thinks like Cambodia’s attempt at restarting society by killing all those who didn’t fit the model they were looking for. > If that's what you are hungry for, college is perhaps even your least likely bet.…

Arguably, the Cambodian people could have potentially avoided the genocidal deaths of millions of people by analyzing the weaknesses of the Soviet/Communist culture, weaknesses that repeatedly lead to mass death. Seems pretty meaningful and deserving of study to me.

But would academic wisdom have avoided the rise of Pol Pot? The German people were pretty well educated and recently had been reminded of the cost of letting political forces spin out of control given the debacle and horrors of of WWI, yet they made the same mistakes as Cambodia in 1932 in allowing the rise of Hitler (whose Mein Kamph provided plenty of forewarning of an incoming regime based in hate).

I don't see education as the solution to despotism. That requires a fair mind and rationality — neither of which has roots in book learning.

Re: More students are turning away from college and toward apprenticeships

#268

Post by zoogeny »

morelisp wrote: post #243
zoogeny wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, pedantry aside this is such an easy question that even Google can find a result. [1] According to that link: The Darby Free Library in Darby, Pennsylvania, is “America’s oldest public library, in continuous service since 1743.” But really, without going too off topic, why would you even bother to try to correct a statement that is used for effect? Are you trying to suggest that 150 years vs "centuries" is a r…

I contend that "We have had free public libraries" is not a statement about the mere existence of a public library somewhere , but rather and especially in the context of this discussion a claim about how widely available resources for self-education are. And that's firmly the latter half of the 19th century, following efforts of people like Buckingham, Edwards, and Carnegie. And these are still not even close to uni…

> Perhaps unguided education is today not as accessible for everyone as it was for you, for many reasons.

That is fair, I am too liberal with my hyperbole and so I'll try to be a bit more clear. It seems unlikely to me that an individual that has access to a guided university education does not also have access to freely available educational resources either online or in public libraries. That is, I do not believe that a youth today that desires to "grow an intellectual soul" has the single recourse to enroll in the structured environments of universities.

I have no idea how you clarifying or arguing over the precise duration of the availability of public libraries contributes to that discussion.

Re: More students are turning away from college and toward apprenticeships

#269

Post by 7thaccount »

azinman2 wrote: post #186
phpisthebest wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>4 years of education on a daily basis. Is it? Really??? For all degrees and all programs.. that is the claim... but I just do not see that manifest in reality. Seem you have a very inflated view of the programs... just how much debt are you attempting to justify?

I carry zero educational debt. How do you not see that manifest in reality? What school doesn’t have classes 5 days a week that people are taking, or otherwise expected to be somehow participating in an activity related to education? Sounds like a school that should lose its accreditation.

Agree with you here. I typically had at least 2 classes a day and spent most of the time outside of class studying or doing homework. It was easily more than 40 hours/week. That was for an engineering degree though. Friends in other programs (e.g. business, kinesiology...etc) had to spend much less time on homework and studying, but even they were learning daily.

Re: More students are turning away from college and toward apprenticeships

#270

Post by palijer »

azinman2 wrote: post #40
pclmulqdq wrote: post #26

College seems to have ~3 uses from students' perspectives: 1. A trade school for technical professionals who actually need specialist education (scientists, engineers, lawyers, doctors, etc.) 2. A finishing school for the elite 3. A blood sports arena for the brilliant to complete for professorships (almost all of whom will lose and be saddled with 6 figures of debt and 7 figures of opportunity cost) A lot of people…

It also grows the intellectual souls, exposing people to far more depth of thought. It also builds professional networks. If a person is smart enough to receive it, more education is almost always good. Of course money is a factor, and schools have gotten insanely expensive. I’m glad to hear that more people are finding alternative routes - it shouldn’t be that everyone needs college because quite frankly many career…

>It also grows the intellectual souls, exposing people to far more depth of thought.

This is a thing that happens to folks who attend school, but I don't think it is the school that causes this to happen. I think this effect is bound to happen to any young person who moves away from their home to live independently for the first time with a thousand other folks who are doing the same thing.

Just moving to a large city and working when you are young is enough to "grow the intellectual soul". Taking out loans and paying for lessons I don't think is a critical part of that development.

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